Professional headshot portraits, done for a colleague.

Created for – but never used – for the Monte Carlo Resort & Casino’s “We’re all VIPs” campaign – 2012

At the end, I feel like treading on old ground
Where the screaming silence is the only sound
My heart was forgotten in the lost and found
I cannot get much more profound

True love’s kiss is only a few inches away
The sylph of my dreams for future days
Plying my days on the promenade
Purple haze is like a loaded grenade

Looking back, on my life and times before
My legs for days are victims of the postwar
Consciousness drags me back through the French door
How sad and lonely on the dance floor

They say not to live for the future, to stay in the present
But I find myself sliding, down, knocked into a descent
I know that my life is not one hundred percent
Run ragged by my rich inner torment

My melody runs like a river of sound
Farewell to the fairground
All I wanna do is eat bonbons, lounge around
The road to El Dorado is paved with gold
Goodbye yellow brick road

There are so many things that I would like to speak
The words in my heart sometimes sound like ancient Greek
I have no qualms about my lack of mystique
I shall love you forever and always, eight days a week

My voice will transcend
I don’t recommend
I shall reoffend
Please try to comprehend
Belief, you must suspend
I guess this is the end.

Kind of an odd day
Writing demons come and go
If I use it up here
I cannot use it there
Love is a fleet-footed fiend
Bring me up
Crash me down
Patience is a virtue
For everyone but me
Purple asters, calla white lilies
Adorn the walls of my imaginary skies
Going to find another way to dance.

When she gives you crow’s feet
From all the wonderful laughs
And disingenuous smiles
Like an avenging angel
Who doles out punishments
Your breasts begin to descend
As the months fall off the calendar
Your upper arms flap a polite salute
When you wave goodbye
We use lotions and diets and surgery
To supposedly capture our youth
But the year on my driver’s license
Tells me that no amount of
Slicing, dicing & miracle creams
Will ever turn back the clock
A time for everything
Like a brief encounter
Of a love that wasn’t meant to be.

Carry me like the bass line
Strum me like a guitar string
Whisper those lyrics that only we know

Grind me like the melody in my head
Bounce me like the beat in your feet
Swing me like easy listening dread

Don’t need a libretto
Don’t require rehearsal
If all I hear is
the beat of your heart
In my head
to remind me
how to dance

It is times like these
That remind me
Of what I am fighting for
The root of my problems
Is this city is contagious

I was never happy here
But I stayed because I was misled
Afraid to prove them wrong
I do not need their approval
To be the woman I want to be

I am going to do it
I am going to fight harder
To get all these things
That I want done

I want to be happy
Is that so much to ask?

I am a lucky girl
To have the mom
I have in my world

Growing up in this family
was tough and stifling
I carry the Ghosts of Resentment
From the rough childhood we lived

I would not change a thing
The laughs, the memories
For all the lodes in the West
Because they made me who I am today.

You made me who I am.

I see you in every mirror
Hear your voice when I forget
Eat your food when I cook
Feel safe in my bed
even when you are not there

I pray that someday
I am half the mother you were for me
For all of us.

Happy birthday.

I am going to make something of myself
It has taken longer than I realized
And I am okay with that
I have got good people in my corner
My cheering section, my smile makers
The ones who told me to keep fighting
When all I wanted to do was die
I need to trust myself to take the leap
So I am going to grin and bear it until then

Just a few more things
Need to fall into place
Before all the things she said
Can blossom.

I am not surprised
That I wear every thought
in my heart on my sleeve
The plans that propelled me
The fruitful ideas

It is going to happen
I do not care
How long or hard I have to work
I want to smile again
From a genuine place
Not because I am forced to

Keep moving forward

Fruitful and productive
Tired and antisocial
Emotions that define my life

I have seen wonderful things
Celebrated milestones with loved ones
I am a true gastronome
Yet I feel alone in a crowded room

It is time to stop dwelling on the negativity
And let the sunshine in
It is time to believe all the storied words of
Scribes, poets and heroes before me

I am worthy of love
I can practice my faith
Despite all obstacles
I can be anything I want to be
If only I can get my brain
To catch up to my heart

It is time to step off that cliff
Into the sea of simulation
So that the lights can change
Because the game has changed

I know my present state
Is not where I need to be
I know that this is not my fate
And that I do not have to play along
To stay on the safe side

What good is an unbreakable heart
If it is not tested in the fires
If I don’t walk that lonely road
If I don’t drive to nowhere
With no particular place to go

I have to believe in myself
Before anyone else will.

Sometimes you need someone
To tell you what you already know
What you choose is up to you
Like Mr. Disney said:
Keep moving forward

Ten colours in my spirit
Shadows of jealousy
Purple and green
Male/female; yin/yang;
Up/down; sunrise/sunset
Room to move
Waiting until August
February will bring a girl
Soulmate is waiting

I will live forever
So far, so good
They leave or I leave
I belong to the ocean
Good with my hands
Meditation
Restless nights
Anxiety over everything
Under nothing
Always alone
But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Break away, let go
Free me from
the bonds of slavery
This young life
My old soul
The only thing holding me back
Is you.

Scrape me off
Like a bug on the windshield
Roll down the windows
Smells like garlic
And cow feces
Sheep graze under the hot sun
Sand between my toes
Holding hands as the sun falls
Familiar freeways
Unknown destinations
California soul

I get my best ideas
When I’m out of my element
Creativity flows like a volcano
Red hot and searing
Up and over
Destroying everything
That holds me back
Even if nothing comes of it
Those seedlings remind me
That the dreams I put on the shelf
Need only a place to birth
Tendrils curl towards the sun
Like a flower craving energy

I only stay a few days at a time
Yet I walk these lands
As though I’ve never left
The magic is always there
Somehow it stays
Where I cannot retrieve it
You’re supposed to believe
That dreams come true
But it is only here
That I feel that way
Life stifles my creativity
My suit sucks my soul
Out through my eyes
Where do I go from here?