PSYCHO-SEMANTICS!
stories, poetry, plays, and songs
by Matt Russell
NOTE: This is going to make me sound more egotistical than I really am, but here goes: All material this page links to is protected by copyright law. Unauthorized reproduction or performance of any of this material is strictly prohibited.
Stories
Poetry
Plays
Song Lyrics
These pages contain adult language, violence, and mature subject matter, including (but not
limited to) sex, fetishism, s&m, stalking, murder, rape, incest, sodomy, cannibalism,
oral sex, polygamy, bisexuality, homosexuality, nudism, religion, and drugs.
The Train Innocence is lost and childhood ends quickly when your best friend gets
mutilated by the front end of a speeding train. This won an honorable mention in the annual national Rambunctious Review fiction contest, that year focusing on the theme of "luck". It also won first place in the Non-Fiction
catagory of the 1994 Clackamas Community College Writer's Club contest...until I told them
that it was fiction. Then it had to tie with the first place Fiction entry.
Woods Fear and ignorance, prejudice and discrimination in a small forest community
of nudist perverts! This won second place in the 1995 CCC Writer's Club contest for
fiction.
A pretentious title, I know, but it is not meant to say that I am the
reincarnation of the master 19th century French poet; I merely am saying I was greatly
inspired by him when I wrote the piece, back in Fall 1995.
One of my tragic love poems...probably my best one, penned from Hell (Eugene, OR).
Some very old poems, my earliest work to actually see the light of day (if you can call self-publication on my obscure website "light of day").
A trilogy of one-act plays about a young gay man struggling with issues of identity, religion, and obsession. Although these plays were written at different times and were originally meant to exist on their own, independant of each other, I have since made some changes in order to combine the three parts and form one complete three-act play. Hence, the new title, "Imaginary Friends". The introduction explains more about this.
I wrote this for the artistic director of a theater company I was showing the plays to. Part One. Introduces a troubled queer high school student, and examines what happens when he's put together with the school Bible thumper and the school punk rocker for an evening. This is the first play I ever wrote, and there are a lot of things that I don't particularly like about it. It represents a phase in my life that I'm well out of--the "coming out/gay pride" phase where you feel like you have to shout it from the rooftops, and have endless debates about gay rights, etc. It was only after this was produced at my local community college (directed by me) that I realized there's something more important than politics--the heart. (1994)
Part Two. Our queer youth is now in college and trying to confront an estranged friend who suddenly and inexplicably ditched him. See my lyrics collection, Home of the Ducks, for another product of this dark period in my life. (1996)
Part Three. Probably the best of the trio. I had learned a lot since Part One and even since Part Two, which was written only about four months before. (1996) 15-year-old Jonathan comes home from baseball practice one day
to find out that his family is going to eat him for dinner. A black comedy. (1996)
High school nerd Sven is tired of getting the crap beat out of him by
Stan, the school bully. Then he meets a beautiful alien named Gwen, who just might have the
solution to his problem. A celestial romance. (1996)
Nick, Laura, and Jon have lived happily together for over a year. But a
jilted love from Nick's past threatens to change all that. Posessed with supernatural
powers, Sheila Stone terrorizes the threesome, vowing to take revenge on Nick. And the only
one who might be able to stop her is Jon, who believes he is the sole survivor of an alien race
from another planet. (1997)
I don't know how to write music, therefore my lyrics drift alone in the obscurity of cyberspace. And because
I have way too much time on my hands, I arrange the lyrics, thematically, into
imaginary "albums". Some are better than others.
A collection of geek songs from my days in junior high and high school. Some of my first writing attempts, therefore some of it is quite bad! Also, check out Heartbreak Low: The B-Sides. (1988-1992)
Not to be confused with my screenplay of the same name! This tells the story of a friendship that ended badly. (1994, '95)
A collection of oddities. (1994, '95)
These songs were written during the worst three months of my life (
January to March 1996) when I transfered to a university for the sole purpose of
re-establishing a friendship with someone. This is actually a continuation of the story that "Storm" began.
This is a post-apocalyptic reflection on the events of the last
album. It's amazing to me how these songs are much more angry than the ones on "
Ducks". It seems like it should be the other way around...(Summer 1996)
Having gotten most of the rage out of my system by this time, I began my descent into simple madness. (Fall 1996)
This is mostly about the dissolution (disillusion, desolation) of
my friendship with a number of people in a theatre group I was involved in.
(Spring 1997)
This is an assortment of just about everything. Surprisingly, though, some
themes do emerge. (Summer 1997)
The word "Ka", as far as I know, has some spiritual significance, at least in various Stephen King novels. (Summer 1998)
This was originally going to be called "Autumn", but I couldn't resist borrowing from Curse of the Starving Class.(Autumn 2000)
WARNING!
© 1998 Matt Russell.