Open up your ruined house. Fear not for God. The poem is my pocket. The fiber fragment, folded tight: tucked into a secret, always moving. Behind the seam, this inner lining, I smuggle hope beyond debris. My fingers pinch the promise firm. I press tomorrow: shelter in your palm. We read aloud, breathe into rubble. We read aloud, Our ruin now a temple.
Published as lyrics for GODHEADSCOPE’s Patience EP, 2011. Spurred by Czesław Miłosz’s essay “Ruins and Poetry.”
From the far room, a figure with many faces stumbles into the hall— forgets, for a moment, the place of doors. Walls, many colored, bead with sweat. Hands fumble for edges in the kaleidoscope: doorframes in shifting light. This one does not want to be found. Thick air: footfalls in puddles recall when breath was all— before the ceiling rose, upwelling, from the floor— before the earth broke into rooms; doors.*** The dog, curled with her ball, waits for variation in the man curled by the door. Whiskers wick moisture from air. She breathes in rhythm, water dripping; voices in the vent. Eyes intent. A shift in the light. Front paws become palms. She stands; glides across the room; grasps his shoulders. Shakes him. Speaks: “Why are you bent to the shape of the doorway, pressed to the threshold, praying, when you and I could be playing?” The dog, curled with her ball, waits for variation in the man curled by the door. Whiskers wick moisture from air.*** She has not touched a moment in days. Gaunt. Paper skin. She sits at the table. Images assess bones, angles. Melting ice seeps from the refrigerator, spreads across the floor. Touches her toe, tickles a memory— another room. She brought language. He brought colores, spoke in broken Spanish. She painted flores. Thin muscles tighten with resolve. She stands, shuffles across the floor— water soaks her soles— opens the door— more supple skin bends with her steps— clasps a hand.*** The air— humid with child. Two melodies intertwine— improvise a whisper: arms that will need to learn to hold, hands that will need to learn to let go. A breath cools their bodies.*** Drip. Drip. Drops fall past blue drapes; open window, yellow petals, green stems. Strike the soil. Split. Smaller droplets cling to the surface, then seep toward roots. He reaches, pinches a stem. Breaks the flow. Places the flower behind his daughter’s beaming ear. “Beautiful,” he says. She smiles.
Published as lyrics for GODHEADSCOPE’s Threshold LP, 2009.
He takes a crayon from the jar and draws violence. He presses the green crayon to the edge of the paper: a waxy horizon extends across. Green goes down; brown comes up. The walls of the house are erected: two square windows divided into quarters and a rectangle-and-circle door. The chimney and angled roof reach upward toward rising, spiraling smoke. Brown goes down; blue comes up. Mommy is drawn with a lightness of hand that can only be called affection. Her hair cascades around teary eyes and frightened mouth. Her blue dress emerges in angles. Blues goes down; purple comes up. A small circle is pressed into the paper behind Mommy's back. The same look of fright leaves desperate indentations in the sheets below. A mirror in purple, his body is rooted in place through shaky lines. Purple goes down; red comes up, is pressed hard into the paper. The monster's face swallows the page, hair exploding toward the upper edge; angry eyebrows over pinpoint eyes that nearly fall into the fire mouth. Teeth menace forward as the crayon's pressure rips the page, tears a small hole at the back of Daddy's throat. Red goes down. Yellow comes up, offering a circle with rays extending: a huge yellow sun in the warm corner, standing witness. Yellow goes down.
Published as lyrics for Matt Rosin and the Dead Raven Choir’s Fire Mouth collaborative LP.
The dim light
hangs.
I punctuate
silence.
The dark corner
calls.
I choose
a careful path.
The floor is populated:
metal faces cry,
grimace, countenance
the violence of my gait,
clanking
protests;
warnings;
death-cries.
I enter
the heart.
The ceiling is low
at my head.
Brutal steps
ring sharp
in my ears.
Detachment dies in
protests;
warnings;
death-cries.
I choose
a path of return,
for which I am.
I remember
the dead
only through force,
clanks and cries.
What is my alibi?
What is my alibi?
Published as lyrics for Cindervoice’s Before the Turn LP, 2010. Spurred by Menashe Kadishman’s “Shalekhet (Fallen Leaves)” installation at the Jüdisches Museum Berlin (Jewish Museum, Berlin); video here.
In the interest of living a less-divided creative life, I’ll now provide updates and information related to my musical work — including the GODHEADSCOPE and Cindervoice projects — via matthewsrosin.com and associated social media.
My writing and musical lives have never been alien from each other in practice, as the “Poetry/Lyrics” feature on this blog attests. Now, all of my creative output will be represented in one place.
To celebrate, here’s “Dusk On Glass,” from GODHEADSCOPE’s 2007 album, A City Out of Sight.