Black & Dedication

May 31

Black & Dedication

The brand of equipment endorsed by my Higher Power is built so that my hand is clasped inside lest I feel alone or unaided. A closed mouth and an open mind work very well when I can manage either of them and Step 10 works when I can’t. I am usually the problem in my life but I am always the solution. Others may change and contribute; I am the one and only one, responsible for my happiness. Dropping blame from my vocabulary and adding responsibility, learning to differentiate between what is mine and what is yours; these tools are keys and they open worlds of possibility to me. Also they shut out the demons of wrong thinking, wrong acting and desperation, which used to plague me. There are still greater tools I yearn for but like everything I must be patient and build my muscles to handle the heavier machinery.

Dine with hope

*

GULPING

The plug that lodges in my throat

From too much, too fast

Causes the anxiety to rise in me.

The panic fills my contracting muscles

Into rock solid revolt.

I can’t live, is the predictable result

Gulping attention, acclaim, excitement, sex,

Does the same thing

My heart clots and my personality stops in mid-flow

Everything in carefully chosen, well chewed bites

Makes the process proceed

My life works along workable paths

If I stay away from oversized freight

I can never swallow myself whole

Why would I keep trying to imbibe giants like desire?

RAID !!!

May 30

RAID !!!

So, you stepped into a hornets nest and now how am I to respond? Blame you? No, I don’t think so, I mean you are the exterminator and some stings are to be expected, but this is far beyond even your honed ability to anticipate wasps. Cry, running from this ambush? Again, I decline I still want you after the war is over, even if I can not fight by your side. Protest, I try to refrain, I never want to make your job harder but I don’t want to leave the impression I have no concern, so I walk the fine line. Standing on the sidelines is harder than you think, I am helpless and lonely, not as exciting as your work and no comfort from this distance. I must hold my breath while you provoke the bees.

Stack your honest intentions as a hedge against a cold winter

*

TROJAN PERSON

I feel confused by the difference between love and war

The intensity and rush are too much

For my frazzled and betrayed emotions to sort out.

I feel like a Trojan person

I have all these children holdup inside

And they are waiting for peace and safety

So they can come out and sleep

For a time I allowed them to leave

For bathroom breaks one at a time

This was not a workable solution.

When these tykes would have a look around

They started to set fires and break hearts

Each child makes life a battleground

Fights and claws her way across the living landscape.

I must heal my insides from the center of my thoughts

Not send fragments of me to blend

With the unfamiliar and hostile world

Only when I can stand together

With my mind and heart safe within my being

Will I see a way to make love on my own terms

And leave war alone.

Queens: More than a Borough

May 29

Queens: More than a Borough

My drama is bigger than yours. My drama can kick your drama’s ass. Well maybe not, but it sure is kicking mine. Like a rain soaked grave, I stand in this muddy hole, sides slick, unassailable and count the piles of tragedy ,all the while knowing it will bury me not facilitate a climb out. I attempt to display the face of comedy and yet the mask can not fool me, my true audience. I think if I can keep it all up on stage I will be alright, but then the point of theater is that everything is carried away in the minds of all who come and watch. Silence doesn’t help either for there is little worse than a bad mime and doing it well just makes me Lillian Gish. So, back to Bohemia for isn’t it all a rhapsody, though it would all be so much better if Freddy Mercury weren’t dead.

String your dreams together and let them fly

*

HOSTAGE DOLL

A doll stands wedged between two mailboxes

Naked and exposed,

The edge of the road passing her by.

She is there to pay for my self-loathing

I throw my treasures in the air

As skeet to be shot and shattered.

Hate is the obnoxious microbe

Which sours my digestion

And rids me of nutrition and affection.

I purge love and tenderness

I rip the covers from my playthings

And leave them to bleed.

I hide in my self-destruction

I put garish displays streetside

And cry my tears alone.

I cannot ransom to pay the price of fear

I must bring in the broken babies

And put hate out on the curb.

Estranged

May 28

Estranged

After long years I have made my own acquaintance, friendship is on a far distant shore. I know who I am and can recognize myself on the street or in a crowded room. I have a legitimate sense of wariness of the afore mentioned persona, nothing too nasty, just a discomfort. She is not someone I would bring home, maybe not even share a meal with but I can stand her, minus intimacy, minus any deep empathy. I feel an awkwardness in acknowledging her, strange as this might sound, she is no one to be ashamed of, not a truly bad actor and yet the reports say she doesn’t live up to her potential and I have it on personal authority that she actually surpasses it on most days and keeps this a closely held confidence. And there it is, I know her secrets but I don’t keep her. This is what makes me strange and her stranger.

Catch your reflection in the eyes of a friend

*

THE ONE I BOUGHT

There are fairy tales I never gave credence to

Multiple bear stories don’t move me

Cats with footwear have not warranted a second thought.

True love-----------

Now that one I still buy

Hook line and sinker.

Work hard---------

And true love will fix the rest

That is what I have always believed.

The evil spell I have walked under

During my sad little life will be broken

Only by the durable and fulfilling love of my betrothed.

Each time this plan fell through

The blame was left to the wrongness of the match

But not the wrongness of the plot

.

Anytime I work to be restored to sanity by one person

I have displaced a rightful power

And thrown myself to the sea.

ROUSs

May 27

ROUSs

Time passes, I clock it and count it and use its passage to construct a defense or accusation depending on my need. I use the calendar to condemn you because my feelings do not have sufficient leverage for my mental calculations. To prize disappointment from this scene I watch the water-clock waiting for adequate drops to lift the flood gate and free me from your unfulfilled promise and my unrealized hope. How long is too long to stand in a quagmire? Why do I feel the need for permission to leave the quicksand?

Match persistence with cheer

*

DOLL

Why is your face all red, asked my sponsor?

I didn’t get my way, I responded

And this crimson appearance is the result?

You see that it is

I was very careful about what I wanted

And worked hard to be reasonable.

And Baby , you were, you did nothing wrong

Your ego was in check

And you kept your expectations in proportion

Said my sponsor

Then why didn’t it work out my way?

I only have a sad and simple answer for you

The results had nothing to do with you.

Your wants, expectations or desires,

The whole experience boils down to only one thing

It wasn’t that type of party, Doll.

Oh.

If Garfunkel Was Here

May 26

If Garfunkel Was Here

Speak of the dead and paint the living. Paint them in a good light when you can and into a corner when you have to. Read the books of future generations rather than acting as the arrogant, who attempt to write these volumes. Expunge nothing leave it all on view, but move past it after taking in the implications. Water flows under the bridge until it collapses then it carries the bridge away. So, speak of the dead don’t drown them, paint the living don’t stain them, look to the future don’t dictate to it and let the water run.

Rinse off your first impressions

*

FREQUENTLY

When my daydream gets so threadbare

I no longer use it

I must turn to other sources.

When I cannot conjure on my own

And elucidation makes me cross-eyed

I must turn to HP.

I have puttered and prolonged

The way to naming this legendary

And fabulous enigma.

I drew out even longer

Any desire for close association

With the same.

I have milled with the millstone

And surfed in the whirlpool

Drug my feet and thrown a fit.

This only stalled the inevitable result,

Naming and interaction is the need

And now is the time

I have a Higher Power

And I chose to call it

Frequently.

Princess No More

May 25

Princess No More

Decent is less obvious than accent and so it is with dethroning; those who put you upon the gilt alter with much aplomb feel no qualm in taking you down with not as much as a word or a grunt. The wind has changed and your reign is over, the poor startled girl is suddenly in the street. For a scepter is not a club and why fight for a throne, which is proven to be nothing more than a straight backed chair once separated from its right relationships. The horror of unexpected common status is for the young bride an issue of safety and trust not of ego or presumption. Who is she without the Prince, the Knight, she is Princess No More.

Take time to wipe unshed tears

*

NO GOLD STARS

I look at my chart

Then my chest

There are no gold stars

I long for the affirmation

Of my Great

And seemingly endless struggle

I watch the movements of those shiny shoes

And hope to be awarded

With the gummed insignia

When I hang by a thread I desire corroboration

Of foil cutouts to assure me I have done the right

I have stayed alive

Punishment I fear less than lack of consolation

But no one truly knows my bravery

And if I want these paper emblems

I can just go and buy my own.

Balustrade

May 24

Balustrade

Just because you appeared from the dark doesn’t make you a wizard. Just because you make the world safe for mankind doesn’t make you Hercules, nor does your power and foresight make you his father. Your resourcefulness and guile doesn’t make you Ulysses. And just because you spend so much time strapped upon that cross doesn’t make you, well, we all know the rest of that refrain. Human is what you are whether I see that in you or not. Human is a blessing even if it feels to me a curse. I need the superhuman strength you seem to offer but I must live in the world of what is real. I want to be stolen away to the safety of your lair and not live on my feet and fight for my life. I have to stop wishing to be your captive and work harder at simply being your friend. If I can let you down off your pedestal perhaps I could then climb down off mine.

Inscribe your heart’s values on your mind

*

MYTHIC ADULT

My mythic adult is seen by the crowds around me

Never is the charade exposed

Close inspection has been suspended

So we can keep each other’s secrets.

Circulating through the crowd

These children are impoverished

From carrying this load of pretense

Dropping this burden is a risk far too great.

Exposure invites attack

Stand tall, act brave, unreasonable expectations,

Are the water which moves the wheel

The power that generates this ongoing play.

Hamlet is dead, yet I reprise the past daily,

Daily I watch my fellows do the same

I mimic a ghost I never knew in life

Did it ever live or is it only a mythic adult?

The Delano's

May 23

The Delano’s

Indifference is the backbone of power. It is a state of faithlessness, not infidelity, but rank apathy, saving every ounce of ardor for the prize you seek. I thought I was the prize and I am; I’m just no longer yours. Cast aside for the leviathan and the miscreants I wonder what I could have done to hold your attention, the answer is nothing. Nothing could be done. Blinded by the ambition of heroism the struggle is the goal and no gem no matter its brilliance can check your drive toward a place in the epic narrative. Tis the hero’s lament to save every life except your own.

Bend with the tracks or don’t take the train

*

SEASONAL EXPECTATIONS

If I am out of sync with the way the world turns

I can be nothing but disappointed

I arrive with ice skates on the hottest summer day

And grieve the loss of spring

I shiver in my sandals and ponder

The need for a windshield scrapper, the autumn so long past

I must orchestrate my moods and movements

With the evolution and revolution about me

I will learn to sing with the doves in the morning

And the coyotes come the moon

I can spin with the stars

And grow with the grass

I don’t need to counter-balance life

If I learn to bend with the tides

It all comes around again;

Inspection

May 22

Inspection

My disease paid a discourtesy call on my bourgeoning sobriety; peeked in to look for cracks in my foundation, weaknesses to exploit. I recognized the patch job I had toyed with would have made the easiest of targets for this eroding thug. I am ever so grateful that I cleaned off all the bricks and made new mortar. Built on bedrock my re-laid block will withstand the indignity of the pounding, prodding sickness, which used to inhabit this once dilapidated space. I can keep the villain at bay and live my cozy life thanks to a true level and the handsome turn of my trough.

Personal knowledge is not the same as group knowledge

*

SPACE

I stand behind the podium

And talk about the event horizon

Which brought me into these rooms.

My audience, other unwitting astronauts,

Whose lives, like mine were deconstructed

By the Black Hole of addiction

Though the time and place may be different

The physics of compulsion and allergy

Are precise and repetitive

Nodding heads affirm my calculations

To be accurate with the vectors

And trajectories of their own experience

I conclude, with the gratitude of a reassembled life

And pray, with gravity

For my feet to stay on the ground.

NaCl

May 21

NaCl

I work arithmetic instead of telling you to stop. I make a light remark, never take a stand until I have worked the numbers and believe that the weight of suffering is on my side. I store in the cellar the salt I found in my wounds and label it with, names, dates and corresponding critique, all waiting, hoping, I will never need to disclose them, but keeping they’re accounted for just in case things go badly. I believe there is no chance for error with silence and no wrong when I have backup in the basement, but I need to table the salt and risk my reality. You can’t hurt me worse than I do when I pour old salt and create new wounds.

Bang the drum, expect a sound

*

FROZEN STRAWBERRIES

I have them in the freezer, I tell my sponsor

I’m sure you do, when are you going to take them out

And reenact spring, she retorts.

I don’t want to take them out before I’m ready

I don’t want them to go to waste.

Oh the Excuse Maker, the Staller

Are you going to drag all the old chestnuts out of the closet?

I thought you were going to defrost the strawberries.

Fear, you’re saying, Fear of strawberries is not a sign of stability I ask her?

Eat the strawberries or not

But it seems to me you didn’t get sober

To avoid the sweeter things in life

Keeping all your goodness locked up

In the deep freeze

Destined for frost bite.

Martinizing

May 20

Martinizing

The price of upkeep scares me, it daunts me even. I pay the initial cost, I have bitten that bullet of required outlay; the continued charges for maintenance push my face in the mud until my ears clog. Avoiding the need of perpetual responsibility to things, relationships, life, doesn’t change the reality; rather it embeds in my skin a slick denial and an indignant retort to the drycleaners and shoe-shiners of the world. Waste and want play tag inside a misunderstanding of what is required of me; of what life requires in general. I must make quietude, draw a map and find my way to this psychic change; unfortunately all the little voices scream “Yes, you paid the price to see the show, but you don’t make enough to stay!”

Check your mileage so you know how far you’ve come

*

POWER

When power arrives

It comes complete with a blindfold

Mask and lullaby

I am blinded to what effect I have

Others can not see me

Only the unchanging masquerade covering my face

All my fears and apprehensions are soothed

By the melody singing in my ear

I am possessed

The hard thump of the bottom reaching up to get me

Is my sole hope of release

I can’t reason my way back from a trip with power

The isolation is too far reaching

My senses numbed

My thinking biased

Salvation as a cold smack is the jolt required

Fire takes fire

Power takes the same

Who Rang?

May 19

Who Rang?

Examine the instillation of your buttons as a process of discovery for disabling them. Pay attention to the wiring but also to the hardware. Sometimes the advertising is the thing which keeps alive something better off put to rest. Many things are rooted in other pots and have a lifeline from outside of the current host. All the connections and housing should be explored as well as what work the mechanism does once pressed. Is there a gong, tinkling bells? Does it release the wolves from their den or tiger from his lair? Information is a tool which never fails to help me in disassembling the traps and their triggers I must not shy from the gathering.

If you reframe the past don’t crop reality

*

NETWORKS

Testing my sponsor when I’m hurt

Is like probing for gas with a lit cigar in my mouth

If I can’t find a way to douse the cheroot before posing my questions

It’s guaranteed I will get an explosive response

I need a network

They follow me with sand

Snatch from me my burning pacifier

And save me from sticking my smoldering end where it doesn’t belong

We all need a little excitement in our lives

But don’t have to become an incendiary device to fill the need

I forget that boring isn’t the same as death

It just feels that way

Some days distance prevents disaster

A good support system carries me away

To face it on another day.

Pearly Whites

May 18

Pearly Whites

Reaction is a separation, a polarization; it cuts you from me and God from we. Response is a connection, an inclusion; threading a line from you to me and stitching G-d into our pockets. I realize now that any positive connection is an instantaneous link to my Higher Power and can’t help but bring us closer. Tiny feet carry beauty and kindness; tiny teeth tear the fabric of the world to bits. I must let my footwork conduct my life’s work and seal my lips and reserve the dentistry.

If you take the cake don’t take it far

*

DRIVEWAY TIME

Layer after layer of blue stack the sky

The moon risen and the sun dipping away

I wait for the twin lights, the constellation of headlights

My ride to the meeting.

It will be the entry vehicle to a world of population

Leaving behind the galaxy of me, the single star

I stand silent and the feeling of fellowship carries the miles

Laughter flies the winds of memory

And all the old jokes of truth and tribute are fresh

And abide with me until the car arrives

And we make it all new again.

Underoos

May 17

Underoos

Why is it that I store undies I never wear in my panty drawer and leave no room for my favorites? Why is it that I have things in cupboards that have not seen the light of day in years, but they are kept as sacred? I don’t use my storage for me it is saved for obligation to inherited obsession. I live on the fringes of the only life I have; I didn’t question this, didn’t see it for what it really is. I don’t live in my skin only my head. I don’t enjoy today only plan for tomorrow. After years at this address it is time for me to move in. The mortgage is more than paid; it is time to spend my inheritance.

Be kind when you win; be kind when you lose

*

PIROUETTES

I turn and spin, the world flashes as I go.

I am erect, proud of my self-possession.

I can stand the forces of vector rotation

Public opinion and gravity.

Sobriety has made a dancer out of me.

I sprint the stage and take my place.

I know the moves and trust, as best I can

The choreographer and choreography

I feel the wind move on my body as I revolve

The blur of existence spreads out before me

I can let it pass

To spot myself and keep my upright posture

The only place that requires my clear and unobstructed view

Is the line of sight from my sponsors eyes to mine.

Life Events in Burlap

May 16

Life Events in Burlap

Two left feet in a gunnysack allows no forward motion and creates only a windmill that screws us into the ground. There is more perspective, front and back, more view, but nothing to do with it, nowhere to go. We are better off as book ends than this awkward foolish pairing. You go your way and I go mine works fine if we are cut lose, if any one person can be free of any other. You offer to change your perspective if I change mine. I smile, almost laugh at the idea of two right feet in a gunnysack and no improvement in sight. This is not grade school, not field day, I must turn to you or you to me and nothing else, no fair is fair, no turn taking. Because my past is not your future and your future is not my past. Face forward on both accounts and then we run the race.

Allow your imagination to put on a slideshow for your resistance

*

THREE ROOSTERS

The three roosters came to the meeting

To hear themselves crow.

The membership purely spectators

In the longest, lowest, loudest sobriety competition.

Those of us in the fray, we are like picked-on puppies

Who learn slowly not to put our heads up

To spare our eyes and hearts.

The same noise comes repeatedly

Suspicion is never aroused

The heads nod at all the right places

Orchestrated for ego and nothing else.

The meeting is closed with a momentary prayer

For the still suffering, in and out of the room

I pray that will be enough.

Madame Alexander

May 15

Madame Alexander

I am, too naïve; if you show me kindness I will believe you, follow you, obey you, so, I have rules. These rules do not protect me, but they do make a box for me to seal myself inside. Where I will ship myself, stack myself; hide myself so well, that even I do not know. I pull the flaps down and pray not to have to make any real decisions. I fold my arms and close my mind, believing I could never adequately open it enough to safely live in the world outside of this closet. Here I sit wondering what to write on this label in order to be left alone all the while longing for true love, a thing never given to a quivering china doll shut up in a carton at the bottom of a wardrobe.

Make a suggestion box for your heart

*

CELEBRATIONS

You wore a wrist corsage to the dump?

You said to celebrate every activity

I retorted to my sponsor

Yes, by doing them with purpose.

Not everything needs to be a production number

Sometimes just showing up is enough

Putting to much energy into preparation

Can leave you without resources

It’s okay to make an appearance

Do the simple act and move on

That is a celebration in its own way

Don’t squander your vitality on the mundane.

Do you know what I mean, asks my sponsor?

Don’t waste flowers on trash heaps, I answer

Yes, and don’t wipe your bottom with poetry

I mention this in case you get any ideas!

No Stone Left Behind

May 14

No Stone Left Behind

An anchor attaches at the lower extremities stabilizing me, an albatross is the thing weighing me down from the top, it tips me, throws me to the ground. I must remember to choose ferrous instruments over long necked birds. Often it’s not the amount of drag, but where it’s affixed. There are so many variables, so much to think through, yet I often react and pick up what seems as harmless as a flock of sea gulls and turns out to be worse than an iron maiden. Leaving no tern unstoned is bad, but do I really have the time to do it the other way around?

Visualize the vapor trails from your words as they fly away from you

*

CLOCKS

When the clock stops

I wind it up or replace the battery

I have to-----time doesn’t end

Because the arms grow slow.

The device wears down

But the day is not over

Even if my internal metronome is bollixed

The planets keep revolving.

I can’t step off the world

It doesn’t stop turning for me

I don’t always have to keep my head up

But I must always go on.

There is no going back

I can only remember yesterday

I can’t return to it though it’s so close

The flowers are still fresh.

Sometimes I struggle

To keep my hands off the past

Those are the days I secure my future

And wind the clocks

Box-a-week Toa

May 12

Box-a-week Tao

I am going through so many changes surrounding the cleaning out and getting rid of process. The flat sided panic that I experience while even attempting the smallest disposal seems impossible. I would deny it if I didn't have the repetition of this experiment to prove it as fact. I have now moved into the part of the illness where I compulsively clean the things that I have emptied in order to avoid facing the next step, the next box, the next mess. This is a two part trap: part 1. If cleaning can absorb all the time I will not be able to do anything else. Part 2. If I can't keep it clean enough then I have an excuse to give up and not empty the next space. I am trying to keep moving without being mean to myself. Because mean is worse than mess.

Try not to lose things you never had

*

CHOICE

Growth is my decision

I don’t need conflict or catastrophe to bring me to change

I choose each day, come what may, to roll out the refuse

I am not tempted to leave it in to rot just because the sun is shining

Good days are good times to improve

How could integrity be retarded by joy?

I am not punished into recovery

I will never accept a Higher Power who set up a system like that

And give wide birth to people who claim their Higher Power did

My bottom may have been an inducement to start

But choice keeps me coming back.