It’s getting to that time when we are wearing at least 3 layers and so many of us in NY are asking why we don’t live on the West Coast.  I wear flatter shoes more often so I can walk quickly and my long long down to the ankles white down sleeping bag coat–one of [...]

I was stuck in traffic a few nights before Christmas some years ago. I was stresed and annoyed and flipped around on the radio stations in exasperation until a bell chime and a held note caught my ear.  It was magical and beautiful.  I was introduced to Mahalia Jackson’s take on Silent Night.  It is [...]

Honesty
By J. Diels c.2009
There’s something to be said for honesty
So why is it such a rare commodity
Even the good can’t always be
Up front and brutal with
Truth
It’s almost a selling point
To tell the truth
You’ll win me over
I’ll find it charming, quaint, refreshing, brave
Bold
Do we even know or care about virtue
I can’t tell you what sins are [...]

So, it’s been 3 months that I haven’t watched TV. Mid-May, I finally let it go after talking about it for …years.   I can’t say I am a million times more productive, but I feel a lot better.  I am more productive. I have been reading more too.
I have lots of praise for TV [...]

Layers was written a while back, stuck in the idea of memory images, perhaps exacerbated by many sense memory exercises in acting class, which I was in at the time.
The layers to sadness
Overwhelm
Identified as the result of
Memory
But it’s also that one too
And another and another
There are so many
From which to draw
Bubbling up
And down
With me
Far out [...]

I’m in the process of transcribing a lot of my poems and lyrics.  The one I’m in now is from a few years back.  A time capsule of where I was including the space of  having trouble with a difficult friend:
Drain
c. ‘04
By J. diels
You just drag me down
And it’s hard enough for me to keep [...]

Looking through some older poetry as I choose songs for recording this summer, I am seeing where I was:
Stroll on Egg Shells
By J. Diels
c. 2004
Strolling on egg shells
Knowing any moment it can all go to hell
So we dance any way to skirt the issue
Push an envelope thin as tissue
Guessing at every word, every step
Lest it [...]

PERIPHERY
I tried too hard so it all fell to pieces
Scratching and clawing
No room left for breathing
One track mind
Turned a blind eye to answers on breezes
Blowing right by
but I could not see
So focused was I on the struggle before me
I lost sight of all the options in the periphery
Find my options in the periphery
by J. Diels [...]

Very excited  and ready for spring. Not many of us are fans of the bitter cold.  But the snow… It’s so beautiful for a hot second before the ploughs and slush.  I love the sound of it falling.  It really does make a sound. I wrote this during a recent snowfall in February:
There is a [...]

Writing songs means writing something like poems. Many don’t find a melody.  So I have all sorts of rhyming pieces that sit in a notebook and thought perhaps I’d let them have some air too.
Here’s one from 2001 called Bubbling Under:
What brought this on?  This emptiness I thought was gone
It’s returned with a  vengeance in [...]