My God

It's been too long since I've added anything to this.  Too long since I really wrote anything I've liked.  I've fallen into a pattern of efficient life/time-wasting in Michigan.  I can't wait until I get home.  This place is robbing me of the thinly layered, already shaky sociability foundation I had created back home.  I am becoming more and more like the people I hate here, and it is mainly due to my utter lack of interest, my pure resentment to any social interaction here.  I can't bring myself to engage with any of the people I have met here because they lack something entirely essential that I need in people I can respect, and wish to associate with.  They lack self-awareness, humility, intelligence.  When I can't care enough to provide what I really need to make myself as effective a social entity as I can be - desire - then I come off as an idiot. 

That drives me crazy.

I want to put two poems on here, one from Dylan Thomas and one from Charles Bukowski (real stretch of creative influence and a strong representation of my interest in expanding my library of poets, I know) that have been in my mind the past couple months.  I will do that soon.  Maybe tomorrow.

For now, I must go to bed.

I'm glad to finally be back here though.

A Poem of My New Home

A few months ago, I moved to Ypsilanti, Michigan.  I wrote a poem about it: 


Ypsi

by Matt Catania

I apologize in advance.

This was going to be your great declaration.

This was going to be your fearless chant; your bravado.

You promised many things.  Many things to many people.

You promised me I would come here for a new beginning.  You said I could start

my life here.  Things would be different finally. 

Things have been different.

I can see you for what you really are.  You are

the new Americana.

I cannot drive down your roads without my gray car shaking its shocks to their end.

I embrace your autumn, with all the falling leaves kept outside by boarded windows.

Windows boarded for the urban hurricane.  The people who used to live there

walk across the street without looking at traffic.  They could be invincible. 

They think they’re invisible.  They want to see what it feels like

or they just don’t care.

They cross the street to go to an open interview.  They stand in a bread line

to get the paper they need

to get anything other than bread.  Our new Americana.

I saw you in my dreams - I saw a town where people were starting a small revolution.  I was in the middle of it.  I was a voice; a leading voice.

Now I have lived here, I know there won’t be a revolution.  It would take too much time.

I have felt your desire to stay the course.  As long as I am here I know I will not see your roads change, your windows become glass, or your cold homeless visible.

You have promised all that can be taken will be taken without hesitation if we hesitate.  You

will do the taking.  I wished I would be able to call you home, but home does not take.

You could have been so creative if you kept your mind open.  If only you could share

you could have given us everything we never knew we needed.  If only you could have given us hope.

You gave us no room to create.  You’ve left us to buy things.  We don’t know what we need.

We don’t understand the things we buy.  We don’t make anything anymore - we only want

what we want; we want it now.

We get what we want.  We got

you, Ypsi.