Get all 7 Matthew H. Welch releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Post War Portraits And Sketches (COVID Park Demos 2020), The Vernacular Of The Muse (Demos Winter 2019), The Price Of Oil b/w Torch Song, Prism / M.A.S.C. (Demos Summer 2018), The Unreliable Narrator, Empirical Guestroom: SIGINT Demos 2017/18, and Panting (Solo Demos 2018).
1. |
Stevie Nicks
05:11
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Stevie Nicks
The Disco Kid
Comes dancing in
A treatise on style
Who's that on your t shirt man?
is that who i think it is?
The Disco Kid
Comes dancing in
Like it's 1976
Past all those goose-stepping
Live in style or don't live
i lost my
In the checkout line at the Bank
Of America
Please forgive me, Mr. Advertisement
Just found out I was the product
But I still get my kicks
Yeah and I'm still fluorescent
The decoherent lets itself in
Detournment / Recuperation splits
Who's that on your t shirt mama?
Is that Stevie Nicks?
She is Krylon Gold
The way the room implodes
There's blue lights flashing
In the elevator shaft
The city's changing
Molten steel and wavy glass
In liquid globules
No superstructure
E v e r y t h i n g s o s l i p p e r y
I broke down in the stairwell tripping
Uncontrollable telepathy
I don't want to dance anymore
If you don't want to dance with me
The punk rock whiz with the FM synth
Like David Bowie in The Man Who Fell To Earth
Or John Lydon in a MAGA T shirt
I haplessly take on
The Mad Scientist
His evil laugh
He takes photographs
To alter how its changing
Her face the size of a municipal block
Looks down on me bawling on the rooftop
Remembering things that haven't happened yet
Precisely or not
The Grey Wolf says,
"Kid, come with me"
Pushes him into the backseat
Flying by night through the city
He turns around and says
"That's my voice in your head
The city is living and Kid
You're not dead yet"
The Disco Kid
Post-trauma tics
Who's that on your t shirt Kid?
Is that Stevie Nicks?
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2. |
Joseph Boxes
04:28
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Joseph Boxes
If I could make you happy
I would be Joseph Boxes
I would follow rainbows
I would come up roses
The smell of failure
Is quite peculiar
But one to which one
Can grow accustomed
It's least attractive
For men of my age
Imagination
Left unattended
In telescoping logic
it all makes perfect sense
Joseph Boxes
Billy's friend
I think my iPhone's haunted
I am not Joseph Boxes
These storied tableaux and vignettes
Are partisan and incorrect
This propaganda from the left
The violence of the middle class
The scent of failure
Is quite remarkable
But one with which one
Will grow familiar
I know God made you
because he had to
I have often felt compelled myself
To become someone for you
To show you I adore you
Above all others and no one else
If i could make you happy
i would be Joseph Boxes
If independence comes
You'd better stay out of the streets
This guy from East St. Louis
Says he can sell it for me
i never even knew I made it until it was gone
Like a lousy payday
And you still play the numbers
Faces you remember
Ain't so good with names
Thought i was Joseph Boxes
From the picture in the Post Office
That's my kids future stepfather you're talking about
Intellectually beyond possessiveness
And its attendant rage
Love children too much to complain
Not enough hours in the day
To be both Joseph Boxes
And whatever this is
if I could tell a story
I'd probably paint a picture
It deletes my poems
The cinema's pure fiction
I watch them get seduced and smile and poke fun at the advertisements
Featuring Joseph Boxes
Against a broken father
Against a backlit backdrop
A thousand times I begged her No
Don't marry Joseph Boxes
Don't take my kids to England
Don't go live in a castle
I'll chase some rainbows for you
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3. |
Beggar Kid
05:26
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Beggar Kid
Like a beggar kid
With the power to evoke sympathy in
hardened hearts
And closed system minds
Your lovers texts
Total transaction time
A pickpocket move
Bumping up against you
Then onwards unaware but still perturbed
Through the marketplace
With no watch nor wallet
My phone
Made by a beggar kid
In a green crystal factory
Sold to me by a woman
With pretty dreadlocks and a hashtag metoo t shirt on
I saw her again once on the train but she
didn't remember my name
Hers was Ayesha
And I wondered if she saw any of my poems or photographs
The secret world I populate with working theories
Calculated waiting for service elevator
Perhaps the undue influence of
Any or all of the above
Floors designated hotel or construction
There's no 3s or 4s in modern casinos
Mall security dragged her kids away
She ran into Best Buy with the truck in idle
They rode it down the hill into a brand new Volvo
You're a cute kid and your mom's a stripper
Your dad's dad's ghost raises you up with stage effects
Like a beggar kid
With a runny nose
My cup runneth over
Spare some change for my habit you bitch whore nun
Which is to say incoherent deleted
I feel sorry for you
And people feel sorry for me so
Don't feel so sorry for yourself
It'll get better
Don't worry kid
It'll get better
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4. |
Flowers
04:00
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Flowers
Self portrait vii
Life as organic matter
Chained to a brain like a tow motor
Clacking down the concrete with Christian Marclay's guitars
Torturous metaphors mixed wildly were her stock in trade
All that matters is how much money you make
Do your flowers bloom?
Does she see through you?
Do you get to do what you want to do?
Is your money working for you?
Or for the Black Hand
Rampaging the island banks?
Does the tree bear fruit?
Is there anything left to lose?
Do you see me like I see you?
Does the macroeconomy agree with your models?
Did you shoot the moon between your toes and faint like you'd died and gone to heaven?
Between the railroad tracks and the river
You were climbing down a culvert
I could barely believe it
You were moving so swiftly
So I ran into the clearing
Slid down gravel to the bank
Tried to make you out in the distance
Wondered if we'd ever meet again
Running in the dust behind the vehicle
Into a disappointing sunset
An oncoming train
A ridiculous rain
Eternally grateful
For photographs of flowers and birds
Freedom from music and words
My filthy imagination
Drenched in pre-dawn dark
The path of least resistance
Is treacherous to walk
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5. |
DNA
04:34
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DNA
When I see my cardinal coming
My heart starts to thrumming
I get a charge from physical proximity to animals
I tried to hide in plain sight
Then I entered the forest
In the dream the lush green overtook civilization
I projected a jungle from my fingertips
Traced triangles with my laser eye
Knew that help wasn't coming
Proceeded with caution
The heart of a building can be accessed through the steam pipes
Forgive me, Monsignor
Let me take out my Bluetooth
In the sanctum of marriage
I nearly lost you
Reaching hands through the window
Of a slowly moving car
You got what you wanted
Then I had to return to the past
And still face the music
When the cardinal stopped coming
My whole brain went to thrumming
I put my mask back on and hid among the crows
It's like they look you in the eye sometimes
It's like they look you in the eye
It's like they look you in the eye sometimes
Like you can almost see through their eyes
A new world to populate
It's in the DNA
Never that far away
Encroaching on one another's territory
Unaware of the mutual need to survive
To get to the other side
Of this random universe
With some semblance of sense remaining
Some fire to carry home
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6. |
Cassandra
02:37
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Cassandra
Cassandra
Your visions haunt me still
Cassandra
Your medicine's a poison pill
Cassandra
Constellations of voices
Cassandra
Her skull's an arcade of noises
Whatever became of her?
Of us?
She used to let me whisper in her ear
To see my life through her eyes one more time
Or that she might
Hear me cry out in the night
Cassandra
Can you see it coming?
Cassandra
The future so full of promise
Cassandra
Let's leave the lies and betrayals
Cassandra
Behind us
Cassandra
Was it worth it?
Cassandra
No don't tell me
Cassandra
Can you see it coming?
Cassandra
Your visions haunt me still
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7. |
The Chandelier
05:41
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The Chandelier
I stand beneath a vision of my childhood
Under a crystalline monstrosity in the atrium of the museum
Join the party
Drink to the photographed and the photographer
More often than not one in the same
I whimper like a dog when you step on my tail
I go on and on and on and on
I am a chandelier
My face a mirror
I am the sound of a million tiny pieces breaking into a million tiny pieces
I go on and on
A museum of dead ideas
That define the terms of our existence
What could proscribe a force of such persistence?
I've survived things you wouldn't believe
I don't need to anymore
i don't even breathe
I assume it's the same for everyone but suspect I've been disinformed
Naturally
it goes on and on and on
We've run the worst case scenarios
Walking zombie through the echelons of obscene and absurd wealth throughout history
The cronies and the oligarchs pulling the strings of puppets and people alike
Be they priests or politicians
They go on and on and on and on and on
I want out of this circus
I'm a real boy
Raised among wolves to be an astronaut
I want to swing from your chandelier
Bring the whole thing crash crash crashing down
6 inches off the floor
It will hang upside down and UFO
I will hang upside down and UFO
You can tire swing on me
I'm The Chandelier
i go on and on and on
Like the oceans of Europa
Pulling me down through razor blade stalactites of ice
Reflections of light from Jupiter
Peal of bells
You've never seen a sky so full of stars
I trust something will survive because it almost always does
It goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on
I stand before a visage of my old age
I am life size 16th century Dutch black lacquer
In a secret wing of the museum
In a pearl shaped diamond blue
Your gaslight chandelier singing
It goes on and on and on and on and on
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Matthew H. Welch Baltimore, Maryland
Songmaker, Singer, Guitar Player, Producer for SIGINT. Formerly of the Aviary and Pedge. Poetic Rock and Roll From A Future.
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