Conduct Me: This is a poem I wrote in the spring of 2000. My first poem, it was part for a song I wanted to write. It was about how my life was all mixed up, and I needed someone to stablize me, where before I didn't need anyone like that.
Ditched: I wrote this shortly after Conduct Me . This is a very long kinda expression of feelings more than anything. I just wrote down how it felt to be me. My life sucked, yet for some reason that made me change into a better person, and I was so happy even though I was in a lot of pain.
Time Taken Innocence: This is a poem I wrote in the winter of 2001. My first poem of my Junior school year really. These are lyrics to a song I wanted to make. It's about nievity and how you lose innocence without knowing it. When you find out you're so angry but there's nothing you can do. I didn't like the feelings I got when I realized I was not the same as I had been, and that inspired me to write T.T.I.
I'd Leave if I Could: Family.
Pilfer: This is a song I was working on for a band in the winter of 2001. This is about being happy, and over time the happiness is taken away without your knowledge. Feeding off the feelings and taking away happiness leaving only the undesirable emotions like anger.
Lovely: Not really writen in any style, call it modern poetry. This is a poem about love, something I never really have felt. I looked around all day and saw other people, in couples and it seemed so cruel to me. That everyone else knows about it and I didn't. In this poem I compared love to a dance, where it comes to invite other people to dance, but I was left alone in the corner. My idea of extream isolation at the time was that.
Sagging: This is my first real "poem" the others had been published thoughts and lyrics. This poem I wrote about having a crush on someone, then losing all I had worked at in that situation. I was so frustrated and sad but I could not tell anyone. Sagging compares heartache to a hot air balloon falling towards the ground because of extra weight. The extra weight on me was my heartache and it was dragging me down in all ways.
Mr. Two Faced: This is a poem writen like Edwin Arlington Robinson. I read his poems in English class and was inspired to write something like his works. Mr. Two Faced is about people that show you just what they want you to see because they want something. If you look in at a 3rd person perspective you can see what's going on, like me in this poem. Sooner or later a person like Mr. Two Faced will slip and fall, and I am glad when they do.
Lone Decent/Rise for Air: Two short poems, experimenting with poem shape. Lone Decent going down and Rise for Air going up.
Almost Connected: This is a poem I wrote because I wanted to get closer to someone yet could not, I regreted not being able to connect with this person because we shared a lot of feelings.
Selective Sight: A poem about being ignored, and being angry. I felt like just a rock, not a person. I felt the only time anyone would pay any attention to me was if I made a big scene and acted mean. Then they would have to stop and ask what was the matter. I did not want it to be that way, I wanted people to just talk to me.
I Blame Me: I don't remember why I wrote this exactly, I do remember I was crying while I wrote it. The poem is about me blaming myself for all my problems. I kept trying to get a person to like me, and failing so I concluded it was my fault. I also thought I could never exist with anyone else, that was the main motivation for this poem.
Melt: Sappy little "love" poem. I was feeling good that day about everything and decided to write about something I rarely experience, a feeling of someone just looking at you and feeling very warm inside.
Scan: Is about trying to regain some happiness lost. A feeling that is gone, a mutual feeling. I felt the same as I always had, and other people had changed it seemed. I was angry because I was trying to be nice and no one seemed to be nice back. I decided to stop trying, because I didn't care anymore.
Multiply By Zero: Poem I wrote in school, Algebra class. Zero is not good or bad, it's just there like me. I was rather confused why I was always feeling bad, or being by myself so I wrote this poem.
Flowing Slowly: A poem about reopening communication with someone. Compares an iced up river with conversation. I was afraid after a long time of not talking with a person that I would never talk to them again. Slowly at first the "ice was breaking" and then things returned to the way they had been before.
Work Until My Hands Bleed: A poem about pain, and how I deal with it. I work to forget the pain. Either working at a job, or working out. In this case I had just worked out until my hands were bleeding. The pain in my head was no greater than my hands so I just kept working through it, escaping reality through work.
Throw Away when Used: This poem is about being used by everyone around. People will not be nice unless they want something from me, I thought I should get rid of all those people. But I never would be able to do it.
Cycles: A poem about life. How people have good times and bad times. It seems like a cycle, where no ones really ever match up and no one is happy at the same time I am. Things go bad until someone reaches out to me, then they change to good. Life is just cycles of good and bad.
Princess: A poem written like Edwin Arlington Robinson again. Unlike Mr. Two Faced this poem is more like Robinson's style. It is about contradictions and ends badly. Princess, a name conjuring up sweet images in the mind I chose to portray a rather bad person. Deceiving until one day the bad deeds catch up to her.
Good Nite: I wrote this poem because it was different. Free verse, with 4 phrases (Good bye, sweet dreams, love you, good nite). Basically the routine as a child and now that I run through my head before I go to bed. The poem is about going to bed, and hoping for another day to explore life. The poem shows how dreams sometimes are not as beautiful as life itself.
Loss: I wrote this poem because I was angry. That if a person is just using me, and doesn't care to be my friend anyway they can leave. I will be hurt but it will hurt them as well.
Struggle to Be: This poem is about a person who does everything for himself. Even if it is a thing that hurts him he does it. He wants to change th way things are but cannot find a way. So he stays the same alone.
The drab monotony of habit: This poem is about habit. How people go on doing the same things they have done before because it is familiar. Even if the situations have changed some people do not change still. This causes pain because they don't fit anymore with the world around them. So I suggest that they break the dull habit that is hurting them in order to get better.
Day: This is a poem about the world. How things are. There is hate, violence, sex, and substance abuse everywhere. Popular culture screams for people to partake in such activities. The poem just shows what I think about these things and that things will be better in the future.
© 2001 Matt Ricker All Rights Reserved
