April 15, 2019

consecrated wine

Rippling bells, liquid voices pour
replenishing wine of merriment. Listen.
Reverberate back to diluvian tribal pool.
Irresistible drum beats, symphonic rushing rivers.
Rise and quaff libation of choir’s caroling.
)
)
)
Wine can help.
By the gods, wine is sometimes all that can help
(tho sometimes even wine betrays me).
The stinking debris of mornings after the night before,
or just morning by the coast with the stink of rotting fish,
the cries of gulls or sirens, the emptiness without tears, the cold of morning
— I remember that too.
That no more mornings could touch me,
that I could hide contented in the night dreaming
flying dreams so none could touch me.
Fragments. Taking life in fragments. Folding each shiny fragment
into tender velvet pockets sequined to reflect the light,
let them be all right, feel cared for.
Let the nights protect us from the days.
Like a wandering hermit with a self-igniting lantern . . . .
)
)
)
I am metamorphing art
a brain in a biological bottle.
What does that even mean?
I am but a latter day fool,
a futile Lancelot sans his Art or Guin.
If you let me in, if I satisfy some gaping
pinhole in your aimless curiosity,
if my foraging philosophy intrigues
your rambling wit, if we sit to laugh and cry
over wine and brie, you will see.
)
)
)
Sitting in your kitchen
drinking wine and sharing plotlines
leading to the lives we share
here in safe eternity
I feel your joys, moments of doubt,
your poignant tragedies and resilient reclamations
Your brilliant smile, contagious laugh,
ebullient embrace carry me beyond
enduring sorrows.
A fallen sparrow nurtured,
a flower coaxed to glory,
a simple girlhood story spanning wars,
historic empathies.  Cuttings
cultured from days before language
continue chains
of synchronicity, plotlines leading me
to find
our brief exchange
Strands of interactive dna
move us forward into more complete
meeting.
)
)
)
I never even see the box.
It’s out there, so they say, on yonder landscape.
Me, I’m drinking dry red wine in some sad fringe cafe,
gyrating to jukebox jazz.
Visions I record come from a differently constructed place,
move along strangely configured airwaves.
)
)
)
Sitting here, in the cluttered fan-cooled kitchen
While a storm-brewing wind rustles
through the garden below.
The California wine tastes tart and sticky.
The wine tells me stories, you know.
It’s the redness and the way the light reflects
 against the glass, along with the drug.
Hearing voices in the silent darkness,
I listen without question.
As the night slowly falls,
I envision fantasies of former lives:
Glistening ball gowns and a smiling orange moon
in a starlit sky appear in my mind’s eye
along with
 jugglers and dancers.
A fortune-telling maiden in glorious rags
places cards upon a table:
“The red one is Death; the white one is Honour;
the green one is Fortune; the blue one is Love.”
She lives in a log cabin with a unicorn and goat
 who feed and clothe her and keep her safe.
There are many things I need to know
and few to tell me.
So I listen to the wine’s stories.
I wish it were my garden, below.
I would go out barefoot and gather ripe vegetables
 under the moon,
breathing deeply of the cool night air.
)
)
)
I prophesize by reading wine dregs,
which first necessitates the ritual
in which the wine is drunk by me,
and I am drunk by the wine.
)
)
)
Drunken Sestina
*
*
Death rejects my plea
One more disappointment
drowned in sorrowful wine
drunken by the seafull
Cast away till morning
Another dreaded day
*
Cursing break of day:
“Bright sky be gone,” my plea
Heavy hours of morning
Slow drip disappointment
cascades into seafull
caustic as poisoned wine
*
Mind unstaunched by wine
Relentless pain of day
pours down by the seafull
to taunt my fervent plea
Blinding disappointment
And still only morning
*
Yes, endless morning
Bereft of evening’s wine
Only disappointment
to pave this weary day
Behold my abject plea
puking by the seafull
*
Dreams, serene seafull
Drowned to naught by morning
I hear my echoed plea
sink into dregs of wine
To hide from light of day
caves of disappointment
*
Crass disappointment
crashing down, a seafull
No other kind of day
enters after morning
No quantity of wine
drowns out my mournful plea
*
Disappointment plea
spews each day a seafull
of bitter morning wine
)
)
)
Gulping jug wine on a rambling train,
escape to vague places beyond.
To hoped for gold, or rain,
love entwined warm bodies in
wild night air.
Any salve against
abrasive lazy pace of despair.
Precious spirit of nocturnal seekers
catches, charms my restless dreams.
Curled up in her wise arms for succor,
I pray for sleep.
)
)
)
Join in illusion, in smoke, wine and song.
Tell me I’m mad; but don’t tell me I’m wrong.
Let me breathe grand fantasy
past pallid grasp of reality,
spinning out sunbeams from dross.
Gloriously decorating my cross,
lucid thought waylaid is no loss.
Because radiant inner eyes provide
bright enough reason to see
wondrous world I forge from me.
April 1, 2019

April Fools

hOLy CHaoS ~ Emerging Visions #17 ~ April 1

http://emergingvisions.blogspot.com/2010_04_01_archive.html

Why suffer fools at all? They can certainly suffer just fine for themselves.

A Fool I’ve been
walking behind visions
cringing from derision
seeking solace from a merry Moon
too soon gone old
Laughing back on follies
sticking pins in pain — jolly?
Morose, cold …
harridan crone
Have my wanderings sown
no happy harvest, raised no cozy home?
Snuggling into punishing remorse
“You knew you should have run a better course!”
“You know you deserve to be alone.”
Is that true? Am I the Fool careening
down the precipice,
broken, no meaning;
is this my hapless fate?
Or self-hate insisting I mistake
a journey for a goal?
A Fool can be a cherished, merry soul
dancing the golden mountain trail
reveling in freezing rain and snow
tasting the bite without bitterness
This I know

Fairy Tale

A memory of haunting nostalgia
I cannot not touch it, taste it, hold it, know it, breathe it
Still it piques me at the corner of my eye, below perception.
The words escape me.
One must be very careful of words.
They hold great power: mystic and legal and personal.
Words can weave a whole world, a whirl of worlds, a wild wind of words
They can create reality for those who get caught up in them.
The right word at the right time can catalyze miracles.
The right word at the wrong time can destroy the eternal.
How might I find the words to capture my dream, my destiny?
Enter the Fool upon the Precipice, prattling ditties of the daily airwaves.
She is whirling blithely, eyes upon a distant rainbow, breathing in clouds
Breathing out daisies and daffodils and a brilliance of pansies.
She is dancing to her own symphony, entranced in her deepest essence.
Without thought, without prayer, without a government authorized identity
There are no guarantees, no happy ending.
There is a tale I try to tell.
Its point escapes me, withering into fairydust.
I breathe in the poisoned air, drink the poisoned water, eat the poisoned food
Like a desperately swimming fish in a polluted bowl, like a creature of the streets eating garbage,
Like a child.
The pattern is corrupted, but I follow it as best I can.
I have been told that if I can properly put the pieces in place
All will be revealed; all will be peace and beauty and love.
The pieces of my foolish shattered heart.

Calling Card

I am metamorphing art
a brain in a biological bottle.
What does that even mean?
I am but a latter day fool,
a futile Lancelot sans his Art or Guin.
If you let me in, if I satisfy some gaping
pinhole in your aimless curiosity,
if my foraging philosophy intrigues
your rambling wit, if we sit to laugh and cry
over brie and wine, you will see.

High Art

A chimera of Mage and Fool
Image of watery fire
a’flow and standing resolute
Creation of patient desire
Tell me a tale of intricate pleasure
Knit me a touchstone against any weather
Join me in illusive
smoke, wine and song
Catch me in delusion; but don’t imply I’m wrong
Let me breathe grand fantasy
past grasping reality
spin out sunbeams from decay of dross
sweetly decorate my cross
Waylaid reason is no loss
because I have reason to see
the world I create it to be

It’s so cruel
all you learn in school
is mocking behavior
reciting the rule
not that life’s there to savor
for the free playful fool

Neptune’s Fool

I burst my bubble daily
just to feel the pain
I paint my face up gaily
to melt out in the rain
My bag of tricks is magic
But no one calls to buy
I wish my life were tragic
Horrendously awry
That would explain my sad refrain
so bravely strong, heroic
a saint, stately and stoic
But in truth I’m just a bum
the very lowest sum
of higher expectations.
So, elbow up and drown in
my libations
(salutations, obviously optional).
It’s not that I’m exceptional
(what a wrench that was to say)
but that the conventional
I label reprehensible
snake crawls into my Freudian
super-nanny state
No longer can I deny reliance
on strangers of kindness who never stick around.
So please, kindly grant to me,
feed my sustaining fantasy,
Hear me, and answer: “How profound!”

Brief infusion
of giddy illusion
glows
just enough to guilefully entice.
Sparkling Neural net
smiles,
a secret
clue revealing
purpose, meaning;
engages
wild eternal child,
ages’ flamboyant fool,
Glorious
Muse

)

)

Here’s to the weary.
Here’s to the fun.
Here’s to the berry that makes us all young.
Here’s to the rulers.
Here’s to the fools.
Here’s to the toilers and tellers of truths.
Here’s to the end of another decline.
Here’s to the best of our time.

)

)

Somnolent glide, sinuous, silvery stair.
Burnt eyes still, closed to the world.
What glimpse might I witness
if only I dare?
Is there purpose to wandering Earth?
Should I care?
But what if I’m missing the thrill?
What would carry me there?
*
Over the boundaries; into the wild.
Not a safe task to commit to a child.
A quest full of questions.
A fool’s ‘oliday.
And, have I mentioned,
no promise of pay.
Just a born again supplicant
reshaping the code,
creating the tale I’ll tell
when I’m old.

)

)

Mood’s choral turns to Spring.
That special lethargy that poets faux affect,
reflective as a silver pool.
We like the love that lets us play the fool,
exudes good humor, respite from
sober shame of longing heart.
That flame, that spark that arts
wish power to capture,
that rapture.

)

)

Let the goodtimes roll
down fresh verdant hillside,
winter’s sorrows
spilling out like seed.
Cleansed free.
Elegant foolery open to bountiful showers.
Flagrant flowers, emergent liberation.
Layered legend long ripens, tangled,
mired below in
torpid traipse through dust and gloom.
Swept into light as destiny,
revealed by labor of cultivation,
excavated, bestowed honoured place
in ritual chorus.
Celebrate
‘round hallow table, exultant vibration.
Energies blend, fuse.
Recombinant winds call timeless tunes.
Rhythmic movements re- and un- engage,
ever changing,
never wholly new.

)

)

Wrested from Mama’s warmth, from
the cave, to play brave.
And it’s ladies’ choice as you squirm
in fool’s corner.
Such a chore — kissing at this
and that for a chance to score
the shame, the blame from stuck-out
tongues, the bloody laughter.

)

)

Penny Fools
Pound Fools
run ruinous errands,
rush past threshold of Hell
in cheap reticules.

)

)

Cast into a class that laughs at rules,
what holds grimy chaos at bay?
(Fools at least are pure, are gay and
without malice.)

)

)

Smoke simmering black deliciously divides while cackling
into echoes far seeking.
But there’s that puppy-dog barking need for love, for
status, for a wise old fool to follow into certain death
and beyond.
Who believes these mutterings?
Who would want to?

)

)

I tell Your secrets
in riddles, rhythms
If those fools would but
smile and dance
the sands would fly into music
Play on

)

)

People I became over ages.
Foolish sages.
Slave to wages.
Humble servant to whomever
gave a glance.
Always ready for a game with chance,
burning bridges to
swim in fate’s brave waves.

)

)

What fool would risk stability,
shame, neighbor’s hostility,
to resist? Stripped of private self-determination,
could such fools exist?

)

)

What can I say?
*
There’s valid point in
all this farce?
That the fool on the precipice
dances beautifully?
No matter
what the cost
there’s a prize worth the price
of steadfast duty?
There is bountiful advice
in the stars?
There’s a lucky star;
and it’s ours?
There is magick,
to believe in?
Requited hope, ecstatic grace?
There is more than we imagine?
There is gold in inner space?
There is danger; there are dragons?
There are knights and righteous cause?
There are chaos taming tactics —
There are underlying laws
that we obey?

Old Mage Pontificates

Heroes – people so publicly good they inspire
us to be better.
To wander clothed for travel, no map, destination.
Direction, decision, matters of whim or
instant’s fancy.
Sparkly lights over our Wintering fields,
meteorites to wish upon.
I wish for miracles that outdo, overwhelm
biblical prophecy.
Harsh judgment, militant readiness to fire
chaos, satisfying destruction.
Sharp dark edges, bullets of desperation.
Pain, psychic, traumatic, rippling waves
overreach, suck in soul and humanity.
Let them fight, beyond our Earthian borders,
those archetypes of Lucifer and Christ.
Let them whip up fierce, boisterous
conflagration – epiphanies of rage against
love. Hell, take bets, cheer and get high
on the action.
Up there, in that realm made of fantasy
and digitized dreams.
Here, right here and now and always
from here on, let it go.
Let the movie do its bitter dancing on
that distant screen while we
enjoy festivities of sparkling lights and
generosity, best humanity can offer spirit
of liberation immersed in
joyful celebration.

March 15, 2019

dream space

dream space
*
*
)
)
I dreamed I was awake in a place I had often dreamed of.
 
I said:  “This is the place of my dreams.”
 
Then, an icy dead hand grabbed my shoulder,
 
revealing my fear.
 
‘I do not fear you.”  I said.  I lied.
 
“You are only my imagination.”
 
She cackles, pushing her scaled hand
 
into my subconscious flesh.
 
This is not how the dream is meant to be;
 
not how I remember.
 
When I wake, as I always do,
 
I am disappointed.
 
Again.
*
*
)
)
Water Ballet
*
)
Swimming in the dream, occasional moments of lucidity
Yet, still, it is the dream, dark matter of my mind
sillily spinning.
There again those iconic structures, melting into mist,
into another round on the kaleidoscope to a calliope drone.
I swim, eerily quiet, through gem-encrusted caverns.
There are hieroglyphs, familiar yet unreadable,
etched onto the walls and crustacea.
Limpid oyster eyes, yes there’s a crust of sleep dust
someday to fester into a luminescent pearl —
treasures beyond compare, beyond price,
way out beyond the market universe.
Swimming, a water ballet, so intimately aware of
each measured movement
it doesn’t matter how the background keeps shifting.
*
)
*
)
Looking for dream tidings, I find images about having to pack up a lot of junk, to move elsewhere by choice or in response to disaster or inconvenience.  Stuff about crowded living situations or helter-skelter moving about to find I don’t know what.  Nothing distinct.
)
Then, after indeterminate time, I was surprised to find myself dreaming strong images, even if scattered in the way that dreams do.  I was waiting in a lovely waiting room with happy, even serene, people to be handed my new baby.  I believe, though I don’t think it was mentioned, a girl.  She was all little and perfect and sweet.  Everyone was excited, pleased, welcoming.  This went on for awhile as the scene morphed a bit into myself and child with a group of friends/family celebrating.  We went to a lovely European-style restaurant, open to the air, with beautiful artwork including the furnishings and tableware.  It was open, breezy, rich in colors, fabrics, yet not cluttered, enjoyably energizing and relaxed.
*
The waitress came over to us to take us to a table.  She was dressed in a kind of alpine costume, with long blonde curls and a drolly made-up face.  She was all smiles and warm welcome, happy to see us, happy to have us enjoying her restaurant.  I looked at her face as she touched me gently on the shoulder.  I was amazed to realize that this was the woman who had so taunted, tortured and destroyed me in real life.  Yes, it was her, but so changed.  She was happy, warm, friendly, inviting, especially once it became clear that she also recognized me.  She went about introducing me to the other staff, very proudly, as if I were a long lost friend who had happily chanced to refind her, here in this beautiful place that she was proud to show off.  I had initially been quite (though quietly) aghast to see her.  Very shortly, though, I was happy as well, for everyone was being very merry, very loving, without the slighted hint of any edge of enmity or ill-will.
*
*
)
)
This dream has been lingering:  I was wondering about in a place I had once lived and returned to. Explaining my presence to someone, I said I had lived here before, but had been living in NY and a lot of places had changed.
.
Then I was back in NY, apparently to take care of unfinished business. I didn’t have enough money to pay for my exorbitantly priced room. The shrewish proprietress gave the room to someone who came in while I was arguing about the price. I was out on the street.
.
I ran into an old acquaintance in a dark parking lot, outside a bar. Apparently we had parted bitterly. I apologized for what had happened and asked that we be able to get along, if not as friends not as enemies. He agreed to try.
.
I was inside the bar, in a largish ladies’ lounge, sitting on a wooden bench. Another woman, friendly, offered to share a cigarette. We smoked and talked amiably. Another woman came along and offered a glass tube, which she put to my lips and blew a white smoke into me, several times. I realized I was enjoying kaleidoscopic visions when I awoke, thinking: aw sh__! Just when it was getting good.
*
*
)
)
I was dreaming that I was walking along a verdant highway shoulder with my brother and his wife. She was asking about my health issues. I explained to her that I was coming to the realization that I was no longer “sick.” I had gone through a long healing process. Now I was not a sick person healing, but a new person I had not been before. My task now was to learn how to be that person effectively.
*
As I was saying this last bit, she let us know that we needed to cross the highway here, to get to a place she wanted us to enjoy in the woods on the other side. She and my brother raced across when she said: “now.” However, I got caught by traffic that came up on me too quickly. I have a recurring dream situation in which I am trying to get across a street or some such and find my feet somehow glued or tarred, unable to move. I remembered that and expected this situation to ensue. However, to my surprise, I found I was able to, lane by lane, cross the highway after waiting for the oncoming traffic in that lane to clear. I woke up before reaching the other side.
*
)
*
)
an image from a recent dream. I understand my dream offers no authority: I had apparently been the victim of a violent crime and was arguing with the police detective that it was not right that I be denied a role in finding and dealing with my attacker. I passionately argued for the rights of the victims, supposedly those we are meant to be working for in efforts at criminal justice, to be empowered by being an integral part of that process. Yet I was being treated as a bystander in my own life.
*
*
)
)
Just a dream, but then,
truth can come from dreams
hidden far beneath common
understandings
compasses and brandings
useful for daily social norms
truths enrobed in symbolic forms
reveal in dreams
*
)
*
)
dream imagery can be so evocative
without making sense
without kowtowing to the senses
to scientifically observable fact
running without legs or pavement
smiles lingering without cats or mirth
dense, immediate quarrels
never begun nor ended
I roll over crimson seas in a rollicking
ferryboat, bar tab with no way to pay
dreaming, outside responsibility
catching glinting glimpses
open to interpretation
*
)
*
)
kind of vague as to where it started
*
something about visiting friends at this old, complicated house
)
then there was a passage of time, and I’m back, out back, by the backdoor, where a woman I don’t know is letting out a dog.  At first I was fearful, but the dog proved friendly, and we romped a bit.  Somehow I was inside the house with the woman, who I assumed was visiting my friend, though my friend did not appear.  There did appear a man, middle-aged arty bohemian, dark facial hair, “hippie” type clothing, flowing and colorful.  I assumed he was also visiting my still absent friend.  There was red wine in clear crystal wine glass.  The man was building some kind of shelf or temporary structure, part of an art project.  There was evidence of paints, canvases, art supplies.  The corner with his stuff was messy and exuberant, like he was.  The woman was sitting in a clear, structured part of the room, glass and metal sharp-angled “modern” furniture.  The wine glass was atop the modern table.  There was a large window, taking up the wall space to my left.  Outside I could see that there was major flooding.  It would be impossible to walk home.  People were swimming to get anywhere.  I asked the woman if I could stay the night because of the flood.  The man was making a lot of noise with his project.  I walked over to watch him.  He started telling a long, apparently meaningful story, but I could only make out occasional words.  I nodded and smiled when he seemed to expect response.
)
I told the woman that I was an old friend of the people who had lived in this house.  I mentioned two separate old friends, people who I have always greatly admired for their courage, independence, difficult struggles through which they achieved self-expression.  She did not seem to know them, though allowed that she was not certain that my older friend was not somewhere deep in the recesses of the house.  I remembered that the younger friend had moved from this house a few years back; that I had been away since then and had just recently returned.  I did not know if these people in the house were visitors or new residents.
*
The woman told me that I could not stay.  I said I understood, that I would leave as soon as I finished the wine in my glass, which was prominently placed on the table.  Outside it was becoming dusk.  The woman said I must leave immediately before it got too dark to find my way.  I quickly swallowed the last gulp of wine and left.
*
Once outside, it was almost dark.  It had become quite cold, and the flood water had frozen.  Now the ground was covered in steep ice and snow.  It was difficult to walk though the slippery jagged icy covering on the streets and sidewalks.  I was not sure where I was, though I thought that I could keep going and eventually find my way home.  It seemed to be getting darker and colder.  There was hardly anyone else on the streets; no one nearby.  It was an upper middle-class residential neighborhood with big, sometimes strikingly good looking homes.  Snow covered the yards and loomed above me.  Suddenly I could see the beginning of an avalanche.  The snow was still far above me, but I could see that soon it would overcome me.  I did not want to suffocate in the snow.  I got moving, as quickly as I could over the icy pavement, as the snow kept moving toward me.
)
I found myself at the edge of a large bowl-shaped ground, a vast courtyard.  It was quite wintry through the countryside, but the ground was fairly bare.  The courtyard was semi-circled by a huge, impressive building.  Something like a castle, but also like I imagine a Soviet governmental building, strong red bricks and ornate architectural flourishes.  There were two uniformed guards, something like old Bolshevik army uniforms, red with black and gold trimming.  They were quite far from me, but I had a flash thought that they might hurt me.  The thought passed, and I continued moving down a vast wall of snow, like a mountain trail.  I could see the open-ended majesty of the courtyard in the twinkling night and it thrilled me.
*
I awoke with that image still before my inner eye.
*
)
*
)
Jump!  Jittery.  Nauseous claustrophobia . . .
l e t t i n g  g o  s  l  o  o  o  w
Whoosh in a leap faster than my breath can catch me
moving dizzily, half-blinded, out of focus
moving along a tree-shadowed path.
Enchanted forest?
smoke curling upward
gingerbread cottage in the woods
may I rest here, recoup my losses?
Savory soup simmers over the hearth fire.
Shadows fall over the corners
yet the center of the room
is surprisingly clean and polished.
I sit in mantra embraced
by soft silky wings.
Outside winter is falling.
When I awaken from my trance
planting season will begin.
*
The wild rains of spring
have caught me napping.
They catch me up in torrents
swinging me along
a cradle in the sea.
I am dreaming mazes
wondrous pageantry
woven into ivy walls.
The sea surrounds me.
I acquiesce to secret ceremony
believing the earth to be my home.
*
*
)
)
The Ontology of Dreams
*
)
Centering out from the widening spiral,
phantom bits of fear and memory
Feeling my way into new rooms, new adventures, ways of being
It was important to lock the door to the noisy hallway,
feeling my way.
Surreal images, photographs in time, scenarios played out of sequence
A mother image leaves for a trip of no return
Another image, unknotting blue ribbon in strong good humor,
willing to perform
outward from my center.
I tell you this, tell you my changing seas and travails
it is important, opening the door, welcoming opportunities.
Tell me, tell me, tell the tale of my dream.
Spiraling out like galaxies,
photographs drifting into uneasy orbit.
Antennae licking the flashpoint, releasing images, centering
eyes opening into focus.
*
)
*
)
Creature, being, created from singular experience cocooned in dreaming.
Meditating, sitting, silent, still, watching metaphoric art film of revealed
truth waft like oracular smoke over beauty of this deep-blue pond contained
in floating ice offset by fog-faded mountain awareness.
Stories unencumbered by beginnings, by logical progression, by
boundaries, yet pure and strong as sacred text.
That meat-suit we use for interface, to find and absorb sustenance,
input that makes us dependent on a scientifically defined world,
magically transcended, hours transformed outside of measurement,
of time.
Even those horrific, catastrophic images that angrily cast you back
into a waking sweat and terror, even they are breakthrough respite,
catharsis to contain, secure, untenable memories, fears.
Immerse with your story’s most salient themes.
*
)
*
)
Agitated, observing, moving fluidly in the multi-tiered library.
So much to take in, be drawn into, imaginary conversations with
bright-labeled books.  The library like a horror movie medieval tower,
fearsome.  Lightning storm, steep stone climb from a college holiday
fair far below.
Immersed in sharp colors, sensual, deeply felt geometries.  Circus
fools, acrobat costumes, hidden rivers along highways thicketed in
mystically perfumed foliage.  Scenes never seen in waking life, yet
perennially home, in dreamtime,
Puissant, what drugs want to promise.  Free theater customed
to a singular crowd.  Instant, hologrammatic slice of eternity.
Perhaps a gift, brief respite from agonized responsibilities.
Respite from cold, pain, everyday injuries of innumerable mites
infected with pestilence, endless war.
In the innocence of dreamtime, what have you seen?
*
)
*
)
Those dreams, those dreams, to live only there
where it all makes nonsense that feels so inevitable.
Dream places connected in hyper-clear intensity
— hard hills of snow become Summer fountain festivals
on opium fields, sickly sweet and sticky bun bewitching,
that cloying ecstasy you never want to leave.
Those snow-robed mountains, forests, royal Guard,
calling so softly, so forcefully, Sirening in, holding
for exhibition.
Who we are in dreams, unobserved for critique,
pictures imbued with emotional sensation speaking
directly to our most private desires.
To live in dreamtime, free of censoring reality,
what would that mean?
*
)
*
)
That dream again
running, running
but your feet are stuck, enmeshed in pavement
though all of your intent runs in terror.
Demon warriors form themselves in the grey cloud that surrounds you, become denser, full 3-D attack.
You find yourself at war with your pillow, trapped in twisted sheets.
Another damned day to get through looms beyond the dream-storm tossed bed.
*
And you?  Tell me your dreams.
*
)
*
)
Here, in this still place,
prior to awakening,
which dream takes hold?
Dream whatever dream you see.
Reveal your potent imagery.
Release your awesome wings
— it’s okay; it’s just a dream …
*
)
*
)
February 2, 2019

for Brigid’s Day

For Brigid’s Day

 

Who am i to bow to You —

me shorn of love, without honor;

You an enduring Goddess,

long honored for your bounty

of knowledge, thought’s ground water

poured, shared, carried forward.

Goddess of brides,

of hope, of visions, of poetry.

We who want a deeper future for ourselves,

more kind, more wise,

a better definition for humanity,

assemble on bended knees to

beg, accept, express your beauty.

Humans alive to art,

flow of mystic cavern seas,

can synergize, can command,

manifest as Magick.

 

 

Bearing Water for Brigid

 

 

Sketches for a water vessel —

united, bottle and message elide on waves.

Voice of Brigid calls.

All who hear: Imagine.

Exposed to wind, to grit, to rain,

shifts of vibration,

rock faces erode.

 

Vessel

Designated fixed space

Seaworthy container

Conveyor through fluid

separates

fluidity

Creates place, surface to paint

tableaux for amusement,

diffusion of emotion,

beatitude against foment of dueling farce.

 

Harsh edges polished,

pure shades

blend in the dark.

Brief infusion

of giddy illusion

glows

just enough to guilefully entice.

Sparkling Neural net

smiles,

a secret

clue revealing

purpose, meaning;

engages

wild eternal child,

ages’ flamboyant fool,

Glorious

Muse

 

(Voice pours from within)

 

A wound is a sacred vessel.

Pain carves into flesh

sense memory;

carries the seed

of its own demise.

Sentience

engulfed in life

learns anew to be whole.

 

Wounded with the potential for wisdom

when eyes are are pried

from seeping, sucking, suffering

aching to censure what future we admire.

Redefine the schizm.

This wound is our project.

To heal, discover the vision;

realign the seam to fit

self-framed landscape.

 

Let loose that genie of desire.

Ride rushing blood streams.

Build a roaring pyre of grief,

insane belief in wrath-filled deities.

Revile that old refrain: “life is pain” or a game

to be lost.

No Faustian bargain.

Just a 

rambling adventure

daring

to explore

essence of ecstasy.

Don’t wait for the rest to see

and demur.

Stretch your sail.

Take sight of your guiding star.

The only failure is self-denial

in favor of the vile lie

that pain is destiny

instead of faithful friend

lending energy

for change.

 

Slice vivid memories.

Exult in the tastes, the textures.

Enliven your way.

 

In the end

the vessel breaks.

There the Goddess stirs.

 

 

 

Scrying on the Moon

 

 

~twilight of the goddess, call to song aery dancing, lady fair your fiery trance rewinds our souls; enjoy these offerings of fancy: all art is yours ~

 

By sibylline light

images I recognize,

creviced captures of my life.

I know her judgment to be my own.

 

“Nourished by Moon rivers

mythical cavern blooms

unseen by sunlight

glow green.” 

Thus she sets the scene;

becomes the prophecy.

 

“Purest white simplicity

curved to suggest fragility

faith fed maiden ready for

plucking,

given in bondage to womanly woes,

hard rows to hoe

for tight human hug through 

crying of night.

 

Fate of mortal soldiers, sacrificed to lust.

Seeking relief, beg for the boon of drama

high adventure

sneaking into sad hotels

for a fix or a tumble.

Laughs,

deadly play,

danger, a real chance.

 

Barefoot in the snow

icy roads

winds so strong

I could not make you hear.

I thought you were my destiny.

Crazy thoughts, far from clear;

but I believed

song lyrics from Saturnine deities

would not lie, leave me

dying, fading into winter’s grey

drifting clouds,

endless sorrow endured for naught.

Lost on this careless corner,

dreaming of oblivion, intent on visions

like rain

tapping against eternity’s

vast windowpane.

Scenic serenity.

Nature’s gradations of green

soothe tired eyes,

trembling nerves, throbbing  veins.

Slivers of moonlight reflect,

disperse through refrains, unearth secrets

embedded in song

effervescing through cool pure air

 

cleansing the uprising nestling

set aflame

resurrected

tempered mettle,

pure, wise, tested

engorged with the will

to rise”

 

 

 

Goddess’s Way

 

 

With passion!

Outpouring elixir fills our mythic spring.

Sparkling flame of peace abides within,

licks battle wounds.

Not ignorant fools;

no pleas for altruist beliefs.

Relief of hunger completes us.

No cunning deceivers could ignite malice,

steal our good.

Unbalanced need reaches to heal through

magical interchange.

Energies when well-purposed, understood,

replenish, undiminished.

Why meanly measure 

scores in morality play at “who deserves”?

Healthful work, flowing contribution, 

bestows focal point for cyclic rain’s reward.

Fortune’s gift, this benevolent wishers’ well,

replete Goddess blessing.

Sacred vessels,

dip in for contentment, good will, joyful

self-regard.

This is not belief or even knowing.

This is breath of awe in motion.

 

 

 

Bride’s

 

 

Novitiate strong and true, my Lord.

Trained to service as is due, my Lord.

Sweep snowy threshold; chop roots for stew,

my Lord.

Domicile clean, tidy, warm.

Hearth fire charmed; wicks ready to light at dark’s release.

Kitchen enchantment, smells that spell succulent sup.

Holiday breads, hunt’s victory,

fruit sweet and spiced, preserved against winter’s insurgency.

Stalwart, luscious vintage ever replenished to

toast-raising cups.

Fragrant pipe passed ‘round; copious wine.

Feast sumptuously satisfied.   Night of dance

with hallowed candles cast in magic.

Rhythms wax and wander, discover heroic tales, grand to recount.

Bawdy poetry regales, playful competition gains momentum.

Energy escalates, fans profound merriment.

Family, beyond embarrassment, drunk on high spirits and love.

Goddess blesses, gently kisses, wafts through

artful celebration.

 

Candlemas

Manifesting Destiny: Pages from Persephone’s Notebook

Warm candleglow through the cold windowpane. I imagine gentle happy family life within. Out here, in the dark and vision blurring mist, I feel the sadness, in my throat, welling up in my eyes, softening my heartbeat into tiny bleats of pathos. I am walking without purpose, or with the purpose of walking, movement, letting the evening take me where it will. It is our sadness, more than anger, more than fear, more than love, that bonds us in that chain of humanity. Swimming through our tears, feeling the dense saltiness upon our skin, upon our differentiating shields, we are creatures more profound, more sensitively layered, than in other guises.

Sad songs surprising us on the radio, or played incessantly on the jukebox or cd or other technology, the strains grab us by our groins and vital organs. Sad movies make me tear up and want to hide, or hug someone very dearly, very closely, denying any space between. There is bravery in sadness truly engaged. Essential lessons unwind into wisdom through the loving eyes of sadness. Crying out the pain can reveal beneath a wild wind tunnel of new energy generation. I will sing my sadness to the wind and rain and mist; I will cry it onto dusty deserts and rocky plains. I will wash in mighty oceans of all the sadness of the world.

Tonight I will slowly walk the dark and misty streets, peering into warmly glowing households, dreaming so clearly all the faces of sadness I have ever seen or imagined. I will imagine the beauty of gentle happy people, unaware of my presence outside their sphere. I will take a moment to taste the salt of my tears, which barely increase the misty moisture upon my face. I will laugh, silently, with true mirth, at my sobriety, and continue walking, wherever this evening leads.

 

What did I learn about poetry?
Elderly, broken mule
bends upward along
icy mountain trail
twin hearts in utero
follow the rune



Grandmother’s shawl
woven virgin wool
faded villages
ripe odors enlivening the countryside
ceremonies and celebrations
observed by
enjoying soft, strong yarn
woven in her early days

December 16, 2018

year of ice and fire

January
*
*
Emotionally digesting holiday mayhem
stuff stuffed down
people so sad, and angry.
Angry to be so sad,
watching their lives seep down
some irrevocable hole.
It was supposed to be better.
Supposing life face drowning in
sweet, lush flowers, flopping back
to watch movies in the clouds.
Angels and wizards and clowns
smile simply, wave past.
Grown up at last,
equipped with legitimating ID
to enter the grown-up places
— where is the promise?
“When you get older you will understand.”
No reward of freedom for following the rules;
after endless stringent days in schools,
no wisdom to replace those wasted years.
Fragmented by fear and aggravation,
ambition and futility,
unable to command fluidity into
structured bones, or the wage
to repay required loans.
Conversation always turns to want,
to depression of what was meant to be.
The burden, not a gift,
weight of a world awaiting revelation.
Wasn’t it enough, the sky snow bright
one Winter night
out in a world alive in celebration?
Breathing clear crystal cold,
warmed by deep blood flow
under our skin.
*
*
*
*
February
*
*
February snows through conflated years.
Fear was my ally, hailing me on, hugging
with glorious laughter, carrying unsure steps through
onerous trails. And those ebullient ecstasies of survival.
Drunk on the gold that surpasseth science or light.
Touch the cold sting, letting the song sing through me.
Do you?
Feel the music?  Abandon your amygdala to dance free
awhirl in a swirl of laughing snow?
In dreams, inchoate, unremembered, do we play in those
moments of bliss to keep us balanced, to give courage in a life
less lived, less honored?
*
Old, glazed-over eyes seek momentary solace, look long,
longingly, into a silly mist of snow beyond windows closed
securely against the cold.   Dream world revealed,
in the interplay of eyes and mind.
*
February snowflakes
Flitter Flutter
Feathery powder
Melt into my mind.
*
*
*
*
Marching On
*
*
I give my wandering children
Anger to protect you from pain
Rage to ameliorate agony
Fear of what folks won’t explain
Fraught laughter to counteract tragedy
Music to move you to heal
Theater to unite what we feel
that vague sense that nothing is real …
Lost at an indistinct edge made of snow
Unsure where we’ve come from, with nowhere to go
Beggars and bullies and braggarts and whores
iron chains on our windows in rooms with no doors
Fire roams freely, unleashed by cruel wars,
feeds forever on days we will never see,
worlds we will never be
given
*
*
*March Hare
*
*
Another kind of rabbit hole.
Ghastly dark and bruising.
No recompense of wonder.
No luxury of child’s imagining.
No spritely tea time story.
Only caustic mud awaits below
at tumbling’s end.
*
Young rabbit hops
beside Edenic flowers,
sniffs puissant nectar in the air.
I am complete in this instant.
Now, I leap to a farther garden
to taste the bitter charms,
the salty repartee, tropic spice
and cold beer. Sense, sensation,
cessation of sensation —
not happiness, not bliss.
The essential can not
be sought.
No destinations wave aloft
as banners.
We act.
We affect.
We move on.
*
I am the rabbit.
That chic Alice had the hots
for me and we had planned
to hole up for awhile.
But then thing’s got too
surreal.  Lewis Carroll,
wacky jabber?
I began to feel used
as a plot device.
Can you blame me?
I ate some of Caterpillar’s
mushroom, grew into
a pooka and moved
in with Jimmy Stewart.
Redubbed myself Harvey.
Loved the cocktails.
Later, I haunted Donnie Darko,
puzzle poser of his final fall.
What I mean to say is
that fiction
is born, bred, propagated
out of pain, vanity, desperation
and the humor we conjure
to spite it all.
I have no legitimacy.
It is enough if
I deign to cavort at your call.
*
*
*
*
April’s Fool
*
*
A Fool I’ve been,
jogging behind visions,
cringing from derision,
seeking solace from a merry Moon
too soon gone old.
Peeping back on follies,
sticking pins in pain — jolly?
no, morose, cold …
Harridan crone.
Have my wanderings sown
no happy harvest, no cozy home?
Snuggling into punishing remorse
“You knew you should have run a better course!”
“You know you deserve to be alone.”
Is that true?  Am I the Fool careening
down the precipice,
broken, no meaning;
is this my hapless fate?
Daze of failure insists I mistake
castigation for a goal?
A Fool can be a cherished, merry soul,
lightly traipsing heroic mountain trails,
reveling in freezing rain and snow,
tasting bite of ice and flame without bitterness.
This I know.
*
*
*
Unwanted April
*
*
How dare proud trees show off in flower
How dare bright dawn arrive so soon
How dare warm skies go grey and shower
How dare young curs howl at the Moon
Winter gave such brave cold cover
I could conceal frigid heart
How dare come Spring when I can’t love her
How, with no will, dare I restart?
*
*
*
*
Imagine May Day
*
*
Brazen witches fly, legends say,
dark Moon nights; arise, stealthy, silent
in their joyous revelry.
Bonded to Earth’s creation;
learning at mother’s breast
to manage life’s gifts and lessons.
*
Historic Man may proclaim, may murder
for fealty, to swear allegiance to
their hunt’s command.
They may elevate their One True King
to kneel and obey.  They may employ
counting measure, ceremony and sacrifice,
taunting and torture or other trials
thus finding for each loyal swan a pond
to plunder, to parade in royal colour,
their place of pride.
*
Cruelty descends, more master than tactic;
it is the enemy of joy, of flavour,
bonding, works of love and honour.
*
Yet men, on real ground, work companions
to soil and rain, engineers trained to each
moment’s urgencies, philosophers of stone and mud,
reason and toil, persist.  Their sinew and bone feed
the ages, build clay and richness on which
wealth relies.
*
Wisdom knows the sweat of practiced movement,
flexible to unexpected obstacles, able to modulate
quiet or loud as the crowd ebbs
or grows in credulity.
Where wisdom seeps through, counters
prevailing poisons, invigorates blood to nourish
minds and hearts, look there for blessing.
*
Arise, lovers!  Bring forth better days,
ours to play in open revelry,
neighbors enjoying shared labors and our fruit.
Accept truth of magic; imagine life into this world.
*
*
*
for the May Queen
*
*
Tick Tock
Times a’creeping
Maidens weeping
beating rags along the river’s edge
shallow floods keep the land aware
destiny is seatide
*
Crazy lady mending her endless tears
Throat flumed, a voice to run from
Love never tarried, though many she married
She cocks an eye, arrowing flocks of fears
Cackles and coaxes sweet mourning doves
to carry her coffin to market
Buyers beware
*
Don’t stop
Don’t answer
Don’t stare
Don’t be seen
Hide in the green
Hide in the hole you call home
Never admit you belong
to the caste you belong to alone
Never assent to succeed to the throne
Wait for cover of darkness
Wallow in comfort of sleep
Trade what time you’re given
for a secret you can’t keep
Destiny is seatide
*
*
*
*
Pink Pancake Place
*
*
A shanty of a place
surprise upon a side city street
painted sweet pink
serving pancakes steeped in sticky syrup
fruits, nuts, chocolate chunks
create your own ambrosia.
*
June, a sweet, gangly girl named
June, in the bright, breezy month named
June — sharing secret bliss
taste of Sun-kissed cloud and honey.
*
*
*
Mississippi
*
*
    Riverside romance one dusky June
    Turned into a winter poem
    By firelight – light of the moon.
*
    We loved and parted all too soon
    Each to return, a separate home
    Riverside romance one dusky June.
*
    I catch a glint, a ring of spoon
    Flashing through the tale I spin
    By firelight – light of the moon.
*
    Sometimes at night I hear you croon
    “We never had a chance to win.”
    Riverside romance one dusky June
    By firelight – light of the moon.
*
*
*
*
July 8, 1981
*
*
We have these moments we may share, my friend
We are not here to judge or blame
We’ll join our souls in song
Our steps will blend into the pattern 
    of the game we play
It’s all a game we play.
*
I’ve often watched the stars and thought of you
Although I didn’t know your face or name
I’ve followed in your form in all I do
You see, we’re all the same
It’s all a simple game.
*
The days are long, the nights are longer still
We’ve learned to play outside of time
Just passing through each moment as we will
Falling in and out of rhyme.
*
Perhaps tomorrow we will meet again
And, never having met before,
We’ll have our interlude of love, and then
Depart, each through a separate door.
*
*
*
Moon Child/Leo
*
*
Created from the Milky Way shining into Mother Moon,
Reflections from that ancient light emerging from her womb.
A sad guitar, a raging sax, emoting through the sea
Of stories sung through ages all, what was through what will be —
Were you the Lady of that lake, were you the piper’s reed?
Were you the luscious, sacred fruit fulfilling every need?
Yes, you the child dancing in the fullness of the night
To ring the rune and cast the spell to make the darkness bright.
Of goddess born to keep us safe and sing our lullabies
Till we emerge as sparkling stars to light the dreaming skies.
*
Heart strings
playing in the sunshine.
Nobility
out standing star sublime.
Ability to set each day in tune.
A lilting aria of blessing.
Air of precious light
singing pure and true.
Brilliant notes pour, glisten, through
the shade.
A melody, a glade of golden hue,
that’s how I think of you.
*
*
*
*
August Leaves
*
*
London Bridge is flooded, melting.
The towers are struck and fallen down.
We well might look at this tragic mess and say,
“I’m not cleaning that up!”
But maybe it’s not a mess to be cleansed,
but a game to indulge in.
Luxuriate in dazzling suds, intrigued.
Work out scenes to turn chaos into valuable memes.
Are we having fun yet?
Because if we’re not, we’re probably missing the point.
*
Perhaps subliminal notes are written upon rocks or stars,
secret lights along a shining trail;
or it might come as spontaneous lyrics singing. 
Myth claims a method of mindplay.
Thoughts metamorph into birdlike beings,
unfurl vestigial wings.
Whirled reverberation
from eternal time.  Messages pop like soap bubbles,
fly swiftly beyond imagined borders
to wonders of continents, oceans, possibilities
yet unexplored.
*
No matter how we explain, they hear
the chatter churning between their ears.
Children in character play,
simulate their own boos and cheers.
Why interfere? Change or replacing the game
may cost too dear, be inconvenient
in this midst of disarray.
Indulged in fear,
passionate ire turned outward,
triggered to blame, to ignite contagious fire.
Set back a’piece where brambles
disguise our winding road, discourage inciters
with inbred eyes.
Pushing
sad, shadow memory.
Hard harsh faces
leer, jeer, beg for tears.
I dare not cry.  I never know what to answer.
Held by my arms fiercely protective.
Stale weeping, caustic, bred of poison, drips through.
*
August month of lion and maiden
cast fiery pure, heat dries lust
for action
yet in summery dreams redemption
shimmers, force carried forward
May gusto of august dreams
inspire trust
for harvests heavy laden
*
*
*
August celebration of the Dark Moon Goddess
under the light of this August Full Moon
Aquarius bears the Water, carries the way
along the electro-virtual waves
shining Moonlight, Faery Queen or fabled harlot
stirs potent night blooms, expelling myths of
what we cannot bear, cannot overcome
Feel in the electric falling starlight
Spells of renewal, of power to look back
upon our falterings, to find the seed now grown
yet changing still and ever, able,
willing, co-creating in the illuminated shadow
invoking the peace of dissolving twilight
of midnight’s hopeful resurrection
of the hinting flame that lightens before the dawn
take peace into each breath, each incantation
from the strength to align impeccably
with your deepest truth
*
*
*
*
September reflection
*
*
Golden night.
High fields of food and seed
aglow for harvest.
Aching for thrill and release,
late summer serenades
romance
wraiths, spirits of Pan,
amorous nymphs a’hum in ripe foliage.
Crickets, nightwings,
mingled weeping and merry cries
slowly reveal
stragglers on night shores,
legends told in voices, echoes,
migrations.
*
*
*
September
*
*
Tumbling images.
Old grey cur
hops on 3 legs,
tagged w/ a red bandana.
Summer flowers
prickly to the touch.
Late buzzing bees.  These old bones sag weary.
Walking past the schoolyard,
I look for you
in all your childhood
pain and glory.
Filmy vision,
weak eyes obscured by tears,
I see you now.
Wish for those littlest moments
to cling to me,
absolved of fear and obligations.
*
*
*
*
October
*
*
Entering into a joy of its own,
love long subdued, yet never
denied . . .
Deeply buried, muffled calls from
memory’s tomb.
Embedded in layers, perennial autumn leaves.
Empty years
temporarily deluged by tears
tumbling like coins
through torn clothing.
Hard earned but never spent;
I weep for you.
*
Entering into a joy of its own,
elation of interchange incomplete.
Crepuscular darkness of Autumn,
solemn, ancient, descending,
anticipates consummation.
*
*
*
*
November
*
*
Ah, November, time of wonder!
How now shall you cast my trust asunder?
Deftly weave your captive hypnotic spell
that I have learned to love so well.
You shatter my defenses, unbalance my soul.
And leave me feeling purely whole.
Dear November, so like love and lust
entwined.
Drug maddened dove,
I’ve clasped you dearly through falls past.
Why does your magic never last?
So weary, wandering in my mind.
I tend to hide behind a blind,
entranced in fantasy, wondrous free,
while building barricade imagery.
If thought be trap, then where’s the spring
of Autumn that migrations bring?
When dreams of leaving soak the brain,
to concede, proclaim all faith insane.
Mad revel in the loss of rules.
‘Til fearing that I look the fool,
I scurry down ‘neath winter’s frost.
And count the moments that I’ve lost.
*
*
*
*
December Wine
*
*
Decant December wine
best saved for end
of the year
held in joy of anticipation
Traveling the hills on sleigh rides
of old
Reliving the thrills over
fine age and spirit
a day we hold dear
it is worth far more than gold
I see a star pale and strong
hear a wind
made of song
holy choirs singing
There is nothing wrong with desire
Wonders of will, of intensity
wild like the sweet breath
of winter
the joy of being alive
*
*
*
Capricorn at December’s End
*
*
Remember, remember, love is the ember.
Catch fire to your mind, to your brutal
December,
to your losses cast upon a lotus sea.
Hold for your life, upon this memory;
into this lonely Moon of sad reflection
send those longing nights when no one
remembered you.
Can you recall, reanimate, reconnect?
Can you forestall, hold so close there can never be bisection?
Can a silent echo fill so completely, instill ever enriching,
radiate that instant, that bond?
Is the memory of a song,
the distant weep of times so long bereft
of sweet release, a mantra moving mind beyond
self-imprisonment for a crime of passion?
*
Quiescent  summit of hero’s mountain
soothed by view of waves, of distant heights.
Currents lift to flow, falling
to rise.
Symbols,
wisdom releasing
over transits of Time.
*
What year has this been?
Wishes obtained, sustained, begun.  Deep inspirations.
Races run, sunsets framed, scintillating proclamations.
Bold, flirtatious masks; goal enhancing tasks;
reflection of cascading plans in sheltered flames.
Relaxing fun, happy laughter, expansive games.
Holding the best to memory; the rest let fade away.
*
Increments of transitions, long, steep,
often discovered in critical obsessions, stored in
popular modern messages.  Hard to keep
up, in touch, aware of cards in play.
Unable to resist insistent caring.  Still weak, wary.
Yet, need to lean on panic’s crutch a bit less each day.
*
Taking steps, stands, giving attention.
Over months and moments projects start, fit, flow.
Unknown unknowns less like monstrous black holes.
Mystery, magic, sage co-creators in ecstatic circle.
Familiar woes, stories of want, of work without
reparation, strangely dispel.
*
When we all begin again
to resolve to evolve, to make a
better trade, more alive, less afraid
ready to dig in and build for blessing.
No prohibition, requirement of mission
denies desire’s essentiality to feed our greatest visions.
*
What bright star might foretell
future resolution, fears openly quelled,
goals of hope in sight?
Beacons, blessings of a night, cold
yet comforting.  Season of projected light,
of ice and fire.
*
December 6, 2018

What year has this been?

*
What year has this been?
What bright star might foretell
future resolution, fears openly quelled,
goals of hope in sight?
Beacons, blessings of a night cold
yet comforting.  Season of light,
of ice and fire.
*
*
December 1, 2013
*
*
*
What year has this been?
Which pages of our story?
Battle wary, ready for rest, to shelter.
Close a solid door; enjoy the fire,
warm, reminiscent of
the peace we fight for.
May Winter’s light mark the way.
*
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December 2, 2013
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What year has this been?
To touch the river, become its flow,
turn toward a swirling sky from here below.
Travel broadens, expands the skein of us.
Doesn’t surely lead to trust nor lessen tension.
Still, to explore, add to what we all know,
the more we learn to question, to quest
instead of merely step by step progress.
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December 3, 2013
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What year has this been?
How did it once begin?
As open vista, faery games.
Wishes released to air in flames.
How might it end?
Cozy cocoa day with friends,
laughing into evening’s fade?
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December 4, 2013
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What year has this been?
When we all begin again
to resolve to evolve, to make a
better trade, more alive, less afraid
ready to dig in and build for blessing.
No prohibition, requirement of mission
denies desire’s essentiality to feed our flame.
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December 5, 2013
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What year has this been?
Salvaged streams of sensory displays
not yet coalesced into moments taught.
Still in thrall to wide misfirings of thought,
sainted lies, fascinations dearly bought.
Still unwilling to call siren wails, warn of betrayals,
of wasted days, of devastation.
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December 6, 2013
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What year has this been?
Those pregnant moments, sheltering a friend.
Sharing pleasures, tending love’s impassioned fire.
Stolen elation, carried aloft by inspired surprise.
Daring conversations that melt and meld, and mend.
Snips of eternal bliss, rare, refreshing.
Transcendent bits and blessings, present, aware. 
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December 7, 2013
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What year has this been?
Days, weeks, months devoured spinning tales.
Palliative pixel canvases, empowering travails,
trendy fantasy of desperate motivation.
Immersive therapy, deep well integration.
Exposition of long secreted personal terrain.
Expended, exhausted – more lost or gained?
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December 8, 2013
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What year has this been?
Long incremental building shows budding.
Dusk’s purple sky imagines snow, shoveling,
streets aglow in festive lights, flights of fun.
Look. These young attempt elemental challenge
as their own.  Look at what we’ve grown, become.
Balance comprises outer fringe to center all in sum.
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December 9, 2013
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What year has this been?
Twilight passages when possible expands.
Pre-dawn messages, first-draft images
subconscious doodles before thought can capture plan.
Empty amplitude celestial structure demands.
Continuum of spectral light draws sight
against backdrop of shadow’s span.
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December 10, 2013
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What year has this been?
Taking steps, stands, giving attention.
Over months and moments projects start, fit, flow.
Unknown unknowns less like monstrous black holes.
Mystery, magic, sage co-creators in ecstatic circle.
Familiar woes, stories of want, of work without
reparation, strangely dispel.
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December 11, 2013
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What year has this been?
Stories of war and retributive enmity.
Resistance is virtuous; obstruction is treachery.
Assumed patriation another’s vile lechery.
Hate is the solution; hate, blessed addiction
closes decisions, simplifies existence.
Could more broadly auspicious stories be written?
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December 12, 2013

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What year has this been?
Soar o’er awakened sky, past to now.
Sunny, Moony, Star-eyed oracle snidely whispers
dense cues, cuneiform runes. Semesters chasing prowess,
prayers for simple shrouds to hide from chaos,
for straight lines, ample ammunition, steadfast ground.
Deranged clouds tinted black from canon fire, obscure vespers.
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December 13, 2013
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What year has this been?
Soft rounds, pregnant clouds, emerging snow
as crepuscular iridescent glow descends.
Below, glistening greeting stars adorn
guardian trees, cozy chimneyed homes.
Thoughts of feasts, merry meets, gift of returning friends.
Familiar songs evoking peace, belonging, generous amends.
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December 14, 2013
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What year has this been?
Paralysis angers at intransigent strangers?
Ease of peace in contemplation, bliss of
transcendent imagery, artful conversation.
Heart strings ring in symphonic actuation.
Pulling forward radiant pools to arrange
within meditative gallery, reflections change.
*
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December 15, 2013
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What year has this been?
Cradle warm on inner bough, secure
allows brave fascinations.  Circumstance
drops hints, encouraging smiles, inspiration.
Magnificent, darling demons and angels appear.
Sway to their spin, up here opinions mere fantasy.
A runaway circus train ride wherein none need fear harm.
*
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December 16, 2013
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What year has this been?
Increments of transitions, long, steep,
often hidden in difficult passages,
popular modern messages.  Hard to keep
up, in touch, aware of cards in play.
Deep insistent caring, feeling, yes, stronger.
Need to lean on that crutch a bit less today.
*
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December 17, 2013
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What year has this been?
Wishes obtained, sustained, began.  Exhilaration.
Races run, sunsets scanned, scintillating proclamations.
Warm, flirtatious masks, goal enhancing tasks,
reflection of cascading plans in dancing flames.
Wrapped up in crinkly fun, happy laughter, expansive games.
Holding the best to memory; the rest let fade away.
*
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December 18, 2013
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What year has this been?
Lilt of merry music, glowing lights.
Romps, amusing skits, amazing sights.
Gifts abound. Give jolly cheer. Take delight.
Take a break from year round worries.
Taste fresh flurries, festive, blurry, fun.
Imbuing Winter with good will well begun.
*
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December 19, 2013
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What year has this been?
Star dome navigates over rocky sea.
Terrors to quell before we’re home and free.
Neighbors to invite as friends in waiting.
Search for that happy path tween will and fate.
Sledding, sliding, skating icy hills.
Whether settling for blessing or seeking thrills.
*
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December 20, 2013
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What year has this been?
Caught up in days’ parade; now take it in.
Peaceful moments safe with friends and kin.
Joys of open grace, sad tinge of want.
Simple blessings, taunts of goals beyond.
Under rambling clouds, upon solid ground,
jaunty walk intent on happy thoughts.
*
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December 21, 2013
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September 30, 2018

sex as power (#MeToo)

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sex as power (#MeToo)
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Rape is a political statement.  It says: “I am everything.  You are nothing.”
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God of Sky and Rain
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Women hold up half the sky?
In His world
women hold up the sky.
Men sit around, masturbate, watch football,
occasionally,
go out and rape
lowering
that small part
of the sky.
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Rose Red
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I am prickly, admittedly.
I come by it rightly.
Organically evolved defensive weapon
(note, no offensive weapon attached).
You must approach me with care.
Feel the velvet of my vibrant leaves, gently.
My flower, radiant in grace and wonder.
Musical poetry wafting, my enchanted perfume
calling for the discerning touch.
But grasp too hard, too clumsily,
without reflection, a thousand tiny cuts
push you far away.
In no time, you will heal,
leaving me to bleed forever,
attempting to clear from my system
your poisonous residue.
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Bitter Dregs
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You don’t get it.
You don’t want to.
It would be too much to bear
if you let your thought go there.
Briefly unconscious, awakened to
hard concrete ground surrounded
by heels and toes, amazing
they don’t crush me, but no,
like clockstep they walk around
though occasionally a(n unmeaning?)
shove — I’m not a someone,
just a minor obstacle
unnoted in their busy day.
No worries.
Not like shoved down under
hard muscle, jutting  bone,
stinking of beer and rage;
or waking from too brief oblivion,
broken pain, bleeding
tears, torn, bruised, a
colorful toy
made for pleasure.
Then the voices, echoes.
Harpies and Sirens, Furies
and sad old women.  Fingers
shake in disapprobation.
Shrill voices call me beautiful,
in the way that ugly things are.
So bad, so pitiful, cardinal
status among the neverweres.
Struggling shadows, whispering
curses demurely lest anyone
notice and throw them further
down, below duration.
Never easy, confessing degradation.
The sin adheres.  No one wants to know.
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logic of rape culture
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I don’t know.
Would it be morally acceptable to destroy a person’s mind
while they sleep, because they’ll never know they had one?
Would it be morally just fine to cruelly use people’s lives
while keeping them unconscious without consent or prior knowledge,
because unexplained pain won’t rise to legal proof?
Is there value placed on personal integrity?
Must boundaries that make individual beings
complete with self-control,
define a zone of self to be respected?
Do conscious beings own a right to privacy,
a zone of personal integrity,
sacred space for self-discovery:
“This is mine.  This is me.”
When we choose to agree for common utility,
what inner prize do we remember to defend?
Or do we prefer to behave as a bunch of random beasts,
subject to convenient moral rules, precepts to defend
hierarchy of self-proclaimed reasonable men?
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I am beginning to think that this whole anti-abortion, anti-contraception idea is about rapists who want to impregnate their victims and then have access to torture them for life.  Mighty big hate on.
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Dazzling glitter of star light
is doing its job:
distract and divide while
they rape, kill and rob.
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Ascending spiraled steps in hope of eventually reaching a solid surface, more a chore than a mission as we continue inexorably day by day.  Or is that eternity by eternity?  There’s not much choice, as these stairs, though solid and seemingly endless, do not provide enough solidity, enough surface, for other sustained activity.  There is not even room to climb by twos, thus enabling the solace of close companionship.  Certainly there is no room to make love between, stair to stair, to find what respite or pleasure such loving might provide.  Perhaps for some of the more daring an occasional rearguard rape may be accomplished, coming from behind as it were, never seeing the face of the victim, so that’s alright.  A temporary digression from the rote work, hand over hand, leg up and leg up, monotonous unfulfilling dance.
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The land, when we found her was warm and inviting.
We felt safe, supported, encouraged to grow.
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We ate of her fruit, fish, herds.
We built with her trees, stone and clay.
We drank from her beautiful streams
which we soiled with our waste.
Gaea was saviour and womb.
We repaid her with rape.
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We didn’t understand,
thought her merely land,
thought ourselves masters from afar.
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Perhaps it is not so much a war on women as another front in the war on people with lesser means. I mean, how dare a woman be raped if she can’t afford her own treatment?
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Women are raped by husbands, strangers, dates, bosses, family members, often seriously injured or killed in the process. Implying we have nothing more serious to protest about than “glass ceilings” is a macabre insult.
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Small girlchild, rags and dust – follow
her morning of traverse, this tiny world allowed.
Each tent flap reveals fester of wounds deep
and shallow, ravage disease.
Senses, thought, subsumed to beat of breath
outside rational context.
Stuck in the dirt, her worth a hole where
she bottoms out, tributary blood expelled.
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It could be rape; it could be terrifying violence. But you got it wrong. You blamed yourself. And the reasons you got it wrong go back to that world, not to you.
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Cross Purpose
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At time’s crossroads, Reason drowns
in rage, pain,
radiated rain, treasonous air.
Weary of care, of punishing,
bottomless anger, of sobbing men
robbed of their right to give birth.
Taken from Mama’s warmth, from
the cave, to play brave.
And it’s ladies’ choice as you squirm
in fool’s corner.
Such a chore — kissing at this
and that for a chance to score
the shame, the blame from stuck-out
tongues, the bloody laughter
“I could bite off that little thing — make
you squat to pee.”
Wired to fight, at any cost,
because, of course, the Cross proclaims
“We’re right.  They are inherently wrong.”
“Those below must be taught to obey
our superior tools, to be broken,
that we may ride.”
Against our better fate, our race divided
along strict lines, by difference
nature instilled to make us strong
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Our Gang
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Outrage
Depression facing outward
Taking power to give it away.
This entrained impulse
See them crackling, jangling
puppets at puppy play,
bite, bark, entangle,
grab and tussle,
growl, muscle in for the kill.
Bloodlust arousal.
Natural as puke, as death,
violation as violent orgy
violation as ecstatic
initiation to the brotherhood.
Life elevated to dreams, goals,
careful weighing of coin and hours,
dependable plans, actions that honor can favor,
love, duty, allegiance to the rules of sanity
and kind regard
have no purpose here.
Men of blood and battle fluid
need no fine speeches, no valor —
only food and receptacles
for their waste.
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Capital Crime
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Sweet old daddy
Doing his will in the night
Keeping the mamas afright
for the plight of each
beloved child, so tender
so young
He really oughta be hung!
so say the neighbors, clicking
their tongues
Take him to the magistrate
Fill his ears with the voice of hate
while he’s tied, defanged, prostrate
Let our will be done!
Tie him down in a prison cell
Make him feel the wrath of Hell
’til we all are bloody well
exhausted of our fun.
No need to delete old daddy
sweeping shit and burning bones
any toil we deem atones
to repay society’s loans
of wicked sowing days
assuring he damn well pays
for the pain and loss his wicked ways
marred our happy homes.
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Trial
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It was said, everyone knew, some whispered in my presence,
that I was born a bastard of rape.
My mother, a pious maiden, in penance gave me
into servitude to the Brotherhood.
Thus she was allowed to return to her Sisterhood’s
life of humble ministration.
I never knew her, or have no memory
of such an early time in my life.
I knew nothing of the treasured childhood that comes with family.
I was a low thing, circumscribed by duty.
I was educated, taught to read, write, do sums,
memorize long passages of scripture, sing in the Holy Choir,
take my part in ceremonies, taught for useful service.
I was taught to please my masters as my only worth.
Any modification to please their plans was my sacred duty to undergo.
Any master. Any metamorphosis. Any mutilation. Accept.
When he bit me, as the fast-acting soporific emitted from his fangs
entered my artery, I hoped this was my end.
It wasn’t.  He did not drain me, but woke me to force his blood
into my sagging mouth to remake me in his image:
immortal, powerful, supernatural, outside of the laws of man.
I learn to create my own sacred place, free of duty, free of the yoke of belief.
I am my own silent sanctuary beyond the touch, the reach of their world.
What good am I, have I, what good does it do me to have a conscious me
apart from my puppet role, plaything of powerful forces and men?
Perhaps after all the trials of my journey, it is enough to have a
consciousness that knows me so well and feels a kind of comforting love.
Perhaps the kind of love a mother feels for a child she never wanted,
who is yet of her, a companion to her trials.
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They arrive, enter a door next to a large glass window decorated in bright colored paint. It is a portrayal of a man on a cross. Bloody red holes mar his hands and feet. A thorny green crown sits on his head.
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Inside are cakes and hot black drinks on a short table. A few others are also eating and drinking. On the floor, next to a large, tattered chair, a woman sits, rocks, dirty and worn looking. Her shaking hands make attempts to feed coffee to her lips, but more is spilled on her worn and spattered dress. She has been mumbling incoherently. She is getting louder. Renata starts to make out words.
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“They fill yer belly with their babies. No more babies. They hurt and make me so sick. The men, they fill me with their nasty liquid babies. They make them grow in me, take over my body, make me sick, and cut so hard to get out. I won’t take them, horrid demons. So they throw me back in the street for the men to fill me again, hurt me again. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts. No more babies. No more pumping out their nasty babies. I won’t. I won’t go there. You can’t make me leave.” She burbles, gasps, cries, mumbles, and repeats her litany. She rocks her body, suckles on her fingers and strands of long, lank hair. She seems in a trance, perhaps poisoned, perhaps cursed.
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From further back in the room, a man dressed in black, prominently carrying a black book, approaches the group around the table.
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“Don’t mind Betty. She’s a hard case. We can’t find anywhere that will take her.” He seems perturbed by this inconvenience, embarrassed by this woman’s plaint.
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Thoughts of keeping still while learning how to blend in have flown from Renata’s mind. She goes quickly, yet with gentle motion, to sit beside this Betty. Close up, she is surprised to see this woman is young, certainly no longer a child, but not the old used up hag she had appeared to be. Her burbling snot and tears mixed with spilled coffee and older stains make her an unappetizing sight. Yet, there is something so fragile, so
.sad and affecting in her defiantly defeated form, Renata can not help but reach out her arms to comfort.
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Nobody likes to talk about Betty; but you can bet we cream over her (secretly, all cozy in our beds, in our heads and groins).
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Nobody likes to admit what casual cruelty we are capable of. Gang-raping children because we can doesn’t appeal to our desired self-image. Her mother allowed it in exchange for food, a place to sleep, the blessed drugs to keep away the pain of knowing the endless, hopeless misery life had become. Or, she was alone on that dark street, lost and frightened, with nowhere safe to go, no one protecting her just then. Her sexuality tempted me, in all that frenzy of bonding blood cries, heightened primal energies, hot insistent bodies falling under ritual spell. She is but a sacrifice, a holding cell for sin. There is no freedom for will to grow within her, only unwanted, tainted seed, thrust outward from the nauseous collective psyche to poison her potential. Does she need to be defined by what has been done against her nascent will? Is there salvation in finding a slim, hiding, healthy cutting from her core, carefully planted and watered in hallow grounding? And what of all those other sacrificial lambs? What cosmically sympathetic vibration can be turned to healing, calling forth a will to grow whole, to become one’s own desired destiny?
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Mothers’ Night
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cascading shards
uneasy
echoes falling
“It’s our calling.”
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Rape of Earth,
hot spurts of words
savage knives
Abiding Mothers,
sacred and mundane
twist into harridan
cold stars
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wail, hurtling waves
Sad, old, crust of ages
sliced, screwed, carved up for profit
“It’s not the color of the skin,
the culture of the smile”
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the scent of danger,
the inborn stranger —
all excuses for Us (superior)
and Them (inferior)
“They are not like we;
but lower curs.”
we may harm with unfettered glee
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Cursed to be cut to our requirement.
Borders clear
“Here, fear fences in
our livelihood and wives.”
Leave THEM to putrid pits
cunning jabs,
our pleasure.
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Thus, all treasure that might regale,
heal, reveal true worth,
of man and Earth
sold for pittance of potash
to dance a weary jig
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Post-trauma
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A child of my own
rape, it shaped me, made me
less and more
Memories stored, to
when I can’t go on implore:
“You’ll feel betterwhen you’re gone.”
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