Monday, May 18, 2015
Hidden Partner, the end
Inspired by the topical and earnest lyrics of crossover thrash, metal and hardcore punk music, I began to write song lyrics at about the age of 14. Armed with my lyrics, and hampered by a lack of support to play an instrument, I assumed the role of singer in the bands I would join and form in my high school years and beyond.
When I was 18 and 19, or in 1992 and 1993, increasing complexity of my life circumstances, along with experimentation with new music, inspired me to write within myself to create more personal and original words. I also began to try to incorporate basic elements of poetry into my lyrics. As the years progressed I found my rhythm and the writing became less of an exercise and more of an experience. Things just happened and I would often take stock of what it was and what it meant later on.
I took a hiatus in late 1995, but came back in 1997 when the opportunity arose to play music again. Using the same inspiration, I wrote with a little more clarity and insight, often more methodically and straight forward, but sometimes still riding that divine inspiration that would spontaneously occur. This period ended in 2002, and I entered into a dormancy period where I thought I was finished writing.
In 2007, in the throes of adult responsibility, I was inspired to play music again and joined some old friends in a seriously heavy noisy band. The lyrics took a darker and deliberate tone that expressed a loss of idealism about the world at large. Shortly thereafter, I started this blog as an outlet for a creative period of deeply personal poetry that ended in 2013. I'm not sure if I'll write creatively again, so I wanted to punctuate this blog by cataloging what I consider to be my best stuff, or at least that which doesn't make me cringe to re-read.
In order to do that I went back and added a lot of old stuff. I've tagged everything for easy reference. There's a tag for year written. There's a tag for the band the lyrics appeared with. The later stuff that was never used in music is tagged "No Music." There's also a tag for any album the lyric might have appeared on. Also, almost all of the lyrics I've added to this blog over the last month or so were re-written from memory.
Finally, I'd like to acknowledge and thank the musicians I worked with over the years that helped inspire me to be as creative as I could possibly be. A short note about each of the bands I was in- Venosity was a great start for me but there's nothing I could use here. There are a few Bloodspoon lyrics, that's where I started to catch my stride. Car vs Driver, pretty much everything I wrote is included (any omissions were probably Jon's or Steve's lyrics). All of Chocolate Kiss lyrics are here, and most of Sonn Av Krusher.
So anyway, thanks for reading.
Matt
Angel Dust 500
Spirit behind the wheel
Left turn designed to kill
Walk out the glass
Stumbled last good goodbye
Fumble for the keys
Headlights race toward
division of the sphere
Dead on target
Spirit behind the wheel
Left turn designed to kill
Intoxication orgy,
and death is on your breath
Walk out the glass
Stumbled last outside
Mirror of the fumes
Headlights race toward
division of the space
Dead on target
Headlights pierce the darkness
Lines on the road cut through you
One moment bleeds the next
Watch the path out of body
Driven this way before,
but the road ends now
All your roads end now
MM 2008
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
The Widower
The widower rides from Hell
Backs of unholy maelstrom
Lain shrapnel death machine
Kill glory from innocents
Manic stares down a barrel
Eyes pierced on fire tread
Inferno shaping blades
Wears remnants of the dead
This mortal trophy blackened by sun
Speed through shifting skin
Holding unholy message
Rid the devil his due
Cash bounty in their blood
This mortal trophy blackened by sun
Ritual encampment
Fuel-fed carnal detachment
Mirror of depravity
Full speed acceleration
MM 2007
Sunday, May 10, 2015
Snake Mountain Death Ride
Sweat
heat
shack
rust
the anguish of sin
the anguish of sin
expulsion
nest in smoky hills
sinister sound
nest in smoky hills
sinister sound
of jubilation
outside law of man
god protects us
outside law of man
god protects us
from serpent's tongue
Feel the pulse of
Feel the pulse of
electricity
running through
running through
the wires
of your god
of your god
and demon.
Through
Through
distorted frames
of life
of life
everlasting
strychnine acid tongue
strychnine acid tongue
proclaims, coming down
of savior
exorcism
exorcism
in hand
the brightest light
the brightest light
blast
The smoke
The smoke
from the trees
the sun
the sun
from the fucking sky
deep into
deep into
the black sky
venomous
venomous
pulsating music
blood-poisoned
blood-poisoned
true salvation
MM 2007
MM 2007
On The Backs Of Blitzkrieg
Form in lockstep march
Bayonet on shoulder blade
Crushing carcass beneath steps of
Filth soaked boots
Fight for fractured land
Rain blood running soaked ground
Forming sky of smoke
Rising from crater of Hell
Seeping on the backs of fellow man
Draining life from dying man
Risen on the backs
On the backs of blitzkrieg
Cannon smoke burnt orange
Burning rotted flesh below
Tattered stitched gray uniform
Of cold starvation army
Demon watch on horseback
Circling around the death march
Impaling the climbing bodies
Rising from crater of Hell.
Driving on the backs of dying man
Snapping spinal column
Risen on the backs
On the backs of blitzkrieg
Bullet lodged free fall
Shattered bone over brow
Thinning forward over down
Ashes in crater of hell
Last hungry breath is drawn
Gasping for diseased air
Thinning forward over down
Ashes in crater of hell
MM 2007
Saturday, May 9, 2015
No Funeral
I’m compelled to remark about timing
as much as anyone we’ve known
After twisting years of this, I’m convinced
that there’s no such thing as order or organization
My high school friends watched me tie the knot
one Saturday between school days,
and I was sixteen
Late one night at a party thrown
by the employees of a local Taco Bell,
I was sneaking around
behind my parents back
The first taste of freedom that summer - unbinding
Fucking for a blind moment too long
on a rubber that traveled in my velcro wallet,
just a few salad days too long
with a girl who needed anything I could give her,
and I needed someone too
Somehow discussions turn in circles
How could we be parents?
It wasn’t a question
Her home broken into pieces before we met
She told her aunt and her uncle, they said
the only logical choice was to abort,
“You’d never even have to tell his folks”
But how could she give up something she’d always needed?
My mother had tears in her eyes for three straight days
She’d never known what teens would do
My father was silent, he said nothing
They were good Christians and what else could they do?
They offered us one choice,
it was their help for our matrimony
And there it was,
a sixteen and seventeen year-old,
with my shaved head and her nose rings,
exchanging vows at a church on a sunny day
in the October of my junior year
I was back in school on Monday
MM 2001 (original)
Revision- 1/17
Cooperation
Marked for life with circles,
longing for circular motion - movement in time
Swinging around,
run around again,
repeating tender moments,
and the same mistakes
Still I ponder at the sunlit window,
but cannot separate the blinds
to look outside,
if the circle is complete
And there I am,
my love for you goes in circles,
it’s never stuck on points of a line
Its tide rises and falls,
but never subsides
It rides like a Sunday drive,
or through minefields in a war
It never stops turning away,
if the circle is complete
Days will turn in circles,
from the alarm that sets you off,
to the frustration, the comfort, the restraint,
to the love, the hate, the fear,
to the compensation,
to whatever puts you to sleep,
rise and fall within it
MM 2000
Two Rooms
Another room away from me
Wondering where I came from tonight
Wondering if the distance makes clear
The things I could tell you
The ways I could be to you tonight
The ways I could be right
Take the shit I took today
And bottle up and throw down
On cement watch it blow up
Into my last three days
I can amuse myself with this
You're just a bystander
Can I help myself and who am I
To complain about anything?
When you are just a room away
And in and out of sleep
I'm wondering about timing
And why it takes so goddamn long
To pull together
The things I could tell you
On cement watch it blow up
Into my last three days
I can amuse myself with this
You're just a bystander
Concrete to crack my skull
And bloody my fists
The sympathy I could win from you
It's all I wanted
Concrete to crack my skull
And bloody my fists
The sympathy I could win from you
It's all I ever wanted in the first place
MM 2001
Arkadelphia
Roll the window down
I want to see the wind mess up your hair
We'll play another silly game
Laughing deeper down into my seat
Rolling around I see you laughing
So hard tears are in your eyes
Will you wake up and get the coffee?
Walk outside to feel the morning
There's dog shit outside the door
There's a car in front of us
That's being driven by no one
Hey pull over here
There's a better view of the river
The lady there in Paso Robles
Whose kids were trapped in a tornado
Just close the door
You know that we could not care
I never had to think of so many
Nouns or verbs or adjectives
Whoever thought that it was something
That had been there long before
To the point that I kept thinking
If it would make it off the ground
I want to roll the window down
Propel this thing forward
I want to drive into the sun.
MM 2001
Television Soundtrack
Watching the pictures on TV
going out with no sound,
life illustrated so clearly-
these are my most private moments
I am sitting on a plane,
I wish I had the window seat,
this moment so turbulent- I know
it is certain death.
going out with no sound,
life illustrated so clearly-
these are my most private moments
I am sitting on a plane,
I wish I had the window seat,
this moment so turbulent- I know
it is certain death.
Next to you again,
told you i had my fortune read,
and was told again and again
that the world does not move fast enough
to hide its flaws
told you i had my fortune read,
and was told again and again
that the world does not move fast enough
to hide its flaws
Riding through the city
all day with no direction,
stuck with these people
in the middle of their conversations
The least comfortable seat
trite bullshit scraping the chalkboard-
they should fucking take me home
if they want to do me favors
why don't you do me a favor?
all day with no direction,
stuck with these people
in the middle of their conversations
The least comfortable seat
trite bullshit scraping the chalkboard-
they should fucking take me home
if they want to do me favors
why don't you do me a favor?
doors that closed behind them
Is this your intimacy,
or the shit you dragged behind you?
Did your world move fast enough
to keep your shit from dragging the ground?
The world does not move
fast enough to hide its flaws
MM 2001 (revised 5/2017)
Friday, May 8, 2015
Both Ways
Got no way to grow out of my skin anymore
Implications are too much and growing everyday
I'm walking away
From when I thought it important enough to have it both ways
And you don't know
not to hear every layer- it's not there
to discover, not unfolding for you
Got no way left to circulate my old smoke through,
filters the clean air just circulates, the circulation spells relief from trying
just to clue you in
Every mystery's not true, or not how you think it should be
It's different every time that you rummage through it
MM 2002
Hissing, Pissing & Buzzing
The circulation is speaking volumes
on what is stuck in your brain
The air is thick and splitting
with all the vague analogies
They're vague because I do know
that we've heard them all before
Everyday is vague
so that you can just get used to it
Stuck on our tongue and buried,
hanging around in the air
Released and snatched away
to consume and call your own
Retreads like an escalator
on up to the next floor
An unconscious escape,
just coining the moment.
The air is splitting in my ears
The space between everyone
The distant conversations
to play on or withdraw from
Hissing,
pissing,
and buzzing.
MM 2001
Thursday, May 7, 2015
We're All Monsters
We are all monsters here
out to destroy each other
Looking for holes in the surroundings
Breaking from the inside ---------- sickness!
You are someone else's thought
lying there all broken and bleeding
Give us a chance to catch our breath
Wait for someone to pick you up-
labels and categories
Claws tear and reassign -----
you are nothing without subtitles!
We will wait right here
We will destroy ourselves
Before we take a step around you,
we will stomp you into pieces
Why don't you know that you are being picked apart?
Bite your tongue until it bleeds
Selective response -----
you are being torn apart
What you have in hiding,
unspoken but always there
All words now are true
We want to give them back to you
MM 2001
Wednesday, May 6, 2015
You're So Involved
You're so involved with everyone's
life. You will be some
solace for someone
who feels alone, estranged
from someone else
It's just a total insight you've got
for being between a rock and another rock
Too bottom-heavy to budge, you're so comfortable
between them. You want to talk to
whoever answers
You want to hear their words again and again,
to have similar conversations with different people
It's like you can feel the pain of their days and moments
They know you can hear them now
calling out to you
You're like a pillow to their headaches
You're like a sedative
when they're restless
You spread the waves of calm and collection.
You have constant breakthroughs
in understanding and empathy
You're so involved
MM 2000
Self Preservation
The dive goes with your thoughts
racing right through your head
weaving inside and away
from thinking yourself out of sanity
A mission statement is written
Can you inhibit the movement
from one emotion to the next subject?
In conversation- you're thinking yourself out of sanity.
Keeping your ass in line
is what this is all about
Keeps the opportunity alive
for growth in your market.
Keeps the opportunity alive
to collect your thoughts
You have so much,
you have so much perspective
Powerless is so powerful,
only a misunderstanding
It reads just like a manuscript of preservation
You're thinking yourself out of a state
MM 2000
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Small Victories
It's never daylight anymore
never just passing time
never means as much as it used to,
and it's always hard to find
the moments that you could ride along to,
the best days lasted forever,
and I don't even have the pictures to prove it
And you know I'm just inside my head,
looking for something real to complain about
I guess I don't even have that,
and that's why it's not worth talking about
And you know that it's not you.
Good days are never good enough,
or else you forget them
Bad days are never bad enough to scar you anymore
The cool people who don't talk to you
are not as cool as they used to be
They're hanging on
and it's so obvious to me
And when there'e nothing left to save
when there's nothing left to prove,
you are one of them,
they are one of you
MM 2000
Great Minds Suffer
You think it's a fake-out
Through the song and fever in your eye,
you're faking happiness
Out of your monotony, undercurrents flow
Simultaneously seeing through it,
I've a bid to see right through it
It's got to be to see you
and your hidden partner
You've got a word on everything,
delivered first and last
You will nose your way
into an inner circle
Love and hate are not a part of your interaction
I'm a part of your interaction,
and I'm just dying to see
who's hanging around with you
MM 2000
Eight Years
Eight years gone by so fast
Never felt able to totally put it together
Chapter by chapter – piece by piece,
you look so complete to me
But it seems
we are tearing you apart,
lining up allegiance and reasoning
It falls apart,
but someone has to pick up the pieces,
like they always do
Even shattered glass was once a window,
we looked through it together and apart
Day after day – why be surprised?
I’ve never been able to fill in the gaps
Eight years on,
the gap is widening
Moment after moment
Hot and cold
Turned on and turned off
MM 2000
Monday, May 4, 2015
Pollyanna
A snarl with headstrong eyes
that dilate against the white light
Fury has an awakening
and water has a boiling point
This is a condition of reckoning,
this is a rule of thumb
I hold hands to test my confines,
confines you regain again
This is about space and timing,
even when I'm cooling out
I feel your tension inside me
and see its gaze fall from your eyes
that tear up when you laugh or cry,
it sometimes has the same effect
I could harness it or smother it
or make it explode
I could regain it
MM 2000
that dilate against the white light
Fury has an awakening
and water has a boiling point
This is a condition of reckoning,
this is a rule of thumb
I hold hands to test my confines,
confines you regain again
This is about space and timing,
even when I'm cooling out
I feel your tension inside me
and see its gaze fall from your eyes
that tear up when you laugh or cry,
it sometimes has the same effect
I could harness it or smother it
or make it explode
I could regain it
MM 2000
Sunday, May 3, 2015
Recoil
Laughing with a surgical grin,
wrinkles cracking the paint on my skin
If I had something to say I'd a said it
If I had a still-life instant I'd forget it
Like a graceful train wrecking,
it's a beautiful accident just waiting to happen.
I can't call for action or cuts
it's too much
I call my hands to the crutch,
I've got a motion in flux
I've got time
but I don't have no money or potency
MM 2000
Smoke Harbor
Smoke harbor – new day
Curl up and uncoil,
deflower and reload, refresh
in crawling under my skin
Under my toes the ground caves in
Rethread and replace the grace
of that moment with sleep
Replace the increments
of darkness with morning’s questions
about the time,
because the light finds its way in
But don’t ask because I wouldn’t know
Unfurl my outstretched arms
to beeps and rings, to let them in
To keep them outside
the window, cars in line
Harmony with their direction
Objects of my affection
keep their distance
Distant grumbling, they whisper
this need and that
Always clocks to be punched in
Not ever too much
It’s too much
MM 1999
Friday, May 1, 2015
Snake Eyes
What's there to think about?
What's there to know?
Wherever the stars end up,
you'll go
What's there to fret over?
You look so nervous
Wherever the days wind down,
you'll be there
hands in the air
What's to talk about?
Your heart or your mind?
Whichever one wins out,
it's fine.
Can you really argue?
Control is so boring
It's all been scripted out
to ride
hands in the air
And if you fight with fate
you'll miss the boat, my friend
You wrote the book to prolong
it's bitter end
Fell by the falling numbers,
sifted away intentions
Wherever the dice turn up,
you'll be there
hands in the air
MM 1999
Porch Lookout
It's crazy like a dingo
Restless feeling just creeping along
Up from the bottoms of my feet
Light up and take heed
Just another excuse to go outside,
the frames and foundations.
Drive yourself like a truck
over the edge into the deep
Inhale... exhale...
Breath dissipates
Fading like existence...
Feeling like bionic...
Stuck inside
Wondering into vapors...
Clouds of desperate measures...
Crossing lines
It's crazy like a desert,
only chilling dry and frigid
Up from the bottom of your lungs
and blown away
Just a second excuse to go outside,
clinching and crawling
Fading like existence...
MM 1998
(artwork by Bob Rob)
Impurities
A mystery is abound
I was never accustomed to...
I had never spoken of...
Have you ever just walked away?
I had never seen those faces
They whispered in the receiver
They sang you to sleep
They were featured in my dreams
I found a key in my pocket
The door to heaven swung
off its hinges it fell
into a hole in the ground
I threw dust in the sky
It scattered out far and wide
Its soil filtered in the water of my eyes
Take a vow of silence
if your words betray you
The better thoughts and moments sit
idle with your time
and motion sifts away impurities
(artwork by Bob Rob)
MM 1998
Halfway Around The World
You're sitting on a plane,
your eyes are on the ocean
I'm wondering what you're thinking
I'm wondering where you're going
Halfway around the world,
is that would it would have taken
for you to figure out
if you could still love me?
I couldn't go there with you.
You're sitting on a plane,
your eyes are on the landscape
Landscapes of time and space
rose up to stand between us
I could cover my eyes and ears,
but its promise was clear
I could see you running
halfway around the world
I couldn't go there with you.
I couldn't have imagined
pushing you away
It couldn't have been scripted
with such a sudden end
I couldn't stop the bleeding
just begging for forgiveness
I couldn't have imagined
losing my best friend
I couldn't go there with you.
(artwork by Bob Rob)
MM 1998
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