Matthew Cherry Studios: The Blog

It’s been a long few days updating the website code, adding new photographs and completing the blog design, but I think I finally have it finished – at least insofar as any of this is ever really “finished.”

Since I had to do a blog post to test out some of the new features, and since you probably don’t really care about search engine optimization and facebook integration, I thought I would post a photo instead.

This photo was taken six years ago of model Kaitlin McCaffrey.  The eyes haven’t changed…

What’s going on around me
Is barely making sense
I need some explanations fast
I see my present partner
In the imperfect tense
And I don’t see how we can last
I feel I need a change of cast
Maybe I’m on nobody’s side
And when he gives me reasons
To justify each move
They’re getting harder to believe
I know this can’t continue
I’ve still a lot to prove
There must be more I could achive
But I don’t have the nerve to leave
Everybody’s playing the game
But nobody’s rules are the same
Nobody’s on nobody’s side
Better learn to go it alone
Recognize you’re out on your own
Nobody’s on nobody’s side
The one I should not think of
Keeps rolling through my mind
And I don’t want to let that go
No lover’s ever faithful
No contract truly signed
There’s nothing certain left to know
And how the cracks begin to show
Never make a promise or plan
Take a little love when you can
Nobody’s on nobody’s side
Never stay too long in your bed
Never lose your heart, use your head
Nobody’s on nobody’s side
Never take a stranger’s advice
Never let a friend fool you twice
Nobody’s on nobody’s side
Everybody’s playing the game
But nobody’s rules are the same
Nobody’s on nobody’s side
Never leave a moment too soon
Never waste a hot afternoon
Nobody’s on nobody’s side
Never stay a minute too long
Don’t forget the best will go wrong
Nobody’s on nobody’side
Never be the first to believe
Never be the last to deceive
Nobody’s on nobody’s side
Never make a promise or plan
Take a little love when you can
Nobody’s on nobody’s side

- Nobody’s Side,  Chess, The Musical

“Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.”

~ Oscar Wilde

Surely the addict must have known
Before driving the needle into his vein
For the first time,
What would happen?

The high,
No matter how great,
Would not last -
Could not
Last.

His liberation from
The rusted shackles
Incarcerating his spirit
Would not come.

He must have known…

Yet here I sit,
Thumb lightly on the plunger,
Knowing full well this could lead
To the necrosis of my psyche.

I have been warned,
By a trusted Soul,
To remove the tourniquet
You so gently placed upon my arm,
Lest your insanity become my own.

But I just laugh.
What makes other men weak,
Makes me stronger,
Their poison,
Is my cure.

For I have already felt you
Coursing through my veins,
Your spirit blowing in like the off shore wind,
Dispersing the fog-like veil of polite society.

Reality gives way to epiphany,
Inspiration of every kind
Floods my mind,
And I, the illusory alchemist,
Transform love into art.

Your body lies still;
Your mind races,
As you process
The day’s conversations.

Anxiety, doubt, turmoil.
The Gypsy’s words,
Impossible to believe,
Ring true.

Shuffle and repeat.

A beautiful sadness
Blossoms from inside you.
Permeating my soul
From a distance,
It gently embraces me
Like a lover.

I whisper words you cannot hear
Yet you seem to feel them
All the same.

You lift your gaze to mine
And in an instant I watch
As you find your peace,
Floating upon the water.

It matters not if of wood, steel or glass,
Every vessel that spreads canvas to wind
While carving its way through the brine,
Communicates in the ancient, unwritten language
Of its ancestors.

Handed down from generation to generation
The sing-song tones
And the percussive accents
Comfort and warn the mariner.

Each has it’s own dialect
It’s own patterns and phrases
Which must be patiently discerned.

I have learned Paramour’s.

I know the soft dulcet creak that gently welcomes me aboard
I know the long joyous tone that is her laughter as she dances
Through the waves, straining to hold onto the wind.
I know the sharp knocks meant to warn me, and
I know when she is in pain.

Once or twice, I’ve even detected
Jealousy in her voice
“How dare you bring her aboard” she says
Bucking and knocking and creaking all at once.

But tonight,
As I stepped lightly upon her deck
I heard a sound not in her vernacular.
Soft, low, melancholy

Like a concerned spouse trying to diagnose
His suffering, infirm lover,
I searched for what could be wrong
But found nothing…

I came upon a bit of cloth
Left behind in your exhausted haste.
I held it close, hoping to catch your scent
And she spoke again in the same melancholy tone.

And then I knew
She missed you.

Into the wind and against the current, with no star to steer by
The siren’s song calling me closer and closer to the rocks
Saved by a mermaid who showed me safe harbor
And brought me back