Poetry by Matthew Freeman

               R. Miller CC




​A Plain Matter of Fact

When I was going through the
change down in Columbia, Missouri
I’d claimed
I was allergic to Haldol

so these assholes at Mid-Mo
put me on Navane
which was even worse

and you had to stand at the sink
with the water running
in order
to trick yourself into pissing

and Level Three
meant you kissed three nurses
and I found out I was a vampire
and they’d taped comics to the wall
to teach me structure

as I fell into the function of the unreal
and became immersed in communion
and my shrink was like this
is really important Matt have you taken
any drugs and I was like I got high two weeks ago
with my Latin TA and he sang to me Jesus’ own
declension.





The Namer

Damn, I can’t feel shit.
And this was supposed to be
a relic of high consciousness.
But I was never allowed to say anything.
I walked down Ninth Street
totally sweating it
and wired so tight I kept
thinking You’re so stupid
until I met Michele
and she taught me the phrase
“I’m so stressed out.”

Today there was a symbolic difference
between Stravinsky
coming out to have a cigarette
and the homeless kid
coming up to the fence to bum one
while I was sitting against the wall
listening to Sarah McLachlan.
There was a word that was wanting
but I couldn’t figure out what it was.
I was groping, looking,
waiting for a simultaneous 
eruption.





Start From Nothing Means Anything and Proceed


So, we’ve witnessed the death
of the signified. And every day
the necromedia comes out
with a new batch of noise.
My grand narrative was going to be
I was a good kid and got
schizophrenia and ended up in the poor house
and blossomed. But to see correctly
you’ve got to get completely free of nonsense.

My cousin thinks I ought to move to Portland.
Well, maybe I’m in Portland right now.
When I was sleeping everything changed.
I’m famous at last! Five or ten
people know who I am. When I rise
the first thing I’m going to do
is go to the emergency room
and demand a spinal tap.

I’m smoking a cigarette in the drizzling rain 
and wondering about Diana
and the rain is messed up and the wind is messed up
and the trees and the bees are messed up
and I remember waiting for the sun to rise
outside Diana’s friend’s mansion when we were young
with nothing to do but exist
and smell like sex.





The Quid Pro Quo

I’m right here
in the central location of power
and everything is emanating from me.
The cops who come to coffee
are so deferential
I wonder if they’ve got my file.
And then after Ladylove 
takes me out to the ophthalmologist 
it’s clear that everyone there
assumes I already know everything
about my eyes.

It’s been quite a while
since anyone suggested I get a real job.
So you understand: I have prevailed.
And yet there’s still something
inside me that distorts things.
I was attracted to the cynical arguments
about influence and what seemed like a secret
notion of how things run but it didn’t
take long before I recalled
my ancestors were the ones who ran amok.

My thinking now is that maybe
if I get emasculated enough
I’ll win some kind of award.



​
Matthew Freeman's most recent books are Ideas of Reference at Jesuit Hall (Coffeetown Press) and Exile (2River). He holds an MFA from the University of Missouri-St Louis.