Mission Statement on Love & Marriage

Love is the intimate understanding, acceptance of, and commitment 
to ourselves and to another person 
We are born into the love of our family, 
and through that love we learn to love ourselves 

Transferring on to the important people  
who may cross into our lives over a lifetime –  
close friends, romantic partners, 
and subsequently our children, and our children’s children 

Being in love is love’s expression and intensification 
due to the physical and mental intimacy that results 
from two persons’ initial attraction 
and subsequent growth together 

Marriage is a partnership between two people, 
built upon a foundation of deeper love, 
where the partners define themselves through the marriage 
as well as individually, 
structuring their lives according to a shared vision 

The partnership creates a family, with or without children 
Its success is dependent upon both partners 
understanding, accepting, and successfully negotiating its cyclical nature,
 never letting it veer into the path 
of becoming linear

MM 9/13, revised 10/15

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

The new season

I’ve got a name and a place,

maybe shame within grace

It’s flowing out of outstretched arms

It’s welling up in a twitch

A gasp that speaks in stoicism,

of tension drenched in cynicism,

bubble-wrapped layers of protection

Cargo dripping with death of supplantation,

out of its element

When things go awry

it’s there waiting outside the door

in conference with its quashed thoughts

Under the table it lies,

ghosts of the dead moments

expressed in an activity report,

quietly brewing up a new plan

to move this spike from the table to the grave

            The new code

MM 6/2013

Effective presentation

Projecting failures out into the future
Stacks of cards lined up across the table
in rows you just can't make them straight
Rationalizations in the key of existence
and heads in the damp dark clouds
The scanner shows it sinking
but logistics surely lead the way
from the show into the storm

On legs all wobbly and loose
this table holds forth the half-baked plans
The epilogue is a shame faced red
for the silence in the story
and the motions are of a steel-toed boot
kicking the shit up slowly and dutifully
churning in silence biting your lip
Waiting through the turn

MM 4/2013

The great god-like projector

The great god's projection is upon us
The great god's projector never lies
Solemn light and shade and heat
breaking upon us
I've never met a moment so clear as the moment I see in you
Alternating and turning away, breaking free 
is understanding the gravity that we are subject to

Books and tablets are carved in stone
prescribing the past the present and future
It's just a meditation that we have
He and I she and I and we wait
We watched undulations kicking across the surface
with such intensity as to say "this is that which you will become"
We watched tension boiling over and we agreed
that the surface was buckling and would have to explode
We walked as to know ourselves
with delusions trailing behind like menacing headlights

MM 9/12

God's Cave

Billows from a canyon
in shadows formulation
a god-form pervasive and dense

One gigantic clip or chapter
it can literally suck you dry
of life and of inertia

Shackling or piercing or nailed to the floor
but when eased and prodded
and carefully peeled back

Harnessed with such an extreme degree of concentration
it begins circulation
It casts light again

Gray shadows become nuances 
within them lie beginnings
upon them forever and ever

Lead the way then follow

MM 7/12

It's Time

It's time to start something
It's time to start something akin to unraveling
It's time to begin to being
It's time to knock off the rust
When time graces and when time sprawls
It's time to start mending menacing moments
It's time for breath and healing
It's time for the great unwinding
It's time for the great unwinding from the sky
Breathless in an ocean of infinity
It's time for waxing and waning
It's time for waves upon you both warm and jarring
It's time for resting upon the tops of heaps
of motioning rumbling unrest beneath you
It's time to realize that the morning creeps into your room
and shakes you with an anxious sigh
It's time to pass between a stage
and know that life and death are interchangeable words
It's time to pass the rung to the space below

MM 4/2012

Manic Distraction

Exposed tooth in an icy bath
Raw skin friction never ending
Chisel away to a hollow core
Volume open-space self loathing
MANIC DISTRACTION
Looking out the eye of a funnel
Daily planner-narcissism
Seeking out things soon to be hated
Another voyage onward and upward
MANIC DISTRACTION
Offer solutions without any problems
Waking up just feeds an addiction
Blazing paths are scorching earth
A demon's aborted exorcism
MANIC DISTRACTION


image courtesy of  http://healthyme123.com

Shapes of Motion

The days are the shapes of motion. Formations extending bursting outward. The majestic solitude of motion. Ghosts across the landscape.

Echoes and ringing and screeching halts. The drift you feel so deliberate. Deaths become marks on a timeline. Pain becomes a void sprung forth from.

The days are the shadows reflecting. More than just time or light. The motion ever-defining what it means. To scan or to plot the course.

I'm looking at my hand as a map. So coarse and worn so often used. I'm the jagged detail that is cast. The spade that plants the stake.

It Gives Lift

This time is the tiniest drop. Not swelling or throbbing. Just the crest of the wave. In and out the fields of vision. The only distractions may lie. Outside of circle or sphere. A figurative death. Billowing smoke and escalator tread.

With pinpoint precision we wait. Plotting out the movement. Or negotiating silence. Deliberately washing our hands. The lonely call to action. Random intervals and inconvenient. A figurative mass. Of the drowning and the surface.

Days In Frames

The week ended in messy tones. With pieces of past lives spread out. Like wreckage scattered across the highway. Paths were blocked. And those involved were left to stagnate. Wither off and die. Or to move on. Some are soldiering through across uneven lines. Pure pain or slow but steady drips of bliss. It's reviving. Oh how it reminds you of life. Some lost to sickness- internal or external. Collapsing or transcending. Those were shots too cold to call. As the pieces shatter into tiny little shards or fragments. Little pieces that cut your fingers as you gather them. Hardening skin barely left open. I'll call for you.

Shades of Gray Turn Black

The shades of gray turn black. Lonely and empty sounds of night. Of ships leaving their harbors. The rippled and broken waters of the past. Slowly become less disturbed as the journey fades.

Moments thought as beacons. Are divided into two distinct marks. Little souvenirs that move across a continuum. From the sentimental to mere nostalgia. From something shared into self defined.

The sounds of night amplify. So loudly through the song of loneliness. So resoundingly through the mirror of solitude. Through the strangeness of the movement. From blinding pain to sedate contemplation.

********

Image from eishazinnerworld.blogspot.com

Cold Reconciliation

I buried a heart. a heavy piece of cold stone. ravaged earth in the backyard. a hole 11 years deep. the spade is a line of time. reading with the last marks left blank. the last pages are so blank. and light just trickles through bare limbs. down onto this vacuum. the space that occupies a life. is to remain uncorrupted. so uncomfortable to play pretend. new beginnings or some other bullshit speak. supposing some things not meant to be. they just play themselves out. a burning fuse that drizzles out and dies. lights that turn themselves out at night. taxing the circuitry. a sad backward glance at the scene. casting a backward shadow on.

This Is The Best We Can Do.

You know the feeling. It's a vacancy. Or something more like fait accompli. Let's just stare down into the abyss of the future. While veering off the road. This is what you work for. This was carefully thought out. Just the next generation's set of failures. Or tolerance through clinched teeth. Why not go for it? This is the best we can do.

We hang ourselves on a set of ideals. The rope is a chain and a line of communication. The chair is mighty wobbly. And the beams in the ceiling might not hold up. The black heat of the night stifles. And when the shock wears off. What's left are spots black and blind. Marks breaking lines of time. Marks breaking strides. This is the best we can do.

Quiet Scenes

it's a quiet scene here. the only light comes through windows. into the empty room where i sit. not quite alone and not quite fulfilled. solitude is forced upon me. in one week increments. time that's no longer time. morphing into a vacuous space. where i'm carving out a new existence.

freedom and mobility. never in sync with circumstance. they come in crashing the party. and leave me feeling wanting. the decision to process is made from somewhere else. calmly washing over my body. like a narcotic numbing the pain. the solitude is a small consolation.

green leaves swaying branches. wistfully remembering the ghosts who've walked beneath. i've layed them aside. i'll dream of them tonight. at some point they all fall and disintegrate. back into the stream. the movement toward total resolution.

Dog in Cone

The structure that we find ourselves in. So ironically impenetrable. Layers upon waves upon rows. The familiar face of an alien. Invading your nightmares. Eyes and shapes and colors. That distort and distinguish. Comfort from utter pain.

I've seen the models. I've studied their directions. And structured those things in ways that would become this. Every moment the DNA for tomorrow's deconstruction. Like moving piles of sand. Impossible to mold and percentages lost.

Staring at the lines. Swelling throbbing saying something. Sharpening and falling completely off the map. Dampening expectations. Siphoning the reasoning off. Interpreting and molding them to fit that day's dawn. Draw the shades and retire.

Lonely Man Looks Up

I'm just a lonely man. Looking up at a skyscraper. And its outward reach. And it's inner workings. Reaching out of itself. Through wires and screens. Bending the sensation of touch. Into the inner workings of dreams. I'm just a lost piece. Finding the larger puzzle. Kicked and scattered and waiting. To be clinched. Solutions may vary. Like shifts in the landscape. Green with every new day. Erased and unknowing.

External Factors

It came one night. The moment that the stars aligned. When everything was right. I forgot what solitude had meant. Misunderstood what saying goodbye really is. External factors is just a list we're on. Tied together by manipulations and puppet strings. It's where the outward search begins. And where the void inside me lives. As you begin to untie them. You will sense a connection to this moment.

Away From Me

Pandering and impenetrable. Life outside the fortress is cold and distant. The sun that we all revolve around. Inescapable magnetism feels so dry right now.

The one who gives up should be. The one who decides should be. The one who sits idle and away. The ones who drifts idle and away.

Taking token gestures are hollow. There's nothing inside the box. Not a thing to put in here. Just washed out pieces of paper with illegible words disintegrating.

Your Key Holds The SHit!

please take me out of this. hey you hold onto your dreams. like currency that must be spent before it goes to shit. we'll take any offer that our lender will accept. total destruction is so much more interesting. than wringing hands over the desecration. rationalize it now and then and bury yourself. it all comes home to roost one day. with seething anger at the circle. sorry but it works that way for everyone.