Rooftop Poetry Club - Matt Thompson

Matt Thompson

Bio:
Matthew Baker Thompson was born in September of 1983 to a banker who eventually became a farmer and a mother who became a court security officer. He began writing poetry at the age of twelve, when health problems ruled out a possible career as a Buffalo Bill. He attended Houghton College from 2001-2003, and withdrew due to a seizure disorder that befuddled a significant percentage of specialists in the northeast.
He currently attends Buffalo State College, where he studies the English language.
He does not really like writing witty autobiographies? especially in the third person.
/ I suppose you're reading this because you want to know why I write, right?
I write, my friend, because I find the world to be a funny place.

http://www.matthewbakerthompson.com

Poems

+spores
----------------
i hate the great depression.
my grandparents, they grew up
through it
and thus never threw away
a god damn thing but knew a way, somehow,
to conserve things, to do away with
expirations and this
passion for
preservation was
passed down through the gene
pool to my
parents, who also became a
people dedicated to the
protection of goods and perhaps
you'll be kind enough to remember
by which generation i was raised as you
peer into my fridge.
(03/06)

++how's my driving?
--------------------------
truck stops dot
highways with cracks in their spines
and high above, road signs hang like mistletoe.
polyphonic like moving in for the kill
( when the music gets slow, )
for a first time teenage drive-in kiss .
oh dare i compare our love to a sixteen wheeler?
you'd probably say we were much thinner
but i contest we burned
an equal amount of energy
on spinning.
but it is (it is.)
debatable whether
or not we ever gotanywhur.
but one thing,
darling
which you cannot deny-
those boots,
you don(ned)
could (can)
most definitely be compared
to mud. flaps.
(04/06)

+++
come on, applaud the catch, you fiends.
-----------------------------------------
these dark clouds
shed light on
the shadows of my former self
and on a dusty street
the heat
rose
in angry waves to greet
our naked ankles
and along white fences
grew rampant. . . red tulips.
i was your golden boy and the sun reflected
so well on my bright hair
i could do no wrong
and with grass stained knees i spent my days
filling your hearts with pride
all it took was a glove and ball to kick-start the acclaim.
over barbequed chicken dinners the relatives would listen attentively
to my exploits while licking their fingers and adding occasional grunts of approval
but you grew tired of that dance i did so well.
the time came to move on.
now the tools of the trade are ink & paper
and i cater not to men equipped with padded knees and iron masks,
but with receding!!! hair;;; lines?
and absolutely dreadful sport coats that
god himself neither had a hand in,
nor,
i am quite sure, ever intended to exist.
i'm lost in the plaid
The Lanthorn (2002)