"South Bend" Written by Matthew Clark southern-most saint joe, there's a town that i call home i'm sure you've heard all the ropes; just a rust belt city broken town, who's gonna save us from ourselves everybody's looking for hope, let's give our kids a good city ~~~~ hey, south bend! it's nice to see you again it's been far too long since i've walked by the river rust belt town studebakers gone lost and found rebuild from the ground i want to see my town flourish ~~~~ oh, how things have changed, people grow up, friends move away we start doing different things, how i miss those "good old times" at the time we never thought it could end, we were so young, i still don't understand how the present quickly becomes the past and then i romanticize it ~~~~ hey, south bend! it's nice to see you again it's been far too long since i've walked by the river highway town so much noise it's so easy to drown but don't lose yourself i want to see you rise again ~~~~ all this history, we're always treasuring lost glory but now is where life is lived, here we are in the present-tense here's something to fight for; i don't believe we can't find hope no more these problems are now in our hands, now how do we fix this? ~~~~ hey, south bend! it's nice to see you again it's been far too long since i've walked by the river you're my hometown all these memories of lights and sound city streets been hummin' the blues but this life is what you make it ~~~~ hey, south bend!

"Felt Too Much, Sought Too Little" Written by Matthew Clark it's been six months since we last spoke and i have to wonder if we're still friends if we were to talk, i wonder what we would talk about there's still something here we haven't dealt with you probably don't know it but we are the same (for the most part) and after all we've been through i felt like you could be "the one" we smiled together and i felt like we had something i never had before and so i had to tell you the truth it's been six months since we last spoke and i'm guessing you haven't thought too much about me i still feel like i betrayed the friendship that we had all i really can say is "i'm sorry" i must admit, i did it all wrong and i should've told you in person but i was too scared maybe that letter explained way too much and now i think all we know is this tension ~after all those things that we said ~after all those adventures we had ~after all the things that made sense ~i know i should've talked about this +i'd like to believe our friendship still stands +i'd like to believe we haven't said it all +i spent a year of my life thinking you might be "the one" +took me so long to stop believing that it might be true i'm done; i finally wrote it....i'm over you! remember that one time we explored a spaceship we had the entire cosmos at our fingertips those moments with you always felt like so much more i know now more than they ever really were

"Nonfiction Fantasies of Old" Written by Matthew Clark i have this dream of a place a place i've only ever visited once many songs have traveled its wayward roads roads paved with art and honesty and though i know it's probably not that great that town is painted with their love and tears if it's an honest life you're looking for you can find it on a living room floor, singing songs of joy and sorrow sun shining through the drapes, waking up to cinnamon rolls chilly morning, tea still warm, in an old thermos the day ahead, exploring a town we've never been in i feel at home with you ~and i felt loved, two-hundred miles away ~people like me, i think we're trying to escape ~we felt young, adventuring through the day ~dream with me. dream. let us dream. i have this dream of a place a place i've only ever been to once off to a party, out in a cornfield, quiet lonely roads hazy sunset of fire and gold one of those families with a love that overflows yeah, they give until there's nothing left laugh at things gone wrong, some things just don't make much sense whatever happens, let us love here's some blankets, stay the night, we can play old board games tell some stories, turn out the lights, in the morning we'll find a funny joke, new songs to sing driving away from that home away from home ~and i felt loved, in a place i've never know ~you're not like me, do you also struggle to love? ~i felt young, but now i feel i'm getting old and bit too cynical ~dream with me, dream with me, of a place where we belong i've got these friends that i call family we've known each other for quite some time and now i fear i'm not as close we could be maybe there's this tension we deny i don't ever want to let them go but i fear that day may be coming soon is this the end, so long my friend, i've forgotten these reasons do you sing for me, i'm singing for you? your favorite movie, fresh popcorn, i really love this too homemade dinner, painting walls, hard rain's gonna fall folding swans and play card games, and climbing trees those pictures with you, now hanging on my wall ~and i felt loved, just being there with you ~no new stories to tell, just writing another page ~don't know what happens next, but will you be there with me ~dream with me. dream. let us dream. let's begin again

"Ashes Among Icons" Written by Matthew Clark she’s walking downtown trippin' over converse shoelaces reading all the faces dreamin’ ‘bout all the lives they live she wonders if they’re happy she wonders if satisfaction’s ever guaranteed she dreams of holding hands with her loved one and finally being who she was meant to be ~happiness in all the advertisements ~taunting her in the noise and silence ~jingles and slogans, baited titles ~can't find the reason beneath all these smiles by the window drinking coffee sipping slowly with a pen to drain her heart still trying to find an answer hoping maybe these words become tangible her despair creeps in “how could expression ever save a wretch like me” what once was freedom starts to mock her "why’s this prison require so much maintaining?" ~happiness in all the advertisements ~taunting her in the noise and silence ~jingles and slogans, baited titles ~can't find the reason beneath all the smiles ~content 'cross these streams of vision ~pixelated lives, such contrite paragons ~bleeding content and monetized heartstrings ~her tears are lost in the ocean she talks to God quite often surfing ‘round iconoclastic digital signs after all that’s been seen and heard "yeah, maybe it's true" wonderin' whether she's too far gone she could rage against the world but it falls back to her she stares at me a says, “you know.....” ~“for a moment i knew i was right” ~“but there's this liar in the mirror" ~“for a moment i knew i was right” ~“the liar mocks me every night” ~from dried up riverbeds and shipwrecked shores ~i think she's found what she's aiming for ~she runs like a river, her eyes like streams ~seeking the ocean, these saltwater dreams she found herself a home giving wisdom and prescribing medicine tender breathing, giving hope if you ain't busy being born, bet you busy dying i haven't seen her since she walked away from everyone that she knew one person's foolish butterfly is another's dying saint can the healer heal herself? can the judge bring justice to his heart? can the murderer make right what’s done? can the writer find hope in being a middleman? can the healer heal herself? can the judge bring justice to his heart? can the murderer make right what’s done? will you truly understand all these stories that you've heard?

"oh...these tired and restless shores" Written by Matthew Clark born on the shores of babylon listen to the cries for meaning everyday i see riches greater than any one man can comprehend i see buildings once full of life now in decay a nation poisoned with dreams of greatness a country upon a hill we could never climb i see messiahs bringing forth their new millennium i see tyrants preaching of a love they still can't find electric dream snake oil always by my side there to lift me up again and relieve me of these fears i see friends off in the distance that now mean nothing to me i see strangers not so strange that are never here this great burden carried upon our carbon shells images to maintain and records to leave behind i see a child starving herself for the love of strangers a philosopher play the fool just to make his point they tell me all i need is a dose of happiness fast-food, click-bait wisdom without a soul i see pretty people falling in love on an endless screen i watch dreams from another world and the flowers unfold ruling over the atoms and the atmosphere we mend bones and heal illness, thirsting for life! i hear of villages tasting springs of fresh water i see cities being poisoned by their water supply aching for identity in these trademark words being tossed about like ships at sea fandoms broken apart over politics and religions erasing what it means to believe listening to the rivers on a midnight radio conspiracies, caricatures, and cosmic plainspeak dreams of civilizations gone, now commercial pawns i see endless crowds of people thirst for the sea shining light into the world, "but where is its wonder!" stars from lands unknown, i'm left with rosy dreams i know people i've never met and things i've never done icons of pixels and light in all their glory are you tired?

"Lights of the World" Written by Matthew Clark for the stars shine brightly in the dark they shine across the world, and do not understand they were real at one point, but now ashes of a life once lived what hope is there in a light that faded so long ago? the masses gaze upon those stages on which they too now stand pasteled stars of glory and vision act out legends and modern myth give meaning to it and romanticize all the chaos in this world but if no one sees that starlight fading, must its life just be in vain? ~civilization of light, icons for all to see ~we're so scared that all we do will fade into sea ~civilization of light, eternal 'til the oil runs dry ~the hum of the world bleeds into my room, whispering into my ears for the stars shine so brightly and oh how we gaze in awe hopeful maybe true love like that will find us bring us peace is this world more than a stage, this life more than a play? the wind one day'll blow these songs away , even my words will forget me this life of mine keeps stalking me, plagued by choices i've made i've played the fool, maybe felt like a star, still i fret across this stage the radio cries, the signal is lost, is there no one to keep me sane? i strut across these realities, to find a cure for this ache ~civilization of light, turning me into ~a caricature for all to see, but are my motives true? ~oh, i've seen that Light, and he's comin' for me and you ~what a piece of work is man that You are mindful of him? that you, the Light of all the world, would come down to this earth come to serve and bring us the love of a Father so magnificent what truth is there so hopeful, what star is there so bright? the Son of Man, the Maker made to die for all our sins how wonderful, the Author; yes, he knows our frame he knows that we are merely dust and we soon shall pass away i look upon all this stage and wonder, of all His works i do not know how great is His steadfast love, how winsome and merciful ~civilization of lights, thirsting for good news ~listening to the streams and rivers and creating a white-washed tome ~thirsting for light, so thirsty for something true ~you can see it in the capitols and in the stories of our youth let there be Light, let there be Light! the sparks of the Word flash into the night and darkness cannot hide and there was Light, and in him is Life and the life of the Word gives hope to the world, he is making all things new

"To Signal A World Without End" Written by Matthew Clark the strangest of these vices wrapped up in skin and bones intangible dichotomies given material homes from the day that we were born there've been tears and promised scars i've been trying to express to you how i have felt so far billions of people circling this earth if there's one thing that scares me it's the ones who dare to dream from the heart we breathe visions from visions, we create the world we give life unto the dust and we make dust of this world no war requires weapons this war beats through my veins we take up arms over loving and then curse those we love i think my heart is a desert still thirsting for life pour water on the sand and watch it disappear i want to see these stories find meaning i want to see scorched deserts breathe life i want to see broken friends mend together i want to see the captives set free i am the city, aching with traffic i am the tree, with such pride filled leaves i am these strings, born for a melody i am the river, restless for the sea there's this dream in my heart of a nation of love we all come together as children of God it's not what you've done, but what he's done for you fall to your knees, His ways are true rain on me / shine on me

"There's A Wardrobe Behind the Office" Written by Matthew Clark do you remember those late summer evenings? when the world was endless and we had nothing to lose i'd like to go back to those times when things were so much different we couldn't have known back then how much that things would change i'll hold on to these memories for the rest of my life here's to a place where all the pieces fit together where the body of Christ strives to make His good news known no, it's not perfect though, we've all fallen short of His Glory here's to second chances and the thousandth one i'm on come to the Lord your God, he will set you free can you imagine all the souls who've treaded these grounds? all the billion stories that trees and walls could tell be sure to listen well, remember the many faces these are the stories of how God can change a life remember the kingdom of our God, this world is not our home all this time we've spent together, all these things that i remember i know that there will be tears leaving it all again i hope to see you soon, don't forget those things that changed us we go forth into this world and tell them all that our God has done singing songs of the kingdom come shining light into this world this world is not our home let Your kingdom come.

"River Park" Written by Matthew Clark on the banks of the saint joe dreaming of science fiction and history watching the static ripples crow do i know these seeds i've sown? winding waters though grove raising buildings in the bright spring morn for each age is a dying dream and so too another enters the scene everyday we search for home lending our hearts or breaking the silence presenting a part of ourselves never to know what shores these dreams will grow never quite living in these homes in a world that's constantly churning of how little we have control what do you take refuge in my soul? i hear poets cry for resolve these melodies aching for meaning sometimes letters written to none waiting for heartstrings to bind for many year i've felt this ache and now i'm left with a paradox this life is both what i create and so too the river i can't control ash to ash and dust to dust front porch in the sunset glow aching hearts and pixel tones westbound train softly moans arguments and empty dreams fantasies of lives unlived aching veins but streams still flow southern-most saint joe