"halfway out the door" take my flow like candy-coated pills that you line up hourly for terminal illness spitting up blood into receptacles/they’re the DNA obstacles of health and wellness hiding in the tiny orchestrated strands of too mutated amino acids recalling the days when your Midas hands would shine and turn golden glasses upside down on the midnight counter those were the days when the pain came in waves now you need a steadying hand to keep your place your face is the same but your body’s just a trace you once discovered life in a flash of sleep but in a waking moment, you learned that you lost it i thought i might have found her in gnashing teeth but the truth of the matter is i was only flossing the art of how to breathe in between beats is a lot like taking a jump off the deep end you have to trick yourself into thinking there’s a bottom when the bottom is really just a product of your dreaming i need a daily dose of the things i love i most: soft quick sleep on a dirty old mattress and everything in threes that i like to call “hat tricks” and beautiful women with notes for hands and men where one asks “is that really a man?” i always chant “the next time i sleep i’ll remember my dreams and the next time i rap i’ll keep a steady stream and the next time i’m asked to write about the past i’ll pull out memories of forests and the sea” and paint me a scene, serene and obscene i hope you use colors that have never been seen say "where'd the time go?" it's such a damn turncoat got into my mind and it's writing dirty notes say "where the time go? it's such a damn turncoat left me behind and i'm too heavy to float come back come back come back takes me back to the days when i was just a young child my style not developed but one thing on my mind focus on the rhyme, grooving on the vibe concentrated on bringing the metaphors alive like shocking electric pulses in the body of frankenstein like talking about my wishes in a channel to the divine time wasn't holding us, time wasn't molding us, in fact it was unfolding us ten times as wide, a hundred times as wise if you didn't watch the process you'd find me in disguise: the mask of a man on a child in his prime, the body a veteran on a soldier who defected the blood seeping out a human heart dissected sitting in science just to learn a lesson my pressing need for knowledge exceeds my need for power my present need for presence sits inside this hour say "where'd the time go?" it's such a damn turncoat got into my mind and it's writing dirty notes say "where the time go? it's such a damn turncoat left me behind and i'm too heavy to float have you been listening? i'm listening for the christening of a brand new existence and i don't care the distance, just put up no resistance, i'm sitting on subsistence i know i'll be reborn in the land of plenty, but in the meantime i'm wishing for so many things, like memory, prediction, and a wide span of wings that won't just melt, melt away when i fly no matter how high the sun is in my sights and i'm leaving off tonight tell the kids not to cry and tell their mama not to lie to them it's better if i'm watching them from way up in the sky and every time the sun sets they'll see me flying by a speck on the horizon at the turning of the tides tell them not to look too long for fear of going blind but tell them to pay attention to the vision in their mind tell them to keep it close if they want it to survive say "where'd the time go?" it's such a damn turncoat got into my mind and it's writing dirty notes say "where the time go? it's such a damn turncoat left me behind and i'm too heavy to float come back come back come back

"the great divide" don't touch me/i'm terrified of what i might choose to do come taste me/i'm paralyzed/i can't get my mind to find the moves he's the one they call matador, the rap cat from idaho with no formal training, and seldom any help he'll sneak into your speakers, skilled in stealth got mad at the dealer for the last hand dealt and got everybody worried about the state of his health said "i don't know what to rap about/i'll rap about myself" with no strict identity, it's probably better keeps him from having enemies he found a new thing: a microphone/turns out it records when you sing and also never alters the style that you bring he says "that's why i mainline/DI, no grapevine never try to hide the shit in back of my knee or inside my gum, underneath my teeth because that's the kind of shit that brings me relief if you hijack my rhymes i will call you a thief just ask for it next time i give it out for free" just ask for it next time/i give it out for free well a long line waiting outside, with palms up came looking for him when they found him blowing bombs up he said "it wasn't me" but they caught him red-handed backpack, bull-fighting, rhyme-dropping bandit never hate a woman for something that her man did except just this one time but also, probably, that was an anomaly home-grown beats like grits made of hominy never would listen to another rappers homilies but for that matter, records his own harmonies says "i wish had my own bedroom pharmacy it's hard for me to just keep being me when there's all these crazy chemicals turns out each one is inherently ephemeral" probably bad for you, distorts your view huff it up through aerosol the new brain parasol keeps out the rain and it looks good too keeps out the rain and it looks good too stuck on one side of the great divide and my legs are turning pacific blue seems my body's been terrorized and i can blame everybody but you said "i wanna rock you long-faced/i wanna find my place wanna be the one to save my own grace wanna kick my mattress to outer space flush out the waste meet you in the street i wanna spray you with mace wanna be a whisky chaser, speedball racer i want to just taste her but not face her later i want to be the anakin to your darth vader something you become because you couldn't outrun it what's my name? you were just thinking of it" matador, the one they can't get a handle on tried to make a beat but he had to go analog with no formal training and strictly no help still rocks the same spot gotta blood clot got plenty of time to say he's doing just swell got plenty of money but he wouldn't call it wealth

"ivory and ink" i want to be strong, i want to sing, i want to belt high, resonating notes that ring c’s, d’s, f #’s, and g’s, notes that rise like the tides, notes that break like the sea, notes that swell, burst, stop and repeat, notes thick enough to see i want to throw notes that tumble like dice and never land on their feet, notes that cut and slice, phrases that flip in the air, turn around and land upside down in another galaxy, in another city, on another street, i want to drop notes that don’t fall right on the beat, i want to drop notes that don’t fall at all, i want to write notes graded incomplete, notes passed in the aisles with whispers under seats, laced with bubblegum and perfume, young love, young loss, heartbreaking defeat i want to be strong, i want to sing, i want to belt high, resonating notes that ring i want to be strong, i want to sing, i want to belt high, resonating notes that ring through hallways and chapels, the courtyards of kings, notes that step and dance, notes that waltz and swing, notes precariously dangle on the thinnest of strings, dripping down like fuel on a wick where the first drop clings, and the last drop burns like no thing that the ear could imagine, it has to be heard, the notes are the verbs of the symphony i sing the melodies of rounds going around and around, the notes that I found on a lonely side street, a place you find me when i’m seeking out notes that are hiding under canopies of leaves i rake them up and crush them underneath my feet, i pick them up gently and i slip them in my sleeves, notes as thin as icicles and notes as thick as thieves i want to be strong, i want to sing, i want to belt high, resonating notes that ring i want to be tall, i want to fly, i want to belt high, resonating notes that never die i want to be quick, i want to sprint, i want to run from notes faster than my feet, notes faster than the beat, i want to run to notes light years ahead of me, notes immeasurably better than me, notes too loud to hear and notes too small to see, notes as thin as icicles and notes as thick as thieves.

"it was an event" you said i began this messy state of love affair and i drink too much and i smoke too fast this caffeine makes my innocence race in this indolent space, taking place of inside voices listen to the whispering am i just another blister? on the calloused hands of the malice-dance of industrial tunes, the festering wounds of yesterday's coffee going cold in the sink with the gray tile cracking over moldy armchair asteroids speeding to the brink of disaster i feel as though my body is gradually slowing but my mind is moving faster take my words and take my books and sideways looks, i'm all shook up i can't grasp dumb luck i'm stuck in the kitchen with my cup cracked and the brown syrup dripping onto my feet and the droning phone ringing, lost my keys my neighbor is down on his damn knees under the fluorescent glow on the floor moving slowly across the room searching the whole damn scene taking tally of the cockroaches just to keep them clean you said i began this messy state of love and i drink too much and i smoke too fast take a second, where did the asterisk go? there was a note with this statement, there was chalk on this pavement my instincts tell me to look back at my development but in this situation, it appears to be irrelevant if invisible figures don't choose to make themselves clear i'm stuck with a near guess second-best, to hell with it second-best to digging through asbestos in a near-suburban masquerade while perfect sons sit in basement rooms and masturbate it's close to catastrophe and sometimes golfing fathers let their middle-aged muscles atrophy and you can't have too many coctails before noon and three o'clock vodka's spilled in the living room and the postman on the porch, children singing out of tune not looking hard for clarity but maybe just a clue you said i began this messy state of love and i drink too much and i smoke too fast and this city's cleared my innocence coffee is pouring out my ears

"beat basics" slow down, i'm just a child and this is bigger than breadth of my mind slow down, i'm going wild and my language can't catch up with the times it was dark outside/the car parked in a landslide stuck between a boulder and the prospect of getting older the half-drunk chaffeur said that he could shimmy it and mata with a lock-pick thought that he could jimmy it managed to roll down the window just slightly and got enough air to say please don't fight me i worked on this beat until i felt in my feet cleansed by composing in the desert night heat just an out-of-piano and a metronome on the mantle and it got so mechanic that i felt like an animal my skin was leathery and i tried to say i love you but your face was frowning and your halo was above you plus the keys were cracked the notes were no good the words were whacked and didn't sound like they should and i would rewrite the song if i only could but i forgot the music it was lost in the flood i never thought i'd be the one that was a bad influence but your mother said i see the mounting evidence that when we get together our notes don't fit together struck a bad chord, a blatant lack of resonance i can't see the relevance--it must be my development and from the way you're telling it, the story isn't selling mata looks like the 5'10 felon beatcomposer, hand-clapping, won't stop rapping until the beat is over tried to write his lyrics about crimson and clover but he's too incapacitated mind got lacerated and it's all mental masturbatory made-up allegory songs built in stories and they're all so damn boring i'll give them to you free tired of exploring and i'm trying to find the glory here take this pen, and here hold this mic and let me give you all this shit and you can do it for me hedge my bets against the worst bet on the best like trying to spend my seventh days in states of rest always slack off my work because lest we forget the mind says "no" but the body says "yes" and i said "i'll learn to fight when i step into the ring and i'll use my voice for the first time when i sing check out of this earth not a minute too late because my mother always taught me never to break a date" i said "i'll learn to pray when i'm on my deathbed sunday and if i need to fly i'll pick it up when i'm on the runway" procrastinate my love, but profess it too soon bow my head every time you enter the room slow down, i'm just a child and this is bigger than the breadth of my mind slow down, i'm going wild my language can't catch up with the times it's too old and it's too slow so i might as well quit now but i have to remember i'm just one face in a faceless pushing crowd i said "i'll learn to write when the pen is in my hand and i'll start learning names when i stop the one night stands" pick up a guitar when i'm sick of making beats see you at the bar when i'm failed by my feet i said "i'll learn to cry when i done wiping my eyes and i'll figure out the song when i'm standing at the mic" i'll learn to say i'm sorry when i stop fucking up and i'll stop writing songs when i've lost all my love

"stay in the sound" with hearts like men we're still loving like children with hearts like men, we're still with hearts like men we're still loving like children with hearts like men, with hearts i saw a picture with your feet in the clouds, found myself wondering would you ever come down? i sketched a drawing with my head underground, where the smell of earth was thick, there was dirt in my mouth my only advice for you is stay in the sound it's moving so fast soon there'll be no way out it's horribly proud, and disgustingly clean, i like to say it's changing but that's sight unseen it comes to in us dreams we're fleeing from everything fleeting but needing more than just metabolist myths, digesting religion spitting out the silver spoons we've been given i'm livid with no reason, but living with no rhyme our time is slowly turning to stone but just as quickly fickly changing our homes the phone rings, but the joy it brings is nothing next to looping tones of keyboard abodes i'm floating on noises of parental voices: "make good choices" i won't i don't say "don't go" i believe in the soul but not the body say "don't stay" it's just a phase of feeling funny say "come near, i'm deaf in the ears, and i can't see you for all my fears" i believe in the mind but not the spirit "as loud as you speak, well, i won't hear it" with hearts like men we're still loving like children with hearts like men, we're still with hearts like men we're still loving like children with hearts like men, with hearts i'm so glad to have you next to me in the trenches the ditches are dug, but now we're building fences i meant to say that today's the day your faith can't wait because tomorrow might be late we can never count on 24 hour days to pass because hourglasses are cracking constantly monsters in my closet are positively more real than the scripts from which we read we just need to fuel the fire that nightly retires the balance is hanging on wire, my talents are lost in the details, the sale of souls is a profitable traffic: catholic, national markets that bring light to darkness the starkest brains can still go insane feeling locked away with no games to play so we invented some and not just one: we have love, learning, life and prosperity sometimes it's scary sacrificing karats for increased clarity say "don't go" i believe in the soul but not the body say "don't stay" it's just a phase of feeling funny say "come near, i'm deaf in the ears, and i can't see you for all my fears" i believe in the mind but not the spirit "as loud as you speak, well, i won't hear it" with hearts like men we're still loving like children with hearts like men, we're still with hearts like men we're still loving like children with hearts like men, with hearts i was laughing so hard i couldn't talk and you were scolding me like a mother i was breathing too fast to speak said too many words why say another?

"building the tracks" /first of all, men have to measure the land and mark the paths to follow it takes many men and a lot of materials and then come the machines/ /the same faces everyday, but you don't know their names/ it's the same people calling, but you don't hear their voices the same people falling, but you don't hear the noises the same people whispering, but you don't see their lips move it's the same people wondering, "when will it be different?" well, anytime is too soon sometimes i feel like a spent spent ashtray nothing but gray, in the sky i'm clouded colors are shrouded in shades of slate i'm always ten days too early ten ten minutes late, it's how time feels behind the wheel in altered states, i'm spaced, placed in front a face i don't recognize when i come to realize it's my bathroom mirror, i'm quickly getting nearer i tried to cross the great divide but i couldn't find the words to say stale, pale, on top that i was frail flailing for clarity but grabbing only air the bare necessities of being there atoms and atoms and gases and shadows in passing i'm asking only one thing when i pass: look deep into the glass don't miss it, and if you catch a glimmer it has to be the past, so kiss it it's the same people calling, but you don't hear their voices the same people falling, but you don't hear the noises the same people whispering, but you don't see their lips move it's the same people wondering, "when will it be different?" well, anytime is too soon /first of all, men have to measure the land and mark the paths to follow/

"shotgun diagnostics" i'm cipher-battle rattled on head trip mysteries misdemeanor meanings and melted opportunities last week i missed my childhood's funeral: too high to go, but i heard the shit was beautiful left hi-c in my veins and play-doh in my cuticles lunchable lunch date, elementary embarrassing now with the focus shifted to finding bare skin i'm constantly clogged, loaded up on claritin with parents daily prodding, asking what i'm burying three feet deep, i shallow hid my secrets and feasted on the beast, beat my body weak until i hit the first of the staggering defeats kicked it down with cleats, but they proved to be plastic took a fast hit, bit down my lip tried to cut my time and chomped at the bit and though i'm not an actor now i'm playing sisyphus he said "just relax, cause there's no pain in this" but where's my body, i think it ran off on me she said "give it time, i understand you're pissed" where's my memory, i considered it family he said "just relax, don't put up a defense" but where's my only memory i think it ran off on me she said "give it time, you can't understand this" where's my body, i considered it family and that's one for the tally, a number i can't count 100 billion ways to get a zero sum amount god told the angels that they shouldn't have come down because it's hard on their wings to get from town to town i think i see one singing, sputtering silent hymnals tell me how to catch him without seeming mighty sinful i'm gonna rest today because it strikes me uneventful write down these words, make sure to do it in pencil what do you do when you can't pinpoint the pain? it's a pumice stone tearing at your moldy attic brain cells sitting stock still cause you're stuck on change? it's a wildfire fighting against atlantic ocean wave swells and the only questions you can't explain words that read backwards one way or the other you look in the mirror it's the same damn refrain the eyes of your father and the ears of your mother how many licks will it take across my back to get me to face the facts, find the needle in the stack, i pray it won't be blackened from lack of attention i'm aching for my pension, but fearing the ascension the word is written, but the wall needs washing i thought i might have been smitten, but hearts were just crossing traveling notebooks, and catchy chorus hooks gas station robberies and highway bandit crooks on i-90 my dreams tried to find me somehow they must've got caught up behind me left on the west end, just like my best friends and i-95 i swear it ate my brain alive my shins got left and my heart got swept and my arms got tied along the great divide but my love is like a record/i'm just hearing the flip side if life is like a stick sometimes you get the shit side what do you do when you can't pinpoint the pain? it's a pumice stone tearing at your moldy attic brain cells sitting stock still cause you're stuck on change? it's a wildfire fighting against atlantic ocean wave swells and the only questions you can't explain words that read backwards one way or the other you look in the mirror it's the same damn refrain the eyes of your father and the ears of your mother it's a pumice stone tearing at your moldy attic brain cells it's a wildfire fighting against atlantic ocean wave swells words that read backwards one way or the other the eyes of your father and the ears of your mother

"i make house calls" every time I pick up a mic, i'm lookin for some action, relaxing in the back of a track, i'm like elastic, spastic i'm askin for a brand new flow from above, i love hip hop my beats drop like masking tape on a package sticking in your head finally filling what i'm lacking removing what was cluttered just drums and fluttering strings in the background, muttering things that i see passing and wings that i see flapping happening to be my favorite mc in flight all night, i've been watching and now he's in my dreams, stopping in slow motion topping every phrase and every single notion that i can even utter i'm utterly amazed at the pace of the race the place that i reside in the shifting times and tides opening my eyes to a visual surprise turned my ears inside out until the drums sound like cries "who's that, who's that knocking at the door?" yo, i gotta knock you ain't never heard before "who's that, who's that calling at my door?" yo, i'm just the mc that you're looking for "who's that, who's that knocking at the door?" yo, i've been knocking since the second world war "who's that, who's that calling at my door?" yo, it's gotta be that mc, mc matador i was born on a sunny thursday my words play like birds sing swinging on a swing set, i'll take you to my first day the worst way to tell it is to tell it i'll show you what occurred there i said farewell to all my dead cells shed my skin and shells, put them up for sale and now i'm creeping across mountains i'm moving like a snail but the skills are amounting i i'm beginngin to find a path i'm following footsteps and trying to leave a map the lines don't make sense, but nothing's wrong with that in my infancy, i couldn't sing symphonies i'm infinitely seeking out knowledge that will seep in i'm jumping off the deep end, but isn't that better? i'm gonna get wetter they said i might drown, but there's more room to swim they said i might sink, but there's room to move my limbs so let me dive in, head first, because i'm ready to begin "who's that, who's that knocking at the door?" yo, i gotta knock you ain't never heard before "who's that, who's that calling at my door?" yo, i'm just the mc that you're looking for "who's that, who's that knocking at the door?" yo, i've been knocking since the second world war "who's that, who's that calling at my door?" yo, it's gotta be that mc, mc matador

"don't touch her heart" listen close to your pillow and it'll whisper dirty secrets the meekest of men are still the weakest in dreams i'm tired of being told that nothing is as it seems each ritual is a trial, why do we pray just to sleep soundly for another lousy day? i thought i had my dues paid two thousand years ago but fear's a dirty word and it clutters up my flow i can't be afraid of anything i can't know there's no room on the road, but still i take a drive i'm workin nine to five just to keep my dreams alive but that's eight hours of sweat for four cycles a night 90% nightmares and 10 too close to life i wake to sleep and i take my waking slow i follow the beat to figure out where to go put your mic against mine and you might take a chance but there's no need to fight because we just came to dance and the man on the radio cries the children hide indoors and that blood that i despise is drawn from my veins to yours the people in the sound underground say "what" their prying eyes are selling lies monsters in my mind scream "how time flies" don't touch her heart: it's damaged merchandise if i had to call time a name, i'd call her "mrs. robinson" for all her too early, unwanted advances six-bullet roulette with no second chances and side-stepping dances she's a mantis on the mantle, praying my forgiveness but i've sold her sins and i know her business: fantasized romances and crumbled finances backwards glances and whispered wrong answers class is dismissed i can't believe i missed you i'm so slightly kissed by the fact that i was this close i was only joking and hoping you'd call on me time comes around and i just wanna kill it i was only messing and wishing you'd test me because time always plays the villain it's a fast one, the last one didn't last but the past always comes to pass it's a dirty old bastard with memories in its cache a young hungry stray digging for trash and the man on the radio cries the children hide indoors and that blood that i despise is drawn from my veins to yours the people in the sound underground say "what" their prying eyes are selling lies monsters in my mind scream "how time flies" don't touch her heart: it's damaged merchandise yo, whatever name a price and i'll pay it if you didn't write the word, why'd you say it? my favorite emcees are down on their knees in front of these beats without even knowing that they've caught a disease it's always hard to see our own obsessions when we're cluttered by possessions and meaningless processions and empty confessions of love for no art unless it comes from the heart it ain't hip hop

"turn and draw" are you humanity driven, i've given a lot of thought to the question of whether or not this earth empties your pockets your flock is just me and every emcee that feeds on the need to rap the battling beat, the feat is not quite aggressive at its best its suggestive, but you are not while you might be impressive your lessons are tests of the best and the shiniest brightest folks: most of them are boasting, not poster children try to get a glimpse of exactly what we've building does filling in a hole count? i said i wouldn't cry as you say goodbye i'm finding out my mouth is bigger than my flow i'm learning to hold notes while throats gloat of kisses and fists make fishy missed punches in piss puddles befuddled and muddled, my face is a fluttering cumulus storm i was born in a rain cloud hurricane changed my name, but my face is the same stepped into the street, i played guns with god he left me in the lunchroom with my drawers around my feet i tried to talk it through, but he had to use the rod stole my lucky mattress when i rolled over in my sleep /what did i tell y'all about rhyming? "it's a science; not an art!" what?/ they told me that no rhymes could hold me i folded my sheets with the boldest of actions practiced, calculated it only exacerbated the problem is not the dirt but the lack of sleep no overabundance of product, they're just selling it cheap i'm beat down with beats now, closed eye visuals visceral pistols and subconscious missiles i miss her like a picture to its subject she objects to idolatry and though that's never bothered me my sovereignty allows me to love as i will until i've had my fill i'm on a steady dose of hate, nothing satiates my fortune and my fate are the same blank slate i'm in a dangerous state in a curious garden, taking an apple from a snake how many times can i go around? how many lies can i tell before i'm found out? how many times can i hang up the phone? before i realize that it leaves me alone? the problem with my favorite is i can never savor it have a different flavor to pay for the last time you cast rhymes with bad signs and cruel intentions a brown paper package, my back itches: scratch it here's a rhyme, now match it decipher my cipher the life of the lifer is to fight for death and in that very last breath even the best, definitely the rest confess with the hope in their chest of white light, the proper sight to make right the right sky to fly a kite devices of flight can't handle fast winds but i'm slim as jim, i'll fit cut to the quick through the thick, the thickest of thick i'll swim like a fish thin down my trim now i'm bent, i'm spent, here's my last month's rent i might be back in a year, but now i'm living in a tent try to catch my scent stepped into the street, i played guns with god he left me in the lunchroom with my drawers around my feet i tried to talk it through, but he had to use the rod stole my lucky mattress when i rolled over in my sleep

THE “CUT DIRECT” /For one person to look directly at another and not acknowledge the other’s bow is such a breach of civility that only an unforgivable misdemeanor can warrant the rebuke. Nor without the gravest cause may a lady “cut” a gentleman. But there are no circumstances under which a gentleman may “cut” any woman who, even by courtesy, can be called a lady. On the other hand, one must not confuse absent-mindedness, or a forgetful memory with an intentional “cut.” Anyone who is preoccupied is apt to pass others without being aware of them, and without the least want of friendly regard. Others who have bad memories forget even those by whom they were much attracted. This does not excuse the bad memory, but it explains the seeming rudeness. A “cut” is very different. It is a direct stare of blank refusal, and is not only insulting to its victim but embarrassing to every witness. Happily it is practically unknown in polite society./ -- Emily Post. Etiquette (1922). Chapter IV: "Salutations of Courtesy."