Cautiously Drifting ...

Cautiously Difting, endlessly observing.

We are the watchers who guard the night, we are the mediators who hold the light.
Carrying candlesticks of crimson guilt, melting, burning, fizzling out.
The streets are paved with lecherous promises; ones which end abruptly and chaotic.
These arbitrary spots are precious reminders of a past once clean.
Innocence lost, frivolity obtained.
Ghouls of an amber tinted glow; stalking a prey, feeding off knowledge.
The learned suffer, but Karma delivers retribution.
Like the cogs of a clock and the bees of a hive; the world we in habit keeps proceeding undeterred.
Entropy's curse; space, time and shock. The material decay, conclusion to a moral clock.
Impulsive vices are inconsequential, superficial to the fastidious consumers of the unhindered conformity.
Lambs to the slaughter, cannon-fodder in a domestic space.
We are the human race. Fallible and idiotic. Watch how we trip over our own feet.      

University

In my overtired, yet underspent state, I decided to stop revising for my final exam and write a little entry in my journal, and soon after a poem emerged. I really enjoy Modernist literature, especially Modernist poetry. Being a person who has never accepted the constraints of a system of subject criteria or rules to govern a poem's structure; like that of the Shakespearean sonnet. I find the free range and lack of structure more appealing to my style of writing; especially concerning the use of allusions to great classics. Albeit my poetry seldom does not have a degree of high culture about it; considering my references are based on pop-culture, and the style itself is more indicative of Allen Ginsberg's 'Howl' it represents something more of a post-modern free verse poem. I don't tend to rhyme either, and if I do it is often to disrupt the pattern or half-rhyme to simply produce some fluidity in subjectivity. In this sense, I owe a lot of my poetic inspiration to T.S Eliot's 'The Wasteland'.

26/05/2014

University

Relationships.
They crash, they burn, they melt and glow.
One will improve, one will proceed, one will be meager, one will succeed.
Another will yield, another will subsist, another will dispute, another will resist.

Second-hand visions, with nausea in tow. Eyes wide and vapid, and cheeks with vermilion glow.
Grease stained hands, fingertips cheesed. Is that the food or is that the mead?
Hardly a sight that isn't recorded, snapped, tagged, bombed or blogged.
Information all accessible from a night cloudy and fogged.
Then there's the work; books, journals and texts.
Off goes my phone; where are we off to next?
A new bar, saloon or club. Costumes, camaraderie, lethargy and grub.
Return to our digs, burnt toast, a fire begins.
Ushered outside; glassed paved-pavement and blood stained chins.
Fights ensue, no clothes and hot heads.
Red heads, Blonde heads, Brown heads, Black heads, White heads, oh wait ... I am no longer a teenager.
Let us shed those acne based puns and rejoice in our beds.
Frivolous sex; one, two, three or four. Just remember protection and always lock the door.
Use a hat, use a tie, use a belt or a stick. We all have costumes, masks and a side that's sick.
Friends are balanced, your time managed well.
Lecturers would be proud, but not of your last drunken spell.
So proceed on with caution; get an A, get a first.
Quench your appetite and quench your thirst.
A thirst for knowledge, a thirst for the next step, a thirst for life, experience and rep.
An online presence, a face for the next life. An online profile, a profile that's rife.
With expression, thoughts and whimsical quotes.
You think you're a Descartes; delusional worth it denotes.
But soon you will graduate, no more laughs, fun and games.
Maturity, job hunting, and ridiculous work names.
Like 'Big John' or 'Tuna' or 'Anna Faris Twin.'
Or 'Stoner,' 'Drunked,' or 'Lazy-arsed Kid.'
You'll reflect on those days, so close and just gone.
You'll wish you did better, a first grade or none.
So I'll tell you, from a man who's been there, done that, drank like a mule, drank like a twat.
Indulged till he blew out his mouth, nose and arse.
Performed song, dance, and ritual; which people thought were farce.
Just stick by these rules, and treat them like Gold.
Not the Golden Rule, or shower, that's just old.
Instead: parents will say, 'spend it wisely, and don't go crazy.'
You'll misconstrue, and your memories will go hazy.
From another night of Red Bull, pro-plus and library days.
Your head will spin, effervesce and eventually blaze.
But you get independence, maturity and a personal sense of integrity.
After all, what can one expect, from going to university.

Matthew Smart
26/05/2014