10.13.2003 :::
The Director’s Mirage*
I
I’m the director, you’re the actor
That’s not the way it’s supposed to be.
You can’t act out my script,
Perhaps because it’s poorly written
They think that sex will sell,
But no one can live up to it.
They don’t want an idealist,
Or someone under iron fist.
The middle man, the middle class,
Between depression and happiness.
No characters with talents lost,
Or tyrants who afford the cost,
I can’t do this so-called art
Check the lights, make them write.
To capture my unwillingness.
A drama queen, in a drama scene.
I’ll make them pay in the office.
II
Don’t go, you can’t leave,
It’s not the way I wrote it.
First you meet, then you kiss,
Then you have a bunch of kids,
Live life happily, behind the press.
Turn down the lights, remove the dress.
I’ll chose the music, for the rest,
“This isn’t real life, it’s a script.”
Well I say, this is how it is.
Get used to it, I’ll never change.
“You will or I’ll leave the stage.”
If you leave there’ll be no film,
Of course, that is a metaphor,
You weren’t supposed to retaliate.
I’m just that disconnected,
To the world outside of Hollywood.
And my home on Mulholland Drive.
A million photos strung together,
Capture motion and everything.
The producer and his producing.
III
I come home and there you are,
With several hairs out of place,
I’ve got a problem, a cinema dream,
Wanting a perfect wife with perfect face.
She’ll be an artist, a famous painter.
No one reads books anymore,
The only poets are musicians.
And me, the virtual pornographer.
Give me your smile for tomorrow.
Tonight we’re gonna have a fight.
You’ll scream and I’ll repent,
It’s made for the audience,
The evil man would strike his mate.
But I’ll just stop to hold you,
You’re not wrong, I’m not right.
Fade to black til tomorrow night.
We’ll have worked out our problems.
You’ll be pregnant and I’ll be off.
To have another dream, I’m not right.
You’re wrong, I’m an artist, not a fraud.
Not the attention loving whore,
The underachiever, under achieving.
And you’re my pixilated muse.
IV
Tripping on the low cement curb,
I do not attempt to halt your fall.
A star doesn’t fall without wishes,
Just as I given no direction, false.
You my love, paint but one scene
I birth a million at a time.
I can make you a leper, clown or saint.
What’s so great that you can do with paint.
“This” you say “I can make a heart bleed,
While you kill souls with infiniteness
I, the woman illusionist can do my own
Needing not you to make me whole.”
But I do not see that, I am blind.
The world to me exists in cameras,
Lights, camera, action, cut, wrong.
Wrong again, I’d act if I could.
But I’m one man, short of perfect.
I spend their millions to make a buck.
But you my wife, I’d love still.
I’ve got a problem, yes I do.
They don’t know what to call it,
Though you’ve said it’s idealism.
V
Idealism or some like word,
Divorce? Such a somber bird,
That comes not at the end, but splits
The film in two, to create suspense.
To materialize anger, passion, fears,
To bring the large crowd to tears.
So when our lovers connect again,
There's no question where they’ve been,
Because people don’t cheat on another,
I am the writer, these thoughts, I can’t cover,
I can’t write of those who produce sin,
Or smiling fools inside the devil’s den.
My mind you see, houses a perfect world,
Countries united under one flag, unfurled,
A world where only loving people kissed,
My world, you see, does not exist.
VI
Paint for me, my love, a new vision,
With fallacies without our division.
Because I’ve made you angry, quick.
To wish to be perfect, is simply sick,
Of type that prescriptions must,
Blow the perceptions all the dust,
No one wants to be the fool,
Except those who claimed the jewel,
So their life’s work may start over,
And drunken dreams become sober.
What can we do after plastic surgery,
After committing acts of perjury.
Doing all in life that's called wrong,
Wishing life were much less long,
But those that act right, have it all?
Have experienced life without a fall?
Nay, one need a bit of both,
I say, with the right being of healthy dose.
So my love, this is my poem,
As the director, who in fault, is home,
Instead of course, with you, outside,
But now I’ve nothing left to hide,
Have learned to see your crooked smile,
That it’s not something most vile.
But beautiful, radiant, and it’s unique,
Like every natural mountain's peak.
The wine now, tastes just as sweet,
I do not, anymore, have small feet,
They are a part of me, myself,
To make me whole, as incomplete I felt,
And you, who lies outside perfection's grasp,
Are indeed perfection, gaining fast,
Hair's not messy, but disheveled by God’s hand,
Now this, my love, I finally understand.
*Other title, "What I Should Have Said"
::: posted by Matthew at 4:35 PM
