OPEN INVITATION (NEED ALL READERS HELP)

...i'm getting ready to send out some poems for publication this fall and need all the help that i can get. if you tend to read my blog once and a while and have some spare time on your hands, i'd love to hear which poems are your favorites. i'm looking for around 10 total but am having one hell of a hard time deciding which one's are the best. sometimes you're too close to your writing to actually be able to choose your favorites, or choose them wisely rather. if any of you out there in blog land want to go through my archives and pick your 10 favorite poems in ranking order (1 being your favorite and 10 being your least favorite) it would not only mean a whole lot to me, but it would also be doing me a huge favor. and who knows, maybe with all your help i'll be able to get a few more publications under my belt. just type them up and send them as a comment to this post. if you'd like to tell me who you are that's cool, if you'd rather not mention your name, that's okay too. it'd still be a huge help either way. look at it as a way to give back to the person whose given you countless minutes of mediocre reading material while you're at work/at home/prolonging your homework/getting home drunk from the bar (you know who you are)/ or just stalking me in the only way you know how. thanks again....

-m-a-t-t-h-e-w-j-o-r-d-a-n-m-a-r-r-o-

CARVE MYSELF A DREAM

some nights i lie awake
and convince myself i'm fine.

that the breeze through
the metal screen is really comfort
calling me for sleep.

though knowing one thing
and pretending another
becomes a cut so fine and deep
it goes unnoticed
until infection.

maybe it's pride
that screams intelligence
is the only help we need.
maybe fooling the mind
enough times can actually
change its make up...to
renegotiate the truth.

but something is telling me
that i'm so very wrong.

that time has never really healed a wound,
just lent itself to getting used to.

the fact is, we're all of us
bleeding from somewhere ripe
desperately trying not to look down.

in the tiny corner of my room
the curtains swell
like giant lungs
then exhale across the bureau,

the book left open
next to the bed stand
has started reading
with a pair unseen hands,

the slightest breeze
which can turn a page stops,
then looks
for a place to keep going.

the night draws out;
a serrated edge on a blade

and i can't remember the last time
i'd met myself
and had something interesting to say.

in the soft quiet of my sheets,
i do the very first thing
that comes to mind, turning
my head ever so slightly,
closing my eyes,

to carve myself a dream.

THE FRAMING

maybe it's because we learn
each way save forward?

sideways in our convictions,
experiencing life
with what's peripheral.

it's not that hindsight
has great vision, but rather
that the past stands still
until bumped into again.

there's a winding path
through gentle woods
and wisdom is a river there
if fall asleep next to.

dreaming of stones
shaped by time, i hold
ever close to me.

my heart is so very similar
it astounds me.

made of all
that's passed over it,
blood.
water.
flesh.
love.

the ideas of something
better hinting at, and then
leaving nothing behind
but shape.

carving out the negative space,
around the man

i'm soon to be.