Peter

The yellowed dust touched my eyes
as you leapt into the night.
Through tinselled stars that blurred my vision,
I watched you beam with delight.

Towards a neverland adventure!

I swiftly shuttered both eyes

to think of birds in every color

sequined in orange fireflies. 

You were my refuge from the days

spent grinning boredom out-of-sight

because my life paled like your shadow

against the glow of a nightlight.

Now time takes time advancing 

in its crocodilian pace.

Why’d you gun it, fully knowing

death’s at the end of this race?

The yellowed dust forged into memory

that night you leapt into the night.

Though tinselled stars had blurred my vision,

I saw you take your last flight.

You took your courage to the threshold

past my bedroom window sill.

Because “this world will never want us”

and you say you’ve had your fill.

You’ve run from every place convinced

you were born to chase each thrill.

Or were you just afraid of growing up? 

Well, indeed, you never will.

 

_______________________________

a reimagining of my favorite novel. 

“to die would be an awfully big adventure” -- Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie

Ode to Dad

So the song is finally over

as its final chord is played.

This duet’s come to its full closure

abruptly as the outro’s fade.

Couldn’t we add just one more verse?

A longer bridge than what you made?

Because stepping off from song to silence 

isn’t a fair trade.

And maybe I could stand the silence

but a choir of voices in my head

remind me how you’re gone forever

and I'm here trapped with them instead.

Though I don’t know where you are

or where, someday, I could be

I’m thankful knowing who I am

is because of you and me.

I’m thankful I could sing your words

now that you’re gone without a trace.

One day i’ll sing those tear-soaked memories...

and feel a smile bloom on my face. 

Game Over

Is it worse to lose
or know you failed to win? 
To be faced with defeat
or see your look of chagrin?
To feel the emptiness swell
in that hollow within,
knowing you'd stared straight at that hole
and still fallen right in.

Cloaked

I found myself outside the gates,
with just my name to call my own.
Clung to the warmth that tried to leave me

with a shapeless thing I’d sewn. 

I found, with each new structured cut,

a safety in this second skin!

I feel I'd bleed out, left without it,

I wouldn’t know where to begin.

     The cloak that hides this face

     Is a shield upon my back.

     I can stand out or blend in, 

     concealing what I sorely lack.

     It’s the brightly colored plume

     that draws the eyes across the room.

    And unlike Eden’s flowers, 

    my crimson roses stay in bloom. 

It’s an ancient incantation: 

to conjure bull from hairless ape.

A gentle blush won’t light a carnal fire

the way it’s stoked by a red cape.

It’s an all-out revelation

fenced in silken barricade:

A mask reveals the heart’s true face

dressed-naked in a masquerade.

     The cloak that hides this face

     Is a shield upon my back

     hiding all my ragged edges

     while I patch up the cracks.

     It’s the brightly colored plume

     that draws the eyes across the room.

    A church bell rung to mute 

    A lifetime played out-of-tune.

I’ve travelled far beyond the garden

armed with but a match-sized lance. 

to thus create, in my own image,

a life where I stand a chance.

It’s a psychedelic magic,

this thread that weaves through all my tales!

With each tapestry I hoist, 

I catch the wind in my sails.

Narscissus Smiles

Sitting at the water’s edge 

I’m agonizing.

He’s mesmerizing

effortlessly floating at the top.

Peering deep into those eyes:

they’re hypnotizing.

I’m nearly drowning

trying hard to make these voices stop.

Is this love or is this jealousy?

a boundless joy with melancholy.

I lie to myself, say I’ll stay for a while,

to pass my bleakest hours basking in a stranger’s smile.

Trying hard to get ahead,

the game’s exhausting.

They keep us playing

long enough to learn things can get worse.

Existence is a fatal cut.

There’s no denying:

everyone’s dying. 

No prizes go to those who finish first.

Is this love? such crushing agony.

My reflection showing what I'll never be.

I lie to myself, say I’ll stay for a while,

to pass my bleakest hours basking in a stranger’s smile.

I don’t recognize his all-too-familiar face 

nor his unfamiliar smile,

but it’s the first time someone’s looked at me

and made me feel worthwhile.

I don’t need to hear he’ll love me, 

(words don't carry any power).

But I mirror his smile to hide, how inside,

I've been wilting like a flower.

-------------------

Notes:

• Obsession, fandom and loneliness as the face of narcissism. 
• A narcissist not as someone who loves himself, but someone who loathes himself so much that he creates a persona he wishes he were, but barely recognizes
• original Narcissus myth (Ovid): Narcissus sees his reflection  for the first time in the water (not knowing at all that that was him)

Totem Piles (version 2)

Building one thing then another

in tidy lines and piles they sit.

Constructing roads and high skyscrapers

to engineer the perfect fit.

Forever chasing that horizon

while reaching for a distant star.

So starved to find some foreign landscape

never content with where we are. 

Falling forward as propelled

by the trajectory of cupid’s hit.

Collecting coins and random tokens

to gauge each gain and deficit.

Falling forward towards another step,

these exploits fill a barren map.

Yet we’re no closer to the finish:

just cursed to run another lap. 

Though could this be the truest fortune?

Death leaves man’s bounty when he’s done.

Not comprehending, as they bribe him

for one more dance around the sun...

Totem Piles

Building one thing then another

in tidy lines and piles they sit:

by making roads and high skyscrapers

we've engineered "the perfect fit".

Forever chasing that horizon

while reaching for a distant star,

starved to find some foreign landscape

never content with where we are. 

Falling forward, to follow through

the blind trajectory of cupid’s hit.

Collecting coins and random tokens to gauge each gain and deficit. Falling forward towards another step,

these exploits fill a barren map.

Yet we’re no closer to the finish:

just cursed to run another lap.

 

GEN Zombie

Half alive or living dead?

I wonder what they could be feeling.

A whole generation in mechanical motion

like a line of red ants on the ceiling.

A stale smile on a frowning face, 

a stiffened glance like day-old bread.

When they do decide to look at you 

they’re staring just beyond your head.

Shoot them up with flashing lights,

from that pocket slot machine.

No need to drop a single dime  

to lock them in their own fluorescent dream.

And say a voice were heard from outer space

claiming it could pound us flat,

they’d shrug and be quite unimpressed,

quite certain “there’s an app for that.” 

 

Life's a Witch

Living alone, life's often quiet as a mouse

that’s ‘til those two started nibbling on my house!

But you're saying I'm the bad guy here?

That I'm the element the townsmen fear?!

I'd taken pity on your troubled youth,

offered something better for their sweet tooth:

I’d just baked cookies for my coven,

when Gretel pushed me towards the oven!

Life's hard enough for any gal, wouldn't you say?

And I never said I was in distress.

It’s not a crime to look this good

        in a long black dress.

I don't need anyone to sweep me off my feet,

I can do that with my own broom.

(I didn't uber to this courtroom)

No the hat is not a costume!

Tell the kids, I don’t wear a disguise:

I’m as plain-complicated as any of you guys.

They can visit whenever, there's no need to think twice. 

No need for apologies (although one would be nice).

I hope that they learn we’re not plain bad or good.

We all try to get by as we best think we should.

I don’t ask ye for much, save to be understood:

see the world that I see from this side of my hood.

#Halloween2020

Vagabond

I can’t regale you with a sonnet

I can’t play piano or guitar.

I wish I did, I wish I could be 

more than another guy at a bar.

You look me over top to bottom,

curious to see just what’s inside.

Besides the loose change in my pocket,

well, I’ve got nothing left to hide.

    I don’t need to be smart to be clever.

    Don’t need a watch to tell me time won’t wait.

    While I can’t draw, or keep my plotlines straight: 

    My art is in the life that I create.

For those of us who grow up knowing

food doesn’t show up on one’s plate

We hear an appetite that’s taunting, 

biding its time to seal our fate.

And like a gunshot in the distance

it forced me to a running start.

That blast still echoes in the caverns

that love left vacant in my heart.

    I don’t need to be smart to be clever.

    Don’t need a watch to tell me time won’t wait.

    While I can’t draw, or keep my plotlines straight: 

    My art is in the life that I create.

    Why erase a wrinkle, why hide a single line 

    when they chronicle the landscape of a lifetime?

    Like razing trees to better see a barren line.

    A pristine canvas is a song without a rhyme. 

Won’t promise I can buy you diamonds,

and I've no use for fancy cars.

I do swear your life won’t be a blank page

but a night sky peppered with stars!

And I never did like a blank page:

an empty sky without stars...

 

#JohnTravolta

Ashore

Don't care to ask why skies are blue?
Content to say it's somehow true, are you
preferring not to know than know you could be wrong?

You built the rules that wall you in
this prison of what-you-believe, then
you sit on that shore so sure the current's just too strong.

Staying awake leaves no space to dream in,
mistrusting what sits in the shadows.
But those who avoid the unfriendly seas
become captains who sail in the shallows.

You fear a fall, but don't we all?
Why crouch behind a make-shift wall?
Nobody hides from time by ducking as it passes by.

Can't fully numb the hurt you feel.
Life carves us scars to show we heal.

I'd rather see the petals fall, than risk they never bloom at all...

The Get Away

Well, running away is easy 

and driving off is even fun.

If it means anything to anybody

I’d never meant to hurt anyone.

Got wrapped up in my own story.

Started a tab of open trespasses.

Ditched the aftermath for the afterparty

leaving someone else to clean the mess.

  Wind in my hair, got both hands on the wheel,

  I’ve forged this iron will into a heart of steel.

  So many years late but I now I'm ready to be...

  the person I should've been at 23.

Felt good making bad decisions.

Ain't nothin wrong with tryin' to have some fun?

Ditched all the pleasantries, wrote off the casualties...

Nothin' 4 shots of bourbon couldn't numb.

  Wind in my hair, used the regret I feel

  to forge this iron will into a heart of steel.

  I'm 20 years late but I now I'm ready to be...

  the person I wanted to be... at 23.

I thought the open road would always let me get away

but scenes repeat themselves like I'm on a track.

The devil holds a silken leash, he’ll help you have your way,

but I would rather roam free with a cross on my back.

  Wind in my hair, used the regret I feel

  to forge this iron will into a heart of steel.

  I'm 20 years late but I now I'm ready to be...

  the person I wanted to be... at 23.

Fallen Star

How I'd looked up to you
shining down pure as starlight,
beaming in your silk nightgown
a fairy dressed all in white.

You'd read me a story,
the only one you could tell,
with each run I would wonder
if it might finally end well.

   After ever after, there's no genie in your bottle
   to grant the lost wishes you wipe off your lip.
   And all the kings men and all the kings horses
   have left you with me in a sinking ship.

There's no room for dreaming,
can't fit it into my suitcase
for this road trip from hell
up a long winding staircase.

You say we've arrived but
what waits at the top?
A new dragon to chase
then a hundred-foot drop?

   After ever after, there's no genie in your bottle
   to grant the lost wishes you wipe off your lip.
   And all the kings men and all the kings horses
   have left you with me in a sinking ship.

I charted a course chasing you through the sky,
thought you twinkled for me to stave off the dark.
But as you started to fade in the fresh light of day,
I could spy the black hole in your heart.

#DemiMoore_InsideOut

Tug of War

You'd think I'd know you better
I fell for you when we were 10.
This castle built across a lifetime:
a house of cards against the wind.

I missed the signs completely
I'd blindly followed every rule.
Stood on the pedestal you fashioned
and tumbled off a broken stool.

You pull on your side
I'll tug on mine
not quite how I imagined
the bloody end of the line.

So tired of this but I'll hold my ground.
This game's not over 'til we all fall down.

Rich on a pocket of dimes,
we'd both be half-baked in the sun.
Back when "i'm sorry" came so easy
and losing games was half the fun.

You could always make me laugh
even times when I'd be bleedin'.
How could I know you wouldn't outgrow
that old propensity for cheatin'.

You pull on your side
I'll tug on mine
not quite how I imagined
the bloody end of the line.

So tired of this but I'll hold my ground.
This game's not over 'til we all fall down.

Strength is spent and skin is raw, far as hell from what I planned. Do I hold the means to be free? Or is this a noose in my hand?

So tired of this but I'll hold my ground.
This game's not over 'til I take you down.

#olliwood

It's no fun inching on the ground
watching all the skinny birds get ahead.
Those beautiful monsters who don't notice
or would rather see you dead.

Tough life, but keep doing as you're told
whatever it takes so you get by.
Coz it could be any day now,
and they say it's clear as day how: 
     you're meant to be a butterfly

You pay those dues, drink up your pride,
tasting a touch like piss and lemonade.
Come this far, no point in hesitating.
Can't keep that audience waiting.

Tough life, we all stumble in the dark
they've made a stage that's draped in black
tryin' to make that fake sun blinding?
tryin' to hide what no one's minding:
     the hunters circling to attack

The End

Is it the tunnel's end or a flame?
It's never led to anywhere.
There's no dream-come-true exit
to crawl out of this nightmare.

Running running running...
not afraid of the dark and dreary.
Been here so long that
these street-rat eyes can see quite clearly.

Tired of hearing that I gotta walk
and live the narrow and the straight
Try and make a desert man think
beyond pulling his own weight.

Head down, hand out
no one minds if no one bites.
They'll toss coins, crumbs, used excuses
whatever keeps this out of sight.

Running running running...
not afraid of the dark and dreary.
Been here so long that
I've seen rock bottom crystal clearly

I can prove them right about everything or not a thing.
I've seen the floods, the plague with next to nothing on my plate.
So thanks for nothing. I'm done apologizing 
that you gotta walk by and see me survive this sorry state.

Oh this ain't hell, just so you know.
This... is the end of the rainbow.

Lucky

Another set of tears
flowing down those used-up tracks
you tell me "he's a dog"
knowing full-well you'd take him back.

You don't want to be alone,
but it must be cold there in his shade
since he's blocking all the light
there at the head of your parade.

He broke your heart
but it's still ticking
look around you, this world's still
ripe for the picking.

So step out, walk away, 
head straight towards the sun
you'll look back someday knowing:
you were the lucky one.

You don't need a rhyme or reason, 
no, it won't be different "this time".
You've survived the fall (congratulations)
now its time to start that climb

Carousel

Innocent boy meets naive girl 
two glittering specks in a dust-filled world
Saying they feel so freed
as they go full-speed 
aren't we all just tricked with the same-old made-up story 
a freshly-rehashed tale of lust and glory.

The music invites you 
you're drunk off the spell. 
Whirling with lights and a
faint lacquered smell.
Sit up and smile on your white horse
somehow you can't even tell:
you're holding tightly to the trap -- you're caught! 
In his carousel.

Fast forwarding through 2 decades straight:
lady's made bank and she's doing great.
Always charging full speed 
and she feels so freed
but at home, she's alone wondering who's ahead and winning
and why she looks despondent when she's grinning.

The music invites you 
you're drunk off the spell.
Whirling with lights and a
faint lacquered smell.
Sit up and smile on your white horse
somehow you can't even tell:
you're holding tightly to the trap -- you're caught!
In his carousel.

She runs as fast as she can in place
riding on a high that she can't replace...
she rides as fast as she can in place
on a brand new horse in a made-up race...

-----------------------------------------
[...reflections on the prisons we don't recognize or choose not to leave]

Judas (Rewrite of Judith by A Perfect Circle)

[Judith - written by Maynard on his mother's unwavering faith in the face of cancer]

JUDITH (by A Perfect Circle)	JUDAS (by diane, rewrite for OMF)
You're such an inspiration for the ways	You're such an inspiration in the ways
That I will never ever choose to be	that I could never even dream to be
Oh so many ways for me to show you	Oh so many ways for me to show You
How the savior has abandoned you	How the people have abandoned You
Fuck your God	Call your God
Your Lord and your Christ	My Lord, oh Christ.
He did this	They did this
Took all you had and	Took all You had and
Left you this way.	Left You this way.
Still you pray, you never stray	Still You pray, You never stray
Never taste of the fruit	Never taste of the fruit
You never thought to question why	You never thought to question why
It's not like you killed someone	It's not like I've killed someone
It's not like you drove a hateful spear into his side	it's not like I'd dare to be the one to leave Your side
Praise the one who left you	Christ! One act of love and
Broken down and paralyzed	I'm forever vilified!
He did it all for you	I did it all for You....
He did it all for you	I said I'd follow through
Oh so many many ways for me to show you	Oh so many other ways for me to know You.
How your dogma has abandoned you	Choose another to abandon you...
Pray to your Christ, to your god	Pray for my soul, to Your God
Never taste of the fruit	Never taste of the fruit
Never stray, never break	I'd never stray, never break
Never---choke on a lie	Never---break from the pack
Even though he's the one who did this to you	and because i'm the one to do this to You
You never thought to question why	I'll be gone before You're back...
Not like you killed someone	"Not like I killed someone
It's Not like you drove a spiteful spear into his side	It's not like I drove a spiteful spear into His side
Talk to Jesus Christ	Talk to Jesus Christ,
As if he knows the reasons why	I'm sure He's got His reasons why"
He did it all for you	I swore I'd see it through..
(Did it all for you)	(Did it all for You)
He did it all for you..	I took the fall for You...