Sober on the Way to Sane

Unified Theory

2012-02-11T09:18:00.000-05:00

February 11

UNIFIED THEORY

When I build the circuit correctly the light comes on. When I heal the shards together the bell rings. If I am meticulous and attentive, if the world is gracious and bares herself to my mind, I will see how everything fits. I know the reflexive nature of things, and the way life folds one thing inside the other. Whale song is a long slow underwater birdcall. Moon rise, sun rise, then the moon again. The universe works without my interference but also without my complete understanding. I am learning how to be a part of this beautiful maze; I long to comprehend it. The weeds are trying to take back the city. If I lay down maybe they will take me back, too. If I keep my eyes open I might see it all unfold. Conception without is my desire within.

Make emotional bouquets for your mind.

Recognition

All I have are these two hands

I can not lift the world

All I have are these two legs

I can not flee the hoards

All I have is this one heart

though need and want prevail

All that’s left is this one mind

to try to tell this tale.

Everything in this bright orb

is there for me to see

Everything laid out before me

all that I can be

Everything that I perceive as wrong

and know it in my heart

Everything I think to touch

and change believing it’s my art

Once I take the giant reins

acceptance escapes the scene

Once the fates are in my grasp

chaos is the theme

Once the sight of my right place

is lost from in my mind

Once I try to fill the great big shoes

is the day that I go blind.

Forgiveness

2012-02-10T08:48:00.000-05:00

February 10

FORGIVENESS

“Forgiveness is not something to force on people like unwanted coffee,” says my sponsor.

Everyone tells me forgive, forgive, forgive.

“These are the same folks who said, ‘stay and have another drink.’ It is only appropriate to forgive people who ask for forgiveness and show you with their behavior that they want it. It is never appropriate to shove forgiveness on people who haven’t asked, show no signs of wanting it, or demonstrate just the opposite.”

I thought forgiveness was to help me feel better.

“Letting go of resentments is to make you feel better. Making amends to the people you’ve hurt, and cleaning up your side of the street is to make you feel better. Keeping an open mind and heart will make you ready for the possibility of someone coming to make amends. Forgiveness is a two-way street; anything you have to throw over someone like a net is usually a mistake,” she says with a wink, and then she has the nerve to curtsy.

Design your dream tea.

Hospitality

What unites us, heals us, serves us,

is the hospitality of the program.

Fellowship encircles us and draws us close,

in a word unites us, hospitality is our core.

Hospital is the root of hospitality

and recovery is the route to health,

hospitality is the skeleton of recovery.

Hospitable aid,

the true gift of self is hospitality;

hospitality the master of A.A.

Ready

2012-02-09T08:58:00.001-05:00

February 9

READY

Ready or not here it comes: life on terms of its own. Bracing for the onslaught of gravity I grip too well the implements of past days. Fearing the pressure, I lay in my shallow grave, the ground having been scooped out by hand. Withering from expectation, my blood runs slow and dark, reducing to coagulated futility, losing my life in anticipation of death. Attempts at being less as means of protection fail. Less is not a solution; fading does not make life more livable. It makes me unavailable. Readiness is my responsibility; it is momentary. Momentary is sufficient. Sobriety is nothing more than lining myself up with the needs of this instant. I need go no further. Whole solutions, not my department. Showing up, dressed and washed, ball and bat in hand if possible, but just making it to the lineup is my full time job. Even if I never swing, it is still better than being buried in the field.

Put a joke in your pocket.

Simultaneous Acceptance

Being typical is a difficult thing to live with,

but I am typical.

Being extraordinary is a challenging thing

to live up to, but this is also mine to bear,

you see I am a typical alcoholic after all.

Walking with one foot in each camp is not enough.

I must simultaneously accept both

my common commonality

and my lottery winner uniqueness

If I am to travel hand in hand with my Higher Power.

If I don’t integrate this double reality,

allow it to imprint my thoughts

the way it is tattooed in my DNA

I can not possibly take the biggest step of all.

Drop my judgment of these things

so that humility can dwell within.

You see there is not enough room in the vortex

of my humanness to accommodate the jags of verdict

And the desire for the sublime smoothness of humility.

I can’t chase humility, I have had to face that,

but I can remove the impediments to its residence.

Accident of Birth

2012-02-08T06:30:00.000-05:00

February 8

ACCIDENT OF BIRTH

We are here together, born the millstones about one another’s necks. Parentage equates to persuasion and I hold these strangers to my breast. Minds having chosen, violent turns skew off radar’s blip. I am held by guilt’s tight sutures to this motley mass. I long for the freedom of birds to fly far from my nest mates. Possessing sense enough not to neighbor with owners of my same genetic skin, I dream to be a turtle of the sea and meet each other in neutral waterways, friends for seasons of choice, far from the family shore. Accidents brought us together. Let kindness emancipate us.

Test your mind with poetry.

From Pen to Progress

“Leave those gaters in the paddock

awhile longer,” said my sponsor.

I gave a little better than a cursory glance

at the hulking forms

though I did stay strictly on my side of the fence

and grasped tighter the hand of my custodian.

The onceover, worked fine as my first pass through

the creatures of the swamp,

I didn’t fully grasp what lay beyond the petting zoo,

but given my newness this wasn’t entirely a bad thing.

On second run I was in a boat

with a glass bottom and a guide, I had vision, clarity.

Third time through was a charm,

swim fins and a rope tied about my waist,

it was all too real.

I floundered and had to be hauled bodily

by my home group, my sponsor stood anchor.

I have numbered and charted these murky waters now

and I see the lure they have for my ailing, twisted mind;

The intensity of the brutes awash

and the dark calling to dark

makes that sick sense that only an alcoholic can parse.

I have to take to those byways

with supplies and reinforcements.

Never swim alone!

The Seamless Door

2012-02-07T08:30:00.000-05:00

February 7

THE SEAMLESS DOOR

Tongue and groove fit tight; the pickled boards do not belie the passage. Hinges buried deep, secreted inside the place with no words, the door remains shut, hidden. The air, candy sweet, the space, filled with the unbroken stream of surreal childhood. What can I tell you of this living snapshot? Nothing but the haltings, stops and shudders of a life encapsulated. Proudly, I walk from this train wreck only to find the tether stitched to my heart, my soul, my mind. Flashing through the room, I weary and wonder. I have often found myself outside this confusing destination, but never have I seen the door. Always, I believe, this time I am free of it. When I find myself again within this realm, I know it is something I can not be parted from.

Then what of the door? The undetected portal was spied by me one day while it swung in the breeze. I saw the simple barn and the open loft door; I never thought my incubus to be housed in so plain a construction. There the turmoil of my forward motion stored in the attic of the pony shed. So many tragic contrivances are stored in such candid spots. Accessibility is the beginning of approach; I take the stairs.

Remember willingness doesn’t need to float; it swims

Two Powers

The river and the bridge;

one force swift and roiling

the other stolid and stoic,

The first carries me away

and the other carries me over.

For the love of liquid, current and life

I have slipped in to the water

and washed; my life abandoned.

For love of upright contact,

terra bound movement and love

I cross the bridge.

Will I be deposited in the Ocean

or wend to the City and back?

Where is the greater power

in Surrender or Choice?

The Throng

2012-02-06T08:42:00.000-05:00

February 6

THE THRONG

The more people I meet, the more vehemently I do not believe in God. The tidal wave of human ignorance hits me and the sheer and repetitive force of it is more than my single souled craft can bear. Cyclical, coincidental tragedy coupled with purposeful meanness, barbed with arrogance and misaligned fear hold my child's faith under a scalding bath of realism. What to do? I do not know.

The fragility and perniciousness of life war with each other, though loss wins out. What can I use to keep myself from withdrawal into despondent hibernation? Looking for glimmers of goodness in the sea of overwhelming depravity is not cutting it with me. Mystery as an explanation is not working either. I am not a retarded five-year-old; I am a despairing thirty-eight-year-old and I am tired of game-playing and coyness. I want a God to arrive, not with explanations, but solutions. I am not looking for a punishing parent to send errant persons to bed without supper. I am looking for the equation of repair, the dance steps to healing. I am yearning for a global twelfth step, a universal attunement and galactic spiritual awakening. And by the way, I want it now.

If you can’t write, sing.

More Than Less

There is a difference between

doing G-d’s will and winning,

though sometimes they look the same.

Skin deep appearance or monetary prowess

share no border with the will of G-d,

but these can stack as transparencies

seeming invisible to the uninitiated practitioner.

The organs exist and blood flows in the living thing

and the shell is hard, lifeless; though it glints.

Success can be the mantel of right compliance

or the shroud of something deadly.

I mustn’t be pushed or pulled by the desire

of accolades or acceptance,

nor shall I flee into a trap for fear of ridicule or rejection.

The lacerations of emotional infliction,

unloving judgments and imprudent fallout

cause me to flinch in the face of changing focus

and relinquishing hope of control.

I am powerless over everything and responsible to everything.

Anything else is incidental

and with loving help will work out if I do not panic.

Ah, to love myself as G-d loves me.

The Forgotten

2012-02-05T08:58:00.000-05:00

February 5

THE FORGOTTEN

"I am not Cleopatra; I am not in denial. I forgot."

“Sure,” says my sponsor, “I’ve seen the headdress.”

"That’s not fair! I’ve heard women say they forget the pain of childbirth."

“They’re kidding. You can’t just forget pain. It’s there waiting in the wings, looking for its fifteen minutes of fame.”

"And what if I don’t give pain its fifteen minutes?"

“You will be the worse for it,” she says with her smug way.

"What if I can’t drag it forward?"

“Honey, Baby, Sweetie, you need to let those things come up before they drag you back to a drink or whatever your new addiction of choice is. Just open your mind. You might be surprised what is waiting to see the light of day.”

"What if it kills me?"

“Darling you’re not that lucky. You don’t get to escape through death, either. Lean into this and you will get through it faster. Hold on to the program and you will get through it easier. Fight it and it will tear you up.”

Always the optimist, my sponsor.

Dispel assumptions, inhale willingness.

What is “offender” number 2?

I’m not looking for trouble, really I’m not,

it’s just that thanks to this program

I’m no longer plagued by resentment,

but I doubt that is the only stumbling block there is.

Possibly the remaining list is as divergent

as the alcoholics who make the lists.

Though I am guessing we have more in common

than that one thing.

I stare at the various and sundry bric-a-brac

measuring potential harm and formidability,

so many candidates with razor edges.

I take my combat pose as I lift the pen,

wondering if giving things status also gives them power.

I take comfort that acknowledgement is empowering for me.

Tell me the weights you lift

to strengthen your “Spiritual Muscle”

the things that crowd behind resentment

vying for their turn as perpetrator of downfall and misery.

How Like the Moon

2012-02-04T10:19:00.000-05:00

February 4

HOW LIKE THE MOON

I show the shining, bright face to the world but can not enumerate the dark. I change and turn for all to see, glowing sliver to full fledged smile. I inventory all phases, can tell you from wax to wane, but the darkness, the anchor to my lonely life, I can only guess. I feel my way across the unknown topography, searching with fingertips and faith to find the secrets of this magic nightmare. And what? What is the thing to break it? Hope? Reverence? A detailed map? Or is the darkness just a fact? Part of the big equation, the equalizer of the light? If this is so, how best to live with it? Continue the search or post barriers? Go ever forward, looking for an answer? Endear myself to the void?

The choices are always mine. The way, seldom clear.

Breathe with power.

Today’s Math

Today is 12/06/06 this is an equation to me,

12 = 6 + 6, simple.

Not everything is, but math always works for me.

My Higher Power is math based

and one of my major decision making tools

is to run the equation of the presenting situation.

There are many constants in my life

and those numbers are easier to calculate

the variables often prove more difficult.

Scalable problems allow for my Geometry.

Proofs are a comfort when I can get them.

Set Theory is what I settle for when I can’t.

I try to show all my work

and have others check my calculations.

I can’t tell you how often a simple error

in addition or subtraction has fouled my whole equation

not to mention my equilibrium.

In conclusion I would like to say it is now 12= 9 + 6

and somehow I’ve lost three days, or did I gain them?

See how tricky the signs are.

And This Is For What?

2012-02-03T06:11:00.000-05:00

February 3

AND THIS IS FOR WHAT?

I smiled down on God and said, “This is pretty and what is it for?”

“Oh, that’s your life. It is a surprisingly useful thing to have.” My Higher Power, like my sponsor, thinks she is funny but she is not.

“What am I supposed to do with it?”

“Who do you think I am, your mother, your Grandpa Joe, your guidance counselor? I put all the possibilities in you then I let the wind blow. What would be the fun of coming here if I gave it to you all mapped out? Did it occur to you the reason people say ‘you are right where you are supposed to be’ is because you did the things that brought you here, not Me, and if you don’t like it here you are the one who needs the motivation to change it.”

“Take my life............Please.”

“You are such a comedian!”

“No, that’s your department, and could you stop tending your garden for five minutes and give me your attention?”

“I don’t need to give you that kind of attention. You bloom on your own.”

Age with curiosity.

The Inside Half

I have drunk deeply from the glass set before me.

I’m not entirely sure that I am half way through,

but I am into it a goodly bit.

I would be happy to have another 19 years;

nineteen more hours would be a gift, too.

That glass might be half empty

but I am at least half full and I am amazed!

I am regularly stunned by the prodigies

this half trek has born to term;

equally dazzled by how quickly the generations

compound in this painstaking construction.

Development both internal and assembled

surpasses my wildest imaginings.

Amazement is my most constant companion,

more than gratitude

and as of late even outstripping willingness

my most trusted ally.

Shock has been replace by wonder,

bewilderment with surprise,

I am fortified with these feeling realities

and look happily to finishing the rest

of what is in that glass.

The Difference

2012-02-02T08:26:00.001-05:00

February 2

THE DIFFERENCE

Falling and flying are the same, save the landing. No matter what you do in the air, how well or how poorly, in the end, if you don’t land it, it’s a fall and if you do, a flight. How we begin seems of ultimate importance but is seen as a farce in the face of ruin. The most promising of starts can be sucked groundward, compass and instrumentation rendered useless, through a lack of humility. Piteous starts, starts without plan or goal are viewed as triumphs when safety has been captured from defeat. Willingness is my aileron. It contributes to my lift in ways I cannot explain, smoothes the gusts of life which forever blow in my face, and willingness brings the ground up to meet me. All I have to do is be willing and stick out my feet.

Use all your words.

Know Enough to Clap

If I know I’m happy I can clap my hands,

but if I’m happy and I don’t know it, what then?

Will my face display telltale signs

without whispering a word of it to my mind?

Will I whistle a happy tune

therefore revealing my inner state?

If I can’t demonstrate my reality does it cease to exist?

Does my retarded ability to reflect my emotion

condemn me to remedial society?

Is there any other society?

If I become well enough to reflexively feel

and exhibit my mood will I graduate

to the advanced class or be forever alone

No longer having a place

amid the emotional head bangers,

hair twirlers and cobweb pickers?

Is it a choice of knowing happiness in isolation

or confusion with a crowd?

Could I know? Should I know? Would I know?

Who knows?

When I Was Young

2012-02-01T08:32:00.001-05:00

February 1

WHEN I WAS YOUNG

I’m sure it will come soon, a time I can be a carefree innocent. Worn and weary, I slog through the painful over-awareness of what was considered my childhood. What can I do but hope things will get simpler as I age? My sobriety takes years from my face; lines slip from me and I feel the weight lift from my shoulders. My tender branches, twisted with the constant force of wind, bud and flower in the shelter of recovery, holding themselves in their own embrace. Colors seep to the windows of my mind, form pictures and carry me to a new world. Through limpid pools I dive as I look to the mirror. Serenity, a rebounding of life fills me, and I am the gentle girl I missed so long. Longing for my loveliness, I cry at the sight of my baby one. I have not yet taken my place on the swing but I have been down to the edge of the playground and run barefoot in the sand. I will be who I was to be; it’s late but it’s better. I know well enough to enjoy it as it comes, treasure it for every sweetness. I will come into my youth.

Listen for a bridge that calls your name.

Principles before Personalities............and Gratitude!

As with everything I have to be careful

of how I infer meaning.

You say ‘Principles before Personalities’ and I hear,

Their principles and Their personalities,

immediately I’m on a tear.

How different if I think of ‘my’ principles and ‘my’ personality.

When I face it this way it is reflexive;

I embrace my principles and my personality falls into step.

I am safe and sane therefore gratitude follows

just as the topic suggests.

Good orderly direction is elegant when I don’t reverse direction.

There is an obvious way to pet the cat when I accept that

we get along fine, when I don’t………well, need I say more?

Trust

2012-01-31T08:30:00.001-05:00

January 31

TRUST

My sponsor always says, “You can trust people to be who they are.” I am a different being in relationship to different people. To some, I am the center of their constellation, the sun burning bright; I’m all they can see. To others, I am the moon, orbiting them, silent and dedicated. With another group, I am a comet streaking through the sky, seldom seen but well remembered. For many, I am a distant star, one among the multitude, blending in the night with the other signs. Then, there are the folks who see me in a more down to earth way. I am the dirt beneath their feet. The farmers see me as a plant to be tended. The cowboys view me as a horse to be broken. To fishermen, I’m a catch. I am what people want to see, so what can I trust them to be? Wrapped in their own worlds? Yes, mostly, I guess. None of my business in the end. I watch them and learn what I want to do, who I want to be, in large part, by avoiding what I see them do. I do trust people to serve as bad examples often and good ones infrequently, and for each of them to see me through their own filter, if they see me at all. From me, they can expect the same.

Find a corner, then pitch a tent.

The Was and the Is

The Silent Scream that existed as a placeholder

for my G-d was incomprehensible to me.

I entered AA and was informed

that understanding my Higher Power was required

not just some far distant goal.

In true alcoholic form my first move was to shun G-d.

This made room for my rage

which was in much need of the space.

After a few fine years of dissipation

I lost interest in incendiary devices

no matter how large their detonation capacity.

Having cleared the room I brought in G-d as potted plant.

I talked to it occasionally, watered and fed it, mostly ignored it.

Growing in spite of lacking ministrations

G-d was an unobtrusive force living in the corner

changing gas into air and demanding nothing.

As I quelled my apprehension and lived with the Presence

I looked, listened, probed and questioned

the subtle Force sharing the room.

“Add it up,” chanted the children in my ear,

“run the numbers, settle the accounts.”

I calculated proofs and discarded the faulty and inaccurate.

W hat was left, the whole, not the remainder was mine to keep,

But it was not everything. I haven’t an everything G-d,

because I am not a nothing person.

I am something and G-d is something too.

We are complimentary,

like pairs of angles who come full circle.

Nurse

2012-01-30T08:24:00.000-05:00

January 30

NURSE

What if the word God is like the word nurse? What if the person is only the simple meaning? The actor doing the service, the plain act, uncontrollable from my end. What if my active part of God is the same as my active part of nurse? What I draw down; how I schedule myself to be ready when the milk arrives? How I pull and am satisfied, digest and draw again, like the sea laps at the shore, the moon tugging it all the while. What if God is about my hunger, satisfaction dependent on finding a suitable teat?

Maybe this is why, when it comes to God, much of what I do is cry. When faced with my need, I open my mouth, finding only two possible responses: suck or scream. My aching consumes me and I don’t know how to calm myself. I look for the caretaker, the person, the deed. I need succor, but never look for the breast. I am the child of God; I must learn to draw God in.

Paint a picture of life after expectation.

Inertia

1. Physics. The tendency of a body to resist acceleration.

The tendency of a body at rest to remain at rest

or of a body in straight line motion to stay in

motion in a straight line unless acted on by an

outside force. Resistance or disinclination to

motion, action, or change.

This force is real; the laws that govern it act on me for well and ill.

When I’m on a roll it’s hard to guide me

and like the girl with the curl; when I’m stuck,

I’m very, very stuck and it’s awful.

I am bound by this reality and go or stay according to what is set

in motion or stopped, but what about ‘the outside force’?

Am I in charge of summoning ‘it’ or is ‘it’ summonable at all?

Will ‘it’ obey like the dog, or obey like the cat?

Or is ‘it’ more random than the rain?

Can ‘it’ be lured or tempted or does ‘it lure and tempt me?

And the biggest questions on my mind:

Is ‘the outside force’ also subject to inertia?

Are we in this together?

What is ‘its’ outside force?

Might it have something to do with me?

My Mother's Face

2012-01-29T08:30:00.000-05:00

January 29

MY MOTHER’S FACE

The way that age pours down my mother's face when she is sad reminds me that grief runs through my blood. Generation after generation has been transfused with anxious woe. Heartbreak vexes minds full of fear. There is no easy way to round the bend on sharp pointed issues; the route is circuitous. I battle the chaotic thinking to fight my way back to a place where my mother’s eyes sparkle as they squint closed with her smile. The war of peace is not easily won by contemporaries. We must close ranks between the ages to keep the joy from sheeting off our skin and keep the sadness in proportion. Restore us to our possible bliss; we can overtake ecstasy from there.

Build ladders for the boxes that confine you.

Sponsorship

Right now, as I think of sponsorship,

I think of all the things I have done wrong.

Times when I was not understanding enough

and times when I was too understanding and enabling.

Sponsors I chose for ulterior motives

and the ones I didn't challenge when they wandered away.

I search my mind for the ingredients

that were in the mix when things went well

and the dominant component was willingness, mine and theirs.

Whether I was sponsor or sponsee,

willingness overrode ability, determination and love.

We had to come to the table willing,

this was never something we were able to cook up or construct.

Nor is it something I can always hold onto,

sometimes willingness evaporates

or slips away like sand in a clenched fist.

The permanence and impermanence

of sponsorship awes and frightens me.

Like a guidewire twisted from many strands

none of which reaches from end to end

I worry about the unraveling but depend on the strength.

Amends

2012-01-28T08:26:00.000-05:00

January 28

AMENDS

Amends is about truth and change. The relationships of my past were places of little truth and even less change. I tried to be nice not honest; I tried to keep things going even when they needed to die. Making amends has ended most of my relationships from the past. A quick strong 10^th step keeps me from starting too many new ones. Good healthy relationships require time and attention, so this necessitates a short list. Sometimes I wish for more quantity, but I realize in sobriety I cannot accept less quality.

Tie your shoes with humor.

Simplicity Itself

My life runs at a Gilbert and Sullivan pace,

with about as much sense and comic relief.

You say 'keep it simple'

and my disease says 'why ruin a good play?’

The truth is this is not play at all

but a work that consumes my life from me

and doesn't thank me for my time.

Simplicity for me requires respect,

a gift I selectively give myself

a gift that I often use only as a shield during battle.

My past method of increased self-respect

is life in a war zone, this is no solution.

Release of grief, this is the onerous path I avoid taking.

Purging the wrong thinking and action of others

from my blood, my eyes, my skin,

allows me to lift my chin and square my soul.

To plumb and level living,

don self-respect as a birth right

and set a calendar fit for plausible life, a simple life.

Deep in the Sea

2012-01-27T09:11:00.001-05:00

January 27

DEEP IN THE SEA

Under the mirror, there is a life. Under what I reflect to the world, I am a world apart. I smile sweetly, political in my response to confrontation and conflict. Deep, deep in the sea, is a current of sadness I can’t always shake. Pain is the past, but it’s there like a moray, lurking to strike aimlessly, pointlessly, at the passers-by. The ripping teeth and cold stare, my terror. No way to escape it, I focus on the topside, the reflective part of me. I keep the surface as clean and free as can be. I stick to my business, list goals and make plans. The water runs cold and then hot beneath. I carry the steps to this under-water grave, trying to inflate the rubber skin of god, but no. There is no life in the god of my understanding, or maybe there is no life for the character the drowned balloon represents. The sea is bigger than me, the life stronger and more abundant. The sky it reflects as vast as the liquid I swim. There is a Power and it doesn’t need that comic book face. Safety is not the requirement that can be granted. Lack of safety does not end my life. It does not end God.

Tear open your thoughts like a letter you read mostly between the lines.

A Living Love

What I love about the program

is that it is a living thing, like me.

It is not perfect, it is growing and changing,

adapting and correcting for each experience and need.

AA is a life into life process

and saves me because life begets life,

no matter what I was told.

The answer to life is living

and I get to see that being done

by everyone from newcomer to old-timer

each at his or her personal ability.

I am allowed to dangle my feet,

wade, tread-water and swim,

all under the watchful eye of

loving support and critical pretender.

Difficulty is not removed nor is the way made smooth,

but I am no longer without a thread to hold.

I love the web I help weave myself into

and feel protected from the spider of my addiction

because together we are living proof.

Button Box

2012-01-26T06:27:00.001-05:00

January 26

BUTTON BOX

I go to my button box to sort out my life. I lay out matching sets, the various sizes, shapes and colors. Coat buttons are commanding but unsuitable for the delicate places. The tiny pearl buttons with shanks pull my attention but work well only on silk. The metal, shell, and horn buttons come from such far off places and all end up here crossing my table, as I try to see clearly how to stick with the winners.

I know the people represented in this box, the strong, the loud, the beautiful. I know the weak, the unique, the ones of special circumstances and occasion. I come to the realization the simple ones, the buttons sewn on the inside, the ones who silently give strength and support to the large and small alike, the ones which come in every shade and size, which match their ability to the service they can render others, these are my favorites. They make secure all the things I love and trust in sobriety. Flat and unobtrusive, these buttons hold fast the fabric of my life.

Name your pens and pencils.

Responding to Response

Thankfully I’m not in charge

of what is so freely given in this program.

I want it to be available,

but I want gratitude to be the universal response.

At first I thought I couldn’t understand

how anyone could hold this gift in their hands

and not feel grateful,

truth is I know exactly how that’s done

and I don’t want to look at that ugly thing.

“Cunning, Baffling, Powerful”

But they left out how repulsive it is,

maybe they didn’t want to see it either,

or thought it was self-explanatory.

No matter which,

I’m glad I am not the arbiter

of the flowing fount that is recovery,

I might have been tempted to cap and meter it,

killing all the beauty and wild randomness

that makes it real and true.

I despair that others don’t recover as I recover

and yet I am relieved that I didn’t have to drink as they drank.

I have to see those around me well enough

to stay out of their traps or follow their leads,

whichever is appropriate,

but I don’t have to adjudicate their reply.

Life as an Elm

2012-01-25T06:20:00.001-05:00

January 25

LIFE AS AN ELM

I stand tall, my bark sloughing elongated rectangles. Great bunions of protruding wood, giant bubbles of tight grain grown in reactionary curls, these tumors born of abuse and endured in maturation are harvested in recovery. The burden of them is severed from me by the sharp teeth of truth. Sectioning these masses for purposes of inventory allows the twisted and deformed wood to become dry and constructive. I inlay the contorted sheets of history into the panels of the doors AA built for me, the doors built to exit hell, which gave me access to the world beyond.

I stand in the woods, reaching the sky, sinking deeply to the underlying springs, surrounded by the joys of reality, things unseen in my pain- consumed, blister-covered life of addiction. Life was a forest of one; the wind hit only me; the snow fell only on me; the drought affected only me. Today, lightened by the loss of my inappropriate growth, I grow together with my sponsor, my group, and the we. I can accept shade and shelter; also offer it. The bugs and parasites meet with the resistance of communal health, and my disease has no harbor, not in my bark, not in my heart. Today, my program strips me of my disabilities and makes me strong in camaraderie.

Cry just to water your face.

The Max Factor

I apply foundation and rouge

to make up the difference between reality and expectation.

My composition is unexamined by onlookers

Appearance is the subliminal standard bearer.

My brave face is plaster cast

as an estimation and a singularity.

Powder gives and takes power;

builds a glass ceiling then a glass floor.

What I owe my mind

is more than what I allow its representation to be.

I am made up to a spot on the wall

from which I can not move,

all because I wanted to put my best face forward.

Compost

2012-01-24T06:22:00.001-05:00

January 24

COMPOST

Looking at the bins, the stages of decomposition remind me of my disease, the stinking garbage I came in with. I have learned to work my program the same way I learned to tend my pile: personal experience, advice, watching and smelling the mistakes of others and myself. I learned that covering thoroughly with meetings and steps works like leaves and hay to eliminate the immediate stench. Circulation is important to prevent me from becoming stale. In the end, the secret is turning it over. If I don’t turn it over, I become putrid; I rot and ferment instead of decomposing, breaking down in a way which restores me to usefulness. When I work the process, my Higher Power turns me into a medium of growth, a renewed source of life and depth. I become rich in all the things that matter and sought after by all the people involved in planting seeds of hope.

My sponsor says it’s a sign of humility that I aspire to be like dirt, encouraging sprouts from the remnants of my past.

She might be right.

Speak from your heart, listen with your mind.

Frankie

“Why do I expect new leaves to grow on dead sticks?”

I pleaded to my sponsor.

“Is that a ‘why do fools fall in love’, question?” she retorted.

“Oh, I suppose it is. I was doing so well having a ‘listen only’

relationship with someone then she asked why I don’t tell her

my opinion and I like a ‘fool’ I told her.

The ensuing pile of rationalizing and justifying

she gave stank up my whole day.”

“I bet your steady stream of self-reproach didn’t help either,”

my sponsor added.

“But, I know better!” I cried. “I mean this is why I stopped

my speaking role with this girl.

I know she is a reactor NOT a listener.

How could I fall apart at her first recognition that I am wordless

in the face of her diatribes?”

“You were hopeful, is that such a crime?

You think better of people than they really are.

I think that helps you stay willing to help them,” she soothed.

“Yes, but this snapped my willingness to work with her in half.

How do I put it back together?”

“Maybe you needed to learn that it’s okay to leave the dead sticks behind.”

The Process

2012-01-23T08:32:00.001-05:00

January 23

THE PROCESS

The mountains don’t wash away like sandcastles. The amount of persistence required is far greater. Acorns don’t work like sunflowers; not everything is instant gratification. Marathons aren’t run in seconds. If you don’t love the whole adventure, pick a smaller goal. There is no shame in sunflowers or sandcastles or microwave popcorn as long as you want it and hold it in esteem. Time-consuming, life-consuming journeys have a high price in boredom and are not worth the consumption if that is not where your heart leads you. You don’t have to love washing the pans to be a good baker but it helps. Peace is in the process.

Leave space on your plate for discussion.

Lathhouse

I want to face the sun.

I want to stand and the wind to blow.

I want the rain uninterrupted on my head.

I want to remain upright and unburnt,

to prevail amidst it all.

Tender stalks and verdant leaves

frustrate my anti-social streak.

I want to bear the worst

without cover or assistance

but here I am in the slanted shade of this dynasty.

As I grow so does the awareness

that even when I am strong enough

to leave this sheltered abode

I will be relocated to a row where I am never alone.

The Music

2012-01-22T09:49:00.001-05:00

January 22

THE MUSIC

I hear a tinkling noise and look around the room. No, it’s coming from my head. It’s the sound of the music of my life. The bells, a horn or two, the strings, always the strings. The sharp clear cry of the vixen, calling from the hedge row. The lonely voice of resolve. The melody shifts, tomorrow’s tune warming up in the wee hours of the night. I don’t try to part my lips. Replication is not yet a possibility. I am only just learning to move with the rhythm, keep the beat in my heart and draw it down for my toe to tap. I cannot sing my song. I must let it live in me a while longer. I can’t share things of which I haven’t had my fill. Giving too much, too often, makes the anthem run thin. I have to be fully me, to be full voiced. I need to stew in the juice of overflowing harmony. The pounding of my feet on the steps unite the accord.

Wild things and practiced plans put forward the waves of life on earth. I follow, placing my feet in well-worn treads, the dance school reopened for sober living. Passion plays and calls my response. For today, I pass. I leave the song inside.

Talk to yourself in a possibly unknown language.........Kindness

Guest Flag

The polite thing to do is

fly the silly blue rectangle

with its equally silly white diagonal stripe.

That would be the polite thing, for sure

but that would peek my disease’s hold card.

If anyone knew that my illness

was sailing my ship instead of me

the effect would be ruined.

Or so says the canker that grips me

and steers me to disaster.

Announcing this day-tripper as an unentitled accessory

to whatever wrong I am about to commit

might warn my friends or enlist my sponsor,

But no I leave my colors fly

and endanger the surrounding water.

For in truth my flag is just as fraudulent

as this vessel and is only on loan to me as well.

The Frog

2012-01-21T06:45:00.000-05:00

January 21

THE FROG

Stretched in the water, still, the frog hangs. The pond is barely a teacup, sufficient for the communion of God and frog. I watch the frog, unblinking , savoring respiration. In a pond in Maine, I bore this posture, center stage. A quarter mile of water all around, I hold my head above the surface and feel I am in the eye of God’s creation, face to face with benevolence. Peace spars with uneasy smallness. I am a tiny speck, floating in the soup; I am one organism in a sea teaming with life; I am a part of, not privileged but equal to the rest. Can I bear this reality, the struggle of living on a web? Can I live a humble life, knowing I am favored no more than the rest? Can I set aside my need for preferential treatment, a God-given Band-Aid for my multitude of hurt?

“If you can’t, you will drink," says my sponsor.

“If I have to live this way, I will cry,” I respond.

“That is your God-given right.”

Take someone else’s Higher Power out for a test drive.

Saurian or Dalliance

I love to be mystical

but the only dragon in my life

is when I drag on and on.

Procrastination is the winged beast in my world.

I armor plate the thing, shiny and gleaming,

my loitering delay is mightily impressive.

You might think it would take flight

from the way it postures

but departure has been adjourned

in favor of misgiving and postponement.

I wander through the forest

attempting to appear brave and feeling it occasionally

while my tale grows longer.

I need the fierce face and sharp claws

I can beat the mythology

if I will just continue to take action.

Because

2012-01-20T08:54:00.000-05:00

January 20

BECAUSE

Because I am my father’s child, I make my attendance at meetings frequent and regular. Having looked deeply in the genetic mirror, I see so many bitter days. I’ve run from the implications and sheltered in the steps. The humility that saved my life is the understanding I am no different from my family. And, since this is a progressive disease we all have, I will just get there faster. Knowing who I can be helps me turn my will over and keeps me grasping my Higher Power’s belt loop. All I am turns in every direction and can pull or push, lift or fall. I know my assets and I know their power and their limitations. All my hope is placed on a plan to use these resources. I follow the only lead which has never promised more than it can deliver.

Be your own loving parent.

What Is A Sheep To Do?

Things are bad out there.

I see the trouble as I circle within the flock.

Many of us whisper to each other as we pass.

How can I create lasting change?

Is there something helpful

that will not separate me from my precious life,

something that will not make me prey

to the vultures before I even realize that I’m dead?

How can I live and strive

while the wolves hold the hilltops?

Is the choice merely, one death or the other?

Is there an as yet unseen path?

Can I find it

while maintaining my place in this congregation?

What is a sheep to do?

Rock Bottom Prices

2012-01-19T06:15:00.001-05:00

January 19

ROCK BOTTOM PRICES

Marble topped dressers, dry sinks and wardrobes, standing in the auctioneer’s warehouse, show loving use and obvious value. The hungry consumers peruse the merchandise looking for the perfect piece to fit their need. Old men eating ice cream sandwiches pick their way through the rows of tidbits laid out on the lawn, bargains to fill in odd spaces and little desires. So like our meeting places, where people try to refurnish their lives. The cost to arrive may have been high, but ones in the market is more than fair. We reclaim relics and we use them as road signs and warnings. There is always someone around to carry large truths home and no one has to go away empty handed. We bid on our own survival by buying someone else a break. Time passes easily, as the one at the podium recounts the rock bottom prices.

Curl up inside the nautilus of your mind and take a nap.

Tea or Sympathy

Tears pouring into the teacup

growing cold on the table

create a sea of emotions uncharted.

If I cannot offer sympathy to the contents,

the soulless heel that I am,

how then do I expect to have a future?

If I will tender only meager tolerance

toward the spindled thing

valiantly trying to beat within me

why do I even show my face to the mirror?

If shoulders are cold and turned inward

then I will collapse into the inexpressive,

dismal thing that has been misshapen

through misuse.

I might as well drink the chilly tea

for that is all the comfort I will get.

I must do better by myself

in order to brew a better world.

There is a Tree

2012-01-18T08:39:00.001-05:00

January 18

THERE IS A TREE

There is a tree in the woods. I’ve seen it. It is cut off from any visible source of strength or sustenance. Carried aloft by the surrounding trees, the splintered trunk dangles in the air. It makes no connection to the forest floor. I know the feeling. I have been cut off too. Violently separated from my God, as it were. I probe the fractured stump at the bottom of my soul. I explore the crevices seeking tendrils of hope. My anxiety bonds to my frustration, but faith eludes me. I look down to the broken place, the view unrealized by me. I have a vista of unimagined beauty provided to me by the growth of others. I am eye to eye with my peers, held in their loving embrace. I bloom and flower with them. I endure the winters the same as they, and come spring am the stronger for it. I don’t know why I was damaged. I don’t know why I was saved. I am grateful it is done.

My sponsor says it’s for our sobriety and the pleasure of your company.

Think of three honorable people.

Between Two Chains

The curving movement half seen sweeps forward

and catches me squarely on the chin.

Realization glimmers that next time

it will strike me in the mouth

and I take a step back.

I estimate the returning arc, raise my arms,

push the board back from whence it came.

As it hurtles toward me once more, I reposition.

Force returns force;

fury comes vigorously my way

and I thrust with strength and enthusiasm.

And this is fine for what it is.

I have learned how not to get hit.

I can push when I get shoved.

How much better will it be

when I can get on and swing?

In the Comfort of My Room

2012-01-17T08:17:00.000-05:00

January 17

IN THE COMFORT OF MY ROOM

I sit and panic concerning the future. I have come through hell, built a safe and satisfying life, but it will all end soon. I can feel it. The tide rises in my soul, the blood red tide of self-doubt and degradation. I fail to see my strength, or intelligence. Hell, I can’t even remember the sheer willingness, which has carried me this far. All I see are shreds, tattered little bits of my hopes and dreams, scattered by the breeze of fate.

What is the point of me being in this sweet space if I’m going to intellectually turn it to a dungeon? Why set out fluffy pillows only to frighten myself daily with thoughts of their removal? How can I pray for safety and practice personal terrorism? With an open mind? No! My mind is closed to the double side of life. I know the destruction but forget the glory. I have washed ashore in the land of love and support. I need not drag my mind and spirit to the nether world of hopelessness. I’ve been to the dark places. My task is to warm in the sunlit today.

Make an anagram of your name, which empowers you.

Hades

There is strangeness to the dark.

A velvety comfort

when my paranoia is not alive

with ice crystals and contempt.

Cocoons of light create hives of life

in an otherwise isolating phenomena.

Pressing to my skin I can wear the night out

as a jewel, a talisman for the hope I dare not share.

Pixies and faeries inhabit dawn’s wee hours

but the black blank stretch of space

is home to things quite different.

Unspeakable in their face I allow them to pass.

Should I be carried off my return is eminent

for half the seeds remain.

Not wholly ransomed I live only part time in the sun.

When the shadows fall there is the oddness of home

I can neither embrace nor deny.

Feeding Squirrels on a One Lane Bridge

2012-01-16T08:25:00.000-05:00

January 16

FEEDING SQUIRRELS ON A ONE LANE BRIDGE

Cattle corn spread on the single Lane Bridge---the trap. Food or safety? There are plenty of other choices; my disease sees none of them. Gluttony and danger the perfect combination. How can I resist? Why would I resist? I have to have more. I cannot depend on my nature, the ability God gave me to survive in my environs. Help must come from outside, and must be wild and dramatic. Inward help is boring, subtle, tiresome. Where’s my image? My excitement?

How am I going to prove my God worthy without too much, without perilous risk and rescue? I can’t. I can’t prove my God, and my God doesn’t need to prove anything to me. I can find my way, off the beaten path, away from the prying eyes of rubberneckers. No cheers from the crowd are necessary. I have the equipment. It came standard. If I look at the controls and follow the twelve step tutorial, I should be able to manage just fine. No Mack truck in my face, as I stuff myself with ill-gotten grain.

Look deeply into a glass of water searching for mermaids.

Bon

Comfort or motivation

these are the two major reasons for building a fire.

Sometimes I set it before me

other times under me.

The warmth can be soothing

and the light dazzling,

but licking flames move me

off the spot like nothing else.

Fuel and surrounds contribute to the effect.

Mental state and personal company

provide dampening or air.

How high the flames rise or how long they burn

varies widely inspiring my passions,

my thoughts, my fears

The conflagration is an apt tool

as long as I don’t go up in smoke.

No Maps

2012-01-15T09:23:00.000-05:00

January 15

NO MAPS

Maps have existed longer than I have. By the time of my birth, aerial photography had made pinpoint accuracy the norm. I can be tracked by satellite on my daily commute. I can get a Trip Tik and travel to the far reaches of this continent.

"So what’s your problem?” asks my sponsor.

There is no map for where we’ve been going. There are the twelve steps but after that, it is all uncharted territory, except, of course for my family’s warnings about dragons.

“Those critters stay to home mostly. You have bigger things to worry about.”

So, where’s the map? I need to know where to go.

“No map. We go through this together. The pitfalls are similar: sex and money. There are a few others. What each of us finds on this journey is unchartable, plus if you spend your time looking down, you will miss the view. We prop each other up as we step off into the unknown, and reel each other back if we start falling off the beam.”

How do I know if I’m doing it right?

“Are you still sober?”

Yes, but I’m unsure. Lots of people are sober right up until the time they’re drunk.

“So true. It’s all about motive, and it’s difficult to chart your heart. Do you have willingness?”

Yes, you know I do.

“I have found that is the vehicle to everywhere, Honey. Learn to enjoy the ride.”

Write silly verse.

Comparison Shopping

Cost analysis of the yeas and nays

requires a savvy consumer.

Every word has a variable price

dependent on whom it is spoken to

and when it is said.

Some words charge compound interest

and others pay dividends.

Timing and delivery is of the utmost importance.

Knowledge of the markets requires constant assessment.

The risk to benefit ratio varies widely

and the short term verses the long term price

can flip the market from profit to loss.

Hold my tongue, speak my mind,

these must be weighed;

the clock consulted and inventories taken.

What I say and when

can be less a matter of bull or bear

than whether or not I can afford to be a sheep.

Gravity Works All the Time

2012-01-14T10:35:00.001-05:00

January 14

GRAVITY WORKS ALL THE TIME

Limits and boundaries are a drag. I hate feeling tied to the ground. I know I could fly if not for unseen forces. I sense myself lightening, smoothing, I drop my burdens; I pick up speed. Fourth dimension! Hell! I’m proverbial vapor trails. At this time I should explain. When I get moving this fast, I inevitably wind myself into a position where my head is up my in my nether regions, a place it does not belong.

I have slowly grown to love my limits; no restraint holds me back. In reality, I am supported, rooted as it were. I am not a hydroponic. I can live in the real world. I am me. Encouraged by the wind and the rain, I am not the hot house flower. I am truly free. I can walk where I was born to walk. I forget life has not been found outside my little world, and when it is, I’m still better off being me.

Introduce yourself to a new vegetable.

Specks

Spectacles are for specks;

tiny things that must be watched.

Commotion is nothing but a congregation

of minutia with an audience.

How many small things

do I strain my eyes to see;

then seek help to pursue further?

Some of these are put on display fishing for voyeurs.

Others are secreted away

only to be ferreted out through magnification.

Whether curiosity or contempt drives me

to these pinpoints I must search my motives

before I scan the plain.

For truly if I am not careful

I, myself will end up either speck or spectacle.

Catch

2012-01-13T06:21:00.000-05:00

January 13

CATCH

How can my sensibility catch my intellect? Or find a map with enough information to get my heart to the current location of my mind? What are the common markers recognized by soul and brain? I know the pulse of my wrist is counter-pointing the firing of my synapses. My life signs run their course and I struggle to find the intersections. I long for more than signposts and curbing. I would like parallels, paradigms and conclusions. There must be a place of common home and hearth. I am looking for the depot of my life. I hope I hit it before I hit the coast.

Warm your heart with your thoughts.

Offset

I often feel out of round

and unmatched to my counterparts.

Awkwardly I sit unable to strike a plausible pose.

I want my asymmetry to seem chic.

I feel a victim of universal ugliness

and gracelessly plod through my days.

Luckily offset thinking,

the partner of my offset soul, saves me.

I see that I am uniquely useful,

Like a screwdriver set at right angles

for use where a straight one could not reach.

I am counterbalance and compensation.

I may be lateral but I am also collateral.

I am an embellisher, beneficial in unexpected ways

and shouldn’t seek to be inline with the multitude.

I am the new growth,

the spur to the future.

Life Is Too Good

2012-01-12T06:14:00.000-05:00

January 12

LIFE IS TOO GOOD

I know it sounds crazy. Is crazy. But I hate having the fear, the gnawing gut of “what if I can’t maintain this”? The sober life I live, what if I get struck unable to connect to my Higher Power? I had a spiritual awakening; what if I get spiritual narcolepsy? My spiritual cord was cut when I was young, not by my choosing. What if it’s cut again?

“What if this line of thinking cuts it?” asks my sponsor

I hate when she’s right. What if this is the test? Be like them or not. Follow the path of the twelve steps when there is no weight of need pushing me. I have to keep my eye on the ball for myself when everything is going in my direction. I’m still not God. This is the lesson the abusers never learned. The one I have to.

“This has been a prelude to a decision,” says she.

What decision?

“What went wrong was not bad people making bad choices in bad circumstances. It was disconnected people making decisions without help.”

I have to stay in your pocket. Never be a free bird. I have to remember what true freedom is. It’s not being cut loose. I had that and it never felt free.

“Keep your eye on the ball; hold onto my hand.”

Read a children’s book to yourself.

Live Bait

Is being a taunt to others really a life?

Dangling as the cover for a hook,

luring intended and unintended to their deaths,

is that living?

Or if I draw you with my attack

rather than my appeal

is that a worthwhile existence?

If I carry myself filled with poison

praying for a strike is that anything

other than a march to an unhappy grave

for two, or more?

Hidden under an avalanche of harassment

strips me of my vital quality

and my soul loses its true nature.

I am allowed to transcend

the setup of competition and social strife.

It’s alright to be tempting with no agenda.

I could be an appetizer

if only I removed the barbs

or better yet I could be dessert.

Loneliness Eats My Lunch

2012-01-11T06:36:00.000-05:00

January 11

LONELINESS EATS MY LUNCH

There are days loneliness eats my lunch and I can’t fight back. How can I stand it? How can it still be this bad? I pull out the old chestnuts: If I’m not happy with what I have, how could I be happier with more? And, Even tickets on the fifty yard line don’t interest me; I came to play! I roll them around. I think of the other slogans, the tidbits, the smiles and hugs. Still, there are days my lunch is gulped down and I sit with my plate empty. Pickle juice, coleslaw drool is small comfort. Actually, it’s a jeer. I stare at my empty plate. I turn it and twist it. I stick out my tongue at it.

“You're good company,” says my sponsor.

Then why am I alone? If I’m so good, if my company is worthwhile, why do I sit here hungry and desperate?

“Are you sure you are?”

It sure feels that way.

“Well it might be true.”

And it might not. I get it. I am unhooked from myself; I’m ignoring the multitude at my elbow, looking for someone in my lap. I’m holding out for old terms from a new contract. I am loved by people who aren’t trying to consume me and I am letting my expectations dine for free.

Imagine who the wind visited before you and who it is on its way to visit now.

Pepo

My father used to destroy a perfectly good watermelon

by cutting a triangle in the top

and pouring a bottle of vodka into it.

I used to destroy my perfectly good melon the same way.

Emulating bad ideas in new ways

was a onetime pastime of mine.

Giving it up was harder than I had expected.

Flawed thinking blends so freely with my mental landscape

I have trouble distinguishing it.

Condemning the action and not the man

is not usually my preferred method.

I would rather condemn the man.

But this leaves me with the actions in place

and him long gone and though I prefer him gone

I will recreate him within myself

if I don’t flush his actions as well.

I have a good pumpkin on my shoulders

but it is my job to keep it intact.

Breaking my own Glass

2012-01-10T08:23:00.001-05:00

January 10

BREAKING MY OWN GLASS

The police of a small town caught a serial glass breaker today. The man who owned a plate glass repair shop was breaking store front windows. I break my own. I go through my life; I slash my own tires and break my own glass. I fear continuity, stability, success. I love damage control, making arts and crafts from my slivers and shards.

“Think what you could do with undamaged goods,” says my sponsor.

I don’t know how to do anything with undamaged goods, except damage them or give them to others.

“Saddest thing I’ve ever heard,” she counters.

“Stick around,” I tease.

I can make a quilt from discarded clothes, mosaics from shattered dishes, collage from junk mail. I can hold your hand and cheer you on. See the potential in every person in a crowded hall. Rescue every stray on the block.

“What have you done for you lately?” my sponsor taunts.

She is making my point. What can I do for me? Search and destroy? Live outside myself? I have to be sober to be me. I can’t go around making messes so I have something familiar to wallow in. What if I can’t do anything fresh?

“Learn to market the retreads,” she says.

Watch an old thing in a new way.

Hoarfrost

On balmy evenings dew forms in my life

and moistens my extremities.

This friendly act requires the maintenance of temperature.

If I become suddenly cool the landscape changes

and the once welcoming vapor

is now a show of crystalline rigidity.

Cold to the morning light I am brittle

and snap at even a tentative touch.

For want of passion I have replaced it

with definition and structure I can not absorb.

I am outlined clearly but no longer myself.

I am frozen, formally changed within and without.

Warmth is necessary, but how to start my own fire?

Learn I must and quickly, lest frostbite set in.

In a Backwater

2012-01-09T06:13:00.001-05:00

January 9

IN A BACKWATER

There is a place so removed, uninspired, ignorance flourishes. I hate to go there. I avoid it when I can. Today I could not avoid it. Today I saw the gable end of a small barn, half hidden in the scrub trees. On the face of the gable end are two plywood cutouts, large, taking up the major portion of the space. The first cutout is a budgie, a bright blue parakeet, 7 or 8 feet tall. Tilted to its side, it looks dyslexic, but intriguing. Above it is a cutout of a black guitar, similar length, hanging long ways across the top, almost from eave to eave. I don’t know what it means, why they are there, who could have put them there.

A story’s tongue is sticking out at me; I can hardly bear it. I think of God, and laugh. If my God has nothing better to do than tease me, I need a better God. I think of my Higher Power and wonder if the power is curious, too. Am I overlapping a layer of consciousness I have no part in? Is this a subliminal preview of my future? Or am I far too nosy for my own good? My sponsor says the latter. I just don’t know. It could be something all together different. I have only time. Time will tell in the end; it always does. I hate to wait.

Compare and contrast eggplant and green beans.

Crestfallen

“Whoa is me,

I have crested the rise only

to slide down the other side.

Hard work and determination culminated in victory

but alas it was short lived.

Success is barely meaningful if it is permanent.

Poor, poor dear,

I will have to strive once more

at the face of a new challenge or even worse

might have to make another run at this one.

How shall I ever bear it?” I lament, my sponsor smiles.

“Are you learning to be amused at yourself

or hoping to bring back melodrama to the everyman?”

She queries.

“A little of both I think,

whining is a consolation to me,

” I reply.

“It’s nice that you’re not doing it at me,

but even nicer that you have let your achievements

teach you to laugh at your mishaps,”

said my sponsor with a kiss to my forehead.

Old Goldfish

2012-01-08T09:08:00.000-05:00

January 8

OLD GOLDFISH

I got them when my sobriety was new. They were tiny little guys, ten-cent feeders. I wanted my stepson to sleep soundly in our strange jumble of a home, fresh from purchase. The tank sat on a dresser under his elevated bed, space to fit my hand to feed them, no space for baby boy to climb in. I loved my goldfish. There is never a no with gold fish; feed them as often as you want; let the water get cold. Put them in a big space, a small space, plants, no plants. No was so hard. I hate and fear no. I am hard, fish are easy.

Tears and mesmerizing aquarium. Meetings and steps. I could not keep myself alive. I don’t know how I kept the fish fed. The program kept me going, kept hope flowing, and the fish swam. In this century, when we finally are outliving wild goldfish, we are sober together by the grace of our Higher Power. It’s been a wonderful time. I am grateful to be here with the goldfish. I am grateful the goldfish are here for me, expecting so little. Maybe I could return the favor.

“I’m grateful you appreciate the fish,” says my sponsor.

Find a bell to ring

Lathe

Turning into a spin,

the edge cuts into my misconceptions,

the point sharp and accurate to a fault

digs into the excess I carry around,

keeping me from my useful purpose.

A good eye and steady hand

are needed lest breakthrough ruin me.

Not that all is ever lost

for a spoon with a hole

in the bowl will stir a soup smooth.

Relinquishing my burdens and trusting the carver’s tools and methods

takes great commitment.

I am carved commitment or no,

but things turn out better when I don’t flinch.

Help from Strange Sources

2012-01-07T09:29:00.000-05:00

January 7

HELP FROM STRANGE SOURCES

I can not get my mind wrapped around the places I find help. I struggle with believing I have been helped; I struggle with disbelief at my own resistance. I am helped daily by many tiny things seen and unseen. I realize now, I was injured by the same tiny things when I was misaligned with my Higher Power.

The sun rising, the tiny star I circle in this great nothingness, it makes my whole day. The air hanging around just in case I need it, which I often do. The people who live with me (a mean feat), work with me, those who exist here with me, keep my ship on course. How very sweet of them to do mostly right every day of their lives. What a help that is. The whole ecosystem and all the weather: what would I do without it? But this is on a good day.

On a bad day, the sun is in my eyes, scorching my skin. The air is too still or well, the wind is always a problem. And People, people are an endless plight. People do things to hurt, annoy and irritate me. Full intent, targeted to me, my life, my wants destroyed. Bugs seek me and I am followed by the darkest cloud, every day, all day lurking.

I am so thankful for a sponsor and a tenth step.

Name your tears; honor them for who they are

Dion

Everything in the world happened before I was born

and the cinders sift through my fingers.

Accomplishing cohesion of the ashes

is a goal I have not yet achieved.

Cremains precious but meager

are a difficult building material,

shifting due to emotions and wind,

I find they stick too well to my lungs

and not well enough to anything else.

Tears help, but I will not cry forever.

I must draw from a fresh water source

and wet the powdery scratch I have inherited

and form the world anew.

Marian

2012-01-06T06:16:00.000-05:00

January 6

MARIAN

Even if the whole world was created in a cipher and whirls off into nothingness, this is still not a commentary on the existence of God. We have today. For this moment of sobriety there is a power greater than my despair, my apprehension and it builds with me a home from the bricks of my optimism. Partnership is no prevention of inhospitable endings but is a temporary relief from desperate loneliness. The tired struggle of guaranteeing niceness spills my energy, scraping from each 24 the marrow so necessary. My open palm saves me from grasping, my open mind from grappling; I rid myself of tiny gods in tiny heavens where I do not reside. Let the blades of grass probe between my toes; there is beauty for me to see, love to hold, hope to float. Where this train originated and whatever its destination, it’s in my station now and I am grateful to be on board.

Leave your outgrown shell for the sea to take

Hand Me Down Pain

You have sent a cold thing into my heart

it causes my feet to move me away from you.

It need not be spoken of this is a thing of ice and lead.

Words are no help here

action is the only cure.

Eternity can be spent

with a soul bisected by slivers.

Stepping the willing way to joy and freedom

seems so unlikely from this frosty local.

Make my mind up I must.

Close my eyes and move forward.

I will leave your pain behind me

I hope not to have to leave you.

The Bag

2012-01-05T06:15:00.000-05:00

January 5

THE BAG

I saw a bag at the top of a tall tree. Full of air, the wind pushing it; it rocked back and forth, held by the stub of a branch. It is so beautiful, so lucky, so blessed.

My sponsor frowns. “Beautiful, yes,” she says. “Lucky and blessed? Convince me.”

“The bag is lucky; it could be on my doorknob, holding garbage. Blessed? It’s free, not a care in the world, supported aloft by the strength of the tree.

“Inside your house, it’s warm. Holding garbage is useful. Lucky to be out in the cold, no purpose, no one needing your help? Blessed? Caught on a tree, trapped, sharp twigs everywhere ready to shred you, beaten by the wind?”

“You're playing devil's advocate.”

“ I do it well. What are you playing? You want to be free. What is free? You want to know for sure you’re on the right path. You think the bag knows?”

“If I were the bag, I might be mad. I might condemn the forces filling me so full I can only feel the force itself. I might be exhilarated, overtaken, free from responsibility. I might feel isolated, unstable 40 feet in the air. I might feel punished, abandoned, dismissed. I could feel a thousand different things.”

“And on the days the wind doesn’t blow?”

“Oh.”

Imitate all the animal calls you know

Time’s Temperament

Bubbling tides of white water,

time roils past me and my protests go unheard.

Physic feedback loops revisits raw moments

to me with inopportune exactitude.

The beautiful droplets of dawn rain down

then evaporate leaving another day’s timeline

to fan out before me.

The alternating fury and jubilation

of passing intervals leaves a challenge,

first a question of bend or break,

second a call to forecast.

Can I flex or will I live in pieces?

Shall I look at patterns

and strive for harmonious waltz

or turn my face from the calendar dreading each trice?

Bully or benefactor time rolls.

I can go with it or be under it that choice is mine.

The Flock

2012-01-04T08:32:00.000-05:00

January 4

THE FLOCK

Today I came to a place in the road covered with birds. The nearby fields, covered in birds, the trees covered. As I approached, the birds took wing. The flock responded to my presence; each bird flew, the sky darkened with their flight; wave upon wave, boundaries intact, taking action in the face of obstacle. The gift of instinct displayed for me as I fly to my meeting, my instinct rehab. I am learning my intuition; my sponsor spoons it to me from the steps. I suck it down never knowing what it is about this process that makes me better, anymore then I know how grain and bugs make birds fly. I have theories, things I roll in my fingers when I’m nervous. I get glimmers, things my Higher Power sparkles in my eyes for a treat. In truth, I don’t know ‘how’ I don’t need to know, any more than birds need to know lift to weight ratios.

When I respond to life events, when I spend less time self-concerned, I am so much closer to self.

“Aren’t we spiritually centered?” quips my sponsor.

“Yes,” I reply. “One day in a row, I’m going for the record.”

“That’s all the birds have; you’re doing as well as they,” she smiles and pats my back.

Say hello the next time a bee seeks you out

One Singular Crowd

Isolation among the isolators

is replete with metaphor and theme.

Expectation blithers loudly

but is drown by the palpable inevitability of the outcome.

I pirouette in a room filled with dancers

but we do not touch,

we just spin near one another full view but little contact.

Yet I hear my heart beating in my ear

and know that I am alive.

The flush of neighboring cheeks

attests to duplicate conditions there.

We are moving together sometimes in harmony

but other times in antipathy, dependent all the same.

We are the army of independent meanings.

Individual cases sharing one slender goal

but that’s all that we need.

I didn't Know I was going to the Circus

2012-01-03T06:25:00.001-05:00

January 3

I DIDN’T KNOW I WAS GOING TO THE CIRCUS

I show up at a meeting. I didn’t know the circus was in town. I expected calm, demure, sober behavior. My expectations were dashed, my bubble burst. There were people streaming back and forth in front of the speaker; there were kids playing among the chairs. Smokers worked the meeting in shifts, hustling out the back door and smoldering back in. The side conversations rivaled the main attraction. People dressed for the street not for the meeting. The 'bippy shirt, tights, and no skirt' was more of a high wire act than I had ever seen before. Shock cannot even begin to describe the state of my mind.

“But for the grace of God,” said my sponsor.

“No,” I said. “It’s a choice, they’re sober now.”

“Oh, yes,” she remarked.

“Weren’t you sober when you took on every man with time, looking for a fight with each of them?”

“I was cutting my chops. They understood.”

“Some of them didn’t,” said she. “Weren’t you sober when you dyed your hair red, but only half?”

“I was afraid I’d dye my scalp, so I started lower.”

“Yes, but aren’t you the one who says sudden hair color change is a sign of instability in your sobriety?”

“Yes, I do,” I replied.

“I think you would have fit well with the circus, you and your two-tone hair, but you didn’t hear it from me.”

“You’re being mean.”

“And what are you being?”

“Judgmental.”

“That’s my girl! What are you going to do about it?”

“Be grateful. Grateful I got in quick enough, grateful people let me work things out in the rooms, and grateful I still have something to learn from everyone.”

“Kiss up.”

“That’s me.”

Hold a rock in your hand until you warm it

Maniacs on Pogo Sticks

I fear maniacs on pogo sticks peeping through

my rural second story windows

as the smoke of paranoia curls between my ears.

Overestimating my interest to others

causes me as much harm as the underestimation.

Attributing super powers to onlookers

is a parlor trick my ego plays

to keep me occupied while my life passes by.

I sacrifice all my possibilities for fear

of what could be stolen through my keyhole.

I cut off my face to spite my poor lonely nose.

I must move forward in spite of my disquietude

for the future lay ahead, yet I do console myself

that it is harder to hit a moving target.

Spruce

2012-01-02T08:26:00.000-05:00

January 2

SPRUCE

The gum that grows in trees and trickles down bark, that is harvested and chewed, spit out and sticks to shoes, is the very stuff that mimics my life. I race with vitality, burst my confines, am ruminated and masticated by various onlookers and then adhere myself to anyone I feel will carry me to a more advantageous venue. I needn’t apologize for my fluid nature or viscosity. I am just as I should be, always where and what I am, and at the same time, on my way to somewhere and something else.

Make a collage from junk mail

GOOD AS GOLD

Just because I’m as good as gold

Doesn’t mean that I win the prize.

Doesn’t mean I get my way.

Doesn’t mean I gain your heart.

Being ‘extra special sweetness and light girl’

Doesn’t secure my future.

It does prevent me from living my life

as someone I don’t like.

It contents me to keep my own company.

It is a huge improvement over living

as the raging fury I once was.

Any destination I desire is more readily assessable

from this amiable posture;

in spite of inexpert yearning.

I can breathe past you if must be.

Walk down the road holding my own hand

instead of holding a lung full of air.

But I am the treasure.

You must earn me never capture me.

Appreciate me not devalue me.

I’m good as gold.

And please know that I am the prize.

The Cows are Higher than the House

2012-01-01T09:17:00.001-05:00

January 1

THE COWS ARE HIGHER THAN THE HOUSE

I got sober only to end up living in a house where the cows are higher than the house. I mean, next to my house there is a hill. The hill is surrounded by a fence. The cows are pastured inside the fence. Standing on the hill, the cows are taller than the house.

I didn’t expect to live in a house where the cows were higher. I expected normal. I didn’t expect the cows at all. I expected the house, but not this house, and not here, next to this hill. I expected to tell people, "Come to my house. It’s at the end of the lane. It’s the one with the rose colored shutters." My sponsor wants to know why rose colored shutters are okay but cows overlooking the house are not. I can’t answer her. It’s just wrong; that’s all! I don’t know why she can’t understand this. It seems perfectly clear to me.

My sponsor says I am powerless over cows and my life is not unmanageable but my thinking is. She tells me to paint purple cows, to write stories about worse places for the cows to be. I tell her the tub. She says write it down. She’s no fun.

I heard in a meeting I should pray for the people and things I am upset about. I pray for the cows. My sponsor says the cows see how I live my life and she is sure the cows pray for me.

Write a letter to the moon

Lie

Yes, a lie is just a lie,

but the truth also has problems.

I relay the facts

and the words take on a life of their own,

They leave out the backdoor

and walk on down the road.

They move to another town

and never find time to come back for a visit

even though, I am their mother.

And woe to the woman

who grows attached to credit

or recognition for her ideas.

These kidnapped prodigies are never ransomed

but sold outright and their DNA not questioned or tested.

So, my advice is to love your words in secret

and raise your notions behind high walls.

If you are ever called upon to share your wisdom, lie.

For even if you’re caught the risk is tolerable.

Exposure is awkward but then again no one is looking,

so, what is there to lose.

A lie is just a lie but it stays home with you at night.

Again Truth

2011-12-31T09:51:00.002-05:00

December 31

Again Truth

Not wanting to speak the truth doesn’t change the truth, truth is funny that way, it is not affected by my cold shoulder. I snub it and it stands just the same. I am the one who bends and withers. Truth withstands the pressure that I never have, the force of other people’s disappointment and regret. I have sympathy or is it cowardice? I tremble at the power of emotion and truth just carries on. I do not want to be the truth or stand in its place; for truth is not a beating heart and I am too much a feeling creature, but I will learn to keep the company of honesty and right. And stand under the arching bough of truth, because it is a shelter from the winds of change and I need all the help I can get. When I am tempted to shun truth in favor of expedience I will try to remember that life is longer than I think and if I don’t face the truth now it is going to be in my face later when I might be less prepared.

Make the bed so that it is an invitation at the end of the day

Essentials

What is essential....is the correct amount of pressure as I press my lips to yours.

What is essential....is the way I slide my arms around your neck and slip my fingers through your hair.

What is essential....is the scent that rises from the nape of my neck as you kiss it.

What is essential....is the moan you illicit from my soul

What is essential....beyond the toe curl and the secret smile is well founded trust, also admiration.

Einstein's Apple

2011-12-30T07:27:00.000-05:00

December 30

Einstein’s Apple

Time is a player in every play, forever running forward even as I try to claw my way into the past. If I don’t provide a role, time writes itself in without regard for my intended plotline. Like the weather, time is by turns gentle and fierce. I must pay attention lest I run afoul of it and lose my life and limb. Though time is an arc I see swinging in my mind it is still the arrow shot and I am simply the fool with the apple.

Take a vacation from your expectations

Talk to me before I sleep

Talk to me before I sleep

Lay your hand upon my cheek

Talk to me before I sleep

All the years are yours to keep

Talk to me before I sleep

Fold me deep within your speech

Talk to me before I sleep

Hold me tight when I start to reach

Talk to me before I sleep

Never let me touch the sheet

Talk to me before I sleep

Warm me with your wondrous heat

Talk to me before I sleep

Precious are the things you teach

Talk to me before I sleep

Love and kindness is how you greet

Talk to me before I sleep

Into darkness let me seep

Talk to me before I sleep

In my dreams it’s you I seek

Talk to me before I sleep

I fear that I am in too deep

Talk to me before I sleep

Wake me to the morning dew

Talk to me before I sleep

Let me know it’s always you

Hey Little Sister

2011-12-29T08:09:00.000-05:00

December 29

Hey Little Sister

Who pulls the trigger, you or I, in this Shotgun relationship? Is it more to the point if you slit my throat or if I slit my own? I only ask for the sake of expedience, rudeness was never my intent. I know we both wish this dilemma resolved with due speed and precision where possible. I am not as concerned with my survival as much as neatness all around. I hate to leave you with a mess and I would tuck my tail and go, but I have tried that before and still we end up here, so lets end this shall we and hope that there are better worlds than this to find after we have shattered the sugar egg we used to live in.

Tend your human ivory

I AM

I am unloved though most everyone loves me

I am unwanted though there are those who stand in line

I am unknown though people who’ve met me never forget

I am unconscious though I seem awake

Because today it is about how I feel not what is real

Entrée Entrée

2011-12-28T11:46:00.000-05:00

December 28

Entrée Entrée

I am not one to order an appetizer, I prefer the main meal. Even if I carry the majority of the entrée home I like to have it all there before me. Knowing there is enough, might I want it, means peace of mind and I can relax and eat what I wish. That’s how much I fear. Fear opening my mouth to ask for more. Fear not anticipating my actual appetite. Fear of having nothing to show for my evening out. What could it all be like had I felt free of rules and public policy that must be carried out in private? I might never know, but what I do know is that I need to overcome this. Not because of starving children near or far, not to eliminate the science experiments of mold growth and wilted lettuce in my frig, but in order that I have a chance to have my desert and eat it too and leave the rest unordered.

Lubricate the places where you get stuck

Burying the Impossible Dream

I didn’t waken it and twist it in a shroud

I propped it in a corner and attempted to play house.

I didn’t face the truth and love the loss that goes along

I clung tighter than tight and buried my face in the back of its shirt.

I didn’t stand and look in the mirror

I stared into space and played the film strips of futurity.

I didn’t breathe in and out keeping my heart aloft

I held it all with empty lungs and pallid pulseless bosom

I didn’t do the things I could not do

I did the things I had to do

I didn’t think I could ever let it go

I know now that I must

Harriet Powers

2011-12-27T08:42:00.000-05:00

December 27

Harriet Powers

Like a creature with a long tale told in a hushed voice. The whispers tell the story with inflection and innuendo. I slink away from the mirror and the disembodied voices it engenders. Thirty versions of my past spin away from me in the eddies of time gone and misremembered. I gather my fragments and tatters; I thread my needle and sit to quilt me into the present. The odd assortment left from all which has worn out or been pulled apart fit in a pinwheel pattern and turn toward a better day. The night is warmer for now I have it covered, settled and safe, perhaps now I might even sleep.

Use a crutch if you have to but move

Best so Far

Being the best so far doesn’t mean so awful much

Makes you the current standard bearer is all

Not even keeper of the watch.

I can’t give you a torch to hold

Certainly not a title either of Daddy or of Din

You will find your way through this morass

Keep your courage if not your cast

But this is a hard thing my dear, dear friend

Because the old tricks they don’t work no more

And the new tools ain’t broke in.

And lest I should forget

Just because you say you have a sense of humor about yourself

Doesn’t mean you have it

And when you try to take me to hand

It doesn’t mean you ken it

And all the days that dreams drift by

It doesn’t mean they’re yours and mine

For time must play its evil trick

And leave good things to pass by us

But this doesn’t mean that hope is lost

Or even that I’ve found it

Only that peace is a thing which seeps

And pressing will confound it

So maybe when you are pushing seventy

And are sober nearly as I am now

I will read this to you

And we will laugh

For by then being the best so far

Will matter a little more and hurt a little less.

A Thousand Windowed House

2011-12-26T08:38:00.000-05:00

December 26

A Thousand Windowed House

I am like a house with a thousand windows. When I am lit up inside you can see all the way through; when I go dark the reflection of the world around me is all that is visible when you look my way. My sprawling mind is what creates this effigy of me. A tribute when I am well tended and a fire trap when I neglect my duties. If I learn to celebrate in all the rooms this house is my home, so I must practice; dance and sing in the hallways so I can pirouette into the rooms with full voice. For what is the point of being a house with a thousand windows, if I don’t live there?

Host sympathy

Love Lets

Love melts the icicles in my heart

Allows the oxygen to my brain

Lets me work unfettered

Love pours the warm bath

Heats my bones

Lets my breath come easy

Love wakes me to sunrise

Beds me at dusk

Lets my body unfurl

Love builds me a pantry

Fills it with goods

Lets me eat my fill

Love rights my boat

Bails my bilge

Lets me sail on home

Love dresses me in safety

Undresses me in secret

Lets me see myself

Love opens doors

Closes windows

Lets me go my way

Love puts a penny in my hand

A dollar in my pocket

Lets me save the fare

Love burns your image in my brain

Holds you tight within my heart

Lets me dream of you

Home Fires Burning

2011-12-25T09:11:00.001-05:00

December 25

Home Fires Burning

I have trouble living with myself that is why I live with you. It takes my mind off the things I don’t wish to face. What I can busy myself with in your service lightens the load of expectation heaped in my DNA by my Higher Power and Fate. Worry is time consuming and I wile away hours fretting over you and all your unresolved trifles while turning my back entirely on my life. I couldn’t be happier to have you, though from the corner of my eye I glimpse G-d packing your bags.

Wash like you matter to yourself

FOR THIS TIME

Your desire is an ephemeral gift I treasure

A snowflake on my fingertip, a raindrop on my tongue

Your passion is a savory treat in season for this moment

Pomegranate seeds and rich truffles tempt and delight me

Your kind touch brands me flush, anticipation spreads like flame

Wind whips the breath of my wish to the four corners

Your acuity plucked me from the page and slipped me in your pocket

I nestle quiet with the lint and the cookie remnants

Lame

2011-12-23T06:29:00.000-05:00

December 23

Lame

I easily identify the big mistakes of my life, but fail to recognize or report the little mistakes that I make, mistakes, which cost me so much. Repetitive irresponsibility has the effect of water torture; drip, drip, drip and my peace of mind is worn away. What can I say of what I refuse to see? It was there all along like the view covered by the shade. Who is to blame for not raising the curtain? It may be me. may not, but I am the one who suffers, I am the one who misses out. Missing the opportunity to grow out of these small deficiencies leaves me with a lifelong handicap and I am not just speaking of my blindness, but also how they make me lame.

Protest ignorance

Beginning and End

She stepped through my window and the clock stopped.

The shock of her arrival heart pounding fun and fury.

Forever I felt as if she weren’t there.

Fear lurked in my eyes.

Smile enchanting.

Exit at hand.

Good-

Bye.

Age and Death

2011-12-22T06:17:00.000-05:00

December 22

Age and Death

When death was young

It did its job cleanly no mincing about

Now the uncertainty and old age tremble

Leave the world filled with half dead zombies

Living is less for the faltering of death

I would rather be struck down swiftly with a scythe

Than bludgeoned endlessly with a butter knife

Sing with the wind

Before Pearls

You must stop crying

You must

The endless tears will poison you

Your teeth and soul, the life of you

Just because you don’t know how you can go on

Doesn’t mean the world will stop to let you off

The raw red rough of it will drag you to its lair

Doing what it will with you, there is no hope to spare

Unloved child you must go on

Lied to and misguided doesn’t change the time

There is nowhere to lie down and sleep

No safe and sheltered home

So dry your face, pick up your pack

Carry all your freight

Close your eyes to beauty

Close your ears to lies

You are the only oyster

The sand your only prize

Not My Best Friend

2011-12-21T06:28:00.000-05:00

December 21

Not My Best Friend

No matter how tightly I hug a lump of coal I will not prevail in turning it into a diamond. Some days I accept this better than others. My desire may affect the coal, but this affect is not diamond producing; though it is stress producing. I know it stresses me and chills me to the bone. I had thought of coal as warming, but the disparate love of coal proves to be anything but. I have pinned my hopes on what this lump had the potential to become rather than acceptance of what it is and now I see I must light my own fire and know the coal is not mine.

Close the window on harsh winds

AND THIS IS FOR WHAT?

I smiled down on God and said----
“This is pretty and what is it for?”
“Oh, that’s your life.
It is a surprisingly useful thing to have.”

My Higher Power, like my sponsor
Thinks she’s funny but she is not.
“What am I supposed to do with it?”
“Who do you think I am, your Mother,
Your Grandpa Joe, your guidance counselor?

I put all the possibilities in you,
Then I let the wind blow.
What would be the fun of coming here
If I gave it to you all mapped out?

Did it occur to you the reason people say--
You are right where you are suppose to be
Is because you did the things
That brought you here, not me.

And if you don’t like it here
You are the one who needs the motivation
To change it.”

“Take my life------Please!”
“You are such a comedian!”
“No that’s your department.

Could you stop tending your garden
For five minutes and give me your attention?”
“I don’t need to give you that kind of attention
You bloom on your own.”

Touch Your Toes

2011-12-20T06:08:00.000-05:00

December 20

Touch Your Toes

Funny how we deal with feet. I have seen a woman cradle hers and treat it like the dearest babe. I know some folks who shun their feet; can barely stand to think of them, let alone to touch them. There are the Mani-Pedi people who leave it in the hands of others. I met a guy who soaks them soft and tucks little bits of cotton under the corners of his nails. I know too, the woman with the snarling crusty dogs that serve to others as a warning. My grandma warns me not complain about my shoes lest I meet the man who has no feet, but I doubt I would fit in his.

Borrow brilliance

MUD PIES

Mud pies and retro-childhood
Are for the hurt ones, small and angry inside me.
They require care and special attention
But I can’t stop with them.

Saving children to starve the adolescents is a sad fate
Or abandoning adults after bringing them all this way
Is indescribably cruel.

I cannot work on healing
All the while waiting for some ice flow
To shove myself off on.

There is never a time I am not the responsible party
For the people who inhabit my interior life
I live their reflections everyday.

There is no one-way mirror
With which to hide unresolved issues
No rug to sweep them under
They flow through me like a river

I must return them to breed new health
As a salmon swims back to the waters
Of its birth to bring new life.

I must brave the complexities of maturity
I cannot just sit in the mud

Crazy Time

2011-12-19T06:23:00.000-05:00

December 19

Crazy Time

Picking the right time to be crazy seems to be the key to getting away with it. Wanting to get away with it slants the field a tad. What crazy is changes from place to place, which puts all the more emphasis on the timing. The surrounding company and barometric pressure play parts and put on airs. Lighting, lighting must also be involved, I assure you I don’t know how and can’t calculate the Ohms, but I flip the switches in case it helps. I have mapped for you a fair amount more than I know. I wish you well on your attempt, for crazy is a kindred club, I would hate for you to feel inept.

Admire your friends

THE FIRST FATHER

The rest of what I have to say
I will slip under your gravestone.
If I have time after I buy the red dress.

To say I hate you is an overstatement.
I only detest what I know of you
The rest I leave to other people
Who might have the misfortune to cross your path.

Your unavailability can protect you
From anything I could ever do to you.
Your hurt and arrogance is far worse punishment.
If I thought you were worth the energy of an attempt.

Having to be you every day must make it hard
To leave the bed in the morning.
I know I couldn’t do it if I had to
Drag your baggage around all day.

The sad part is I’m not sure you know it’s baggage.
You might think it’s armor
But your misnaming of everything
Is just another of the things I never miss about you.

Which is why although I pray every day
For your wellbeing for the sake of mine
If I never see you again
It might just be long enough.

Calm, Peaceful, On

2011-12-18T08:24:00.001-05:00

December 18

Calm, Peaceful, On

Once I center my mind I can type in the dark. All it takes is me present and willing to flow. Limber up the learning curve, press my fingers to the keys, let the story tell its tale. Cease the interjections lest it all go stale. There is nothing much to know, it’s all inside, I just let it go. Emptying this crowded vault, I open up to prevent assault. What to do when it hits the page; marketing is all the rage, but for this task I need a light. To sell myself I must be bright.

Paste pictures on your mental partitions

FAILED SOUP AND DISTRUST OF BURGUNDY

What keeps me coming back to meetings and step work
Is an abiding mistrust of booze.
Despite promises and advertisement, hope and folklore
I couldn’t rely on drinking to take me where I wanted to go.
And surely couldn’t depend on it to keep me there.

The struggle is great; the attempt to cling to salvation
Though decanter is mighty but in the end
This joining of my chemistry to another failed miserably.

No matter how I held my mouth
Held my head, held my liquor
Satisfaction escaped without me and I was left here
In the soup of my disillusion and disappointment.

I may not always succeed in my recovery
But I can draw dividends on every deposit
And use this to build a path to my desires.

Pretty Girls

2011-12-17T09:33:00.001-05:00

December 17

Pretty Girls

Pretty girls seem to live by separate rules, but I don’t know why. The world is filled with people and rules, crazy circumstances and the uniformity of exception. The where and what for, of arbitrary allowance to be regulated based on symmetry or fashion strikes me as odd, beyond survival and this may explain so very much. Gravity pulls down equally; discriminates for nothing. Orbital rotation continues in spite of the fairness of an eye. The universe supports us without end but prejudice is our failing and I blame it on the pretty girls

Sift the silt for treasure

MARIAN

Even if the whole world was created in a cipher
And whirls off into nothingness
This is still not a commentary on the existence of God.

We have today---for this moment of sobriety
There is a Power Greater than

My despair, my apprehension and it builds with me a home
From the bricks of my optimism.

Partnership is no prevention of inhospitable endings
But is a temporary relief from desperate loneliness.
The tired struggle of guaranteeing niceness spills my energy
Scraping from each 24 the marrow so necessary.

My open palm saves me from grasping,
My open mind from grappling
I rid myself of tiny gods in tiny heavens
Where I do not reside.

Let the blades of grass probe between my toes
There is beauty for me to see,
Love to hold, hope to float.
Where this train originated and whatever its destination
It’s in my station now and I am grateful to be on board.

Peter and I

2011-12-16T06:24:00.000-05:00

December 16

Peter and I

This flight is not filled with the giggling cherubs of my westerly flight, but among the solemn children on this flight is Peter, the oldest of four, who is reading Tolkien and marking his place with a two page wish list. Christmas is coming and Peter seems confident. I wonder if we are what we read and ponder if I am what I write. Poetry, stories, novels, declarations, it all feels like arms and legs, things I cannot move right without. I live better when they are out and free. I am free too, when they live on their own and I am not their soul residence. I have to rededicate myself to the work entrusted to me for so many lives depend upon it.

Treat a book to a day out

RELAPSE IS NOT REQUIRED

Relapse is not required - said my sponsor
Though at some meetings they make it seem appealing
All that ‘prodigal drunk’ treatment.

Well so far I’m living in the blessing
Of being convinced the first time- I told her
Plus what could possibly be out there
That’s better than what’s in here?

That is the point
There is so much out there that is faster and bigger
More dramatic and extreme
But I sure have never see anything better.

She patted my head and I grinned
Since I am winning the first time
Why would I want to lose?
I add just to overstate her point.

This is the perfect place for those who want it
And all the rest get drunk
But drinking is not required
Any more than Santa has to come on Christmas.

Whose Oxygen Mask Goes on First?

2011-12-15T06:33:00.000-05:00

December 15

Whose Oxygen Mask goes on First?

Desperation is the fuel which forges my resentments. When I fear for my survival, physical, emotional or financial this will turn my response to your behavior into tinder, sometimes gasoline and set our interaction ablaze. Melt all which is steel strong between us and create a molten mess from which it will be a struggle to recover. This is why, me taking good care of me, attending to my life, and quelling my fears is the very best way for me to protect you from my attitude and save me from a negative balance sheet during my 10^th step.

Ask the questions

DON’T BITE

Desperation jumps up--runs around--then drops.
If I don’t feed it-- desperation burns out fast.
I used to buy the advertising--the Horror--the Humanity.
The acorn falling on my head convinced me easily.

I grew this nut into terrifying despair.
Never realizing if I had left it alone
How quickly it would pass.
When tragedy comes there is no time for a performance.

The whirling splendor itself proves the farce.
If I learn to recognize these triggers
I might keep from shooting myself in the foot.
If I let desperation wear itself out
I can stay with the pack.

Despondence splinters me
And separates me from anything rational.
But quiet resolve lets me watch the wind twist
While I keep my feet on the ground.

What's that in the Pool?

2011-12-14T06:07:00.000-05:00

December 14

What’s that in the Pool?

Parts of the Rocky Mountains look like algae bloom out in the Indian Ocean. Parts of me look like parts of you and here we go with oneness being nothing more than pattern recognition and optical illusion; though I hope there is more to it than that. My hurt might not be your hurt, but I have a sense of it. Likewise your hope may not resemble mine, but it cheers you just the same and we are all better for it. We needn’t replicate each other or attempt imitation, but recognition is a kind thing and art is what we all have to share.

Stain your napkin

SIZING GOD UP

God doesn’t need to be Big.
I only look for a Big God when I feel very small.
I turn to God as compensation for my feelings
As some sort of bolster to brace myself with.

I have found when I am diminished in anyway
God is tucked in a corner or pocket or drawer.
I flee to the great out-of-doors
And find earth, nature and wind.

The God of my understanding
Is proportionate to my mental state.
My partner is with me
Near enough to hear the fear pour off my skin.

God doesn’t run from me to adventures in the wild.
I want to escape regularly
But this is not my Higher Powers defect.

I come back to God when I stop running from me.
I face my reflection and recognize
I am not towered over by a Giant God.
I am yoked with a power to share the load.

What I give you

2011-12-13T06:15:00.000-05:00

December 13

What I give you

If I give you a piece of my mind, a piece of my heart, a piece of my liver, how do I go on in its absence? Or does it ever leave me? Is this more like an excision than segmentation? Is it similar to how I carry you with me when I catch a resentment; only in a good way? I don’t know that I can be truly divided up, but I do know that parts of me don’t belong exclusively to me anymore and I believe this is all for the better.

Zoom up to anticipation

HEART HANDED

I pick up the pen in my heart hand
And the blood of my soul pours onto the page.
The words coalesce and clot into binding phrases
Sealed deals with my spirits punctuation.

Some days it is hard for my mind to keep up.
The current is swift and deeper than I expect.
The pulse of energy is amazing even to the mind it feeds
.
Like clouds racing the sky this power
Brings shade to some and rain to others.
The reaction of the moistened varies.
Some pull up hoods and scurry away

Others with up turned faces form a friendship with me.
At the level of electrons, we have a molecular bonding.
We are forever changed because I have picked up the pen
And they have picked up the page.

Master Mind

2011-12-12T06:19:00.000-05:00

December 12

Master Mind

I was taught that it was my job to master fear; raised in a religion swearing they could master death. I used to spend all I had trying to create a master plan, while trying to keep secure using a Master lock. I have seen Master & Commander and do not long for that burden; in fact mastery is so much a snare and illusion. Life is quite improved when we each have an oar and we all row on.

Don’t think twice, think continually

ALCONOUT

Want to learn it fast but not deep?
Just go to meetings and listen with half an ear.
Call your sponsor only for her birthday and anniversary
And tell her about all the thing you are not doing anymore
But none of the things you are.

Skim the books for good quotes
That sound impressive when they pass your lips
But whose meaning has no chance of passing you heart.
Find playmates and cliques
Not home groups and surely not a service commitment.

Things fall out of orbit when they run out of juice
And you will too.
This program is not an airlock on the way to worlds unknown
It is a way to live in the world you know.

There is no question that you have the right stuff.
The question is do you want what we have?

Flight 548

2011-12-11T07:53:00.000-05:00

December 11

Flight 548

What a happy flight, wing to wing, smiles, good cheer, the air is kind, sweet, dry, easy to breathe. I am so blessed. I fly to destiny watching the traveling baby circus play around me. Giggles and drool surround me, infuse me with glee. People wander the aisle looking like well loved characters from long forgotten books and we soar. Time does not pass any more quickly this way, but it is similar to time in heaven rather than time spent in hell.

Mix jelly with joy

RETRO ANTICIPATION AND SUNSHINE

The night after a victory I fret about the blocks.
Will my stance be right?
Will I leave clearly?

I have been first through the tape
I have won the race
But yet I worry how I will start.

Had I anticipated a win
I might have handled the accolades better.

Apprehension has a long half-life
And feeds through the night
On my gizzards and my dreams.

Failure gives homework,
There are rewrites and type-O’s
But checkmate leaves an empty board
And hands to shake.

The long ride home is filled with
Recriminating thoughts of luck and fortune.
By the time I arrive home
The win is devalued and no longer mine.

I must pry misgivings from the winners circle
And enjoy these moments in the sun
They are just as real as any others.

The Way West

2011-12-10T08:16:00.001-05:00

December 10

The Way West

The sun reflected in the windows winks at me as I fly over. The plane climbs higher and the reflected light no longer reaches me. I slip from my eastern bonds. I am west coast bound. The carpet of snow was laid down to quiet the passage. Clouds take over the task, then part to reveal the patchwork of the middle ground. We cross the Stateline without a sound; a few more miles then touchdown.

Putter with intrigue

FREE THE PATE

Arrested development was bad enough
The living death sentence
It imposes is completely unacceptable.
My childhood ran downhill
Away from the mountains of confusion
Which is life in this society.

My ability to mature was damaged
And what I learned to do was mutate.
I could move laterally but never grow up.
I became the goose grown for its liver
And all the honk and squawk
In the world couldn’t change it.

I don’t have to understand
How I was let out of the prison of addiction
As long as I don’t go back.
I will never have to fear breaking out in handcuffs
Or getting locked in my crib.

It All Points to Joy

2011-12-09T06:24:00.001-05:00

December 9

It All Points to Joy

Can Love reweave the fabric which hate destroys? Can Kindness resew the field torn through with disregard? Can Beauty paint the world anew after so much ugliness has rained down upon us? My heart believes these three can not fail to make things right for what other point could there be than Joy?

Leach lessons from struggle

CHANGE IN MENU

If God is drunk we pray for spiritual sobriety
And strong sponsorship.
If God is sober we ask for things on God’s behalf
And glory in answered prayer

It is amazing that rain comes down
If I dance for it or not
I can get this wonderful recovery
Just like the rest of “we agnostics”.

I don’t have to shake your hand, wink my eye
Or say some special bit of poetry to have it.
Just the same way that weather is and changes
And deepens so to is my spiritual condition.

It is there as I tread this path
I don’t have to mark rows in my garden
For plants to grow
I wish for God a salad with two forks
We no longer need to share a bottle.

Night Spaces

2011-12-08T06:26:00.001-05:00

December 8

Night Spaces

When it gets dark it gets dark fast. They say, night falls, though sometimes it feels like it falls down. What is little realized is there is a lifting when the light has gone away, the sky raises its roof and there is more air to breathe. Long lost is the pink wisp that heralded this night and far ahead is the next wisp of pink singing up the moon.

Believe in someone

WHAT’S MINE IS MINE

I don’t always know how to get the dog off the baby.
The attacks are often sudden and always swift.
My shock at the reality delays my response.
Falters my steps and fogs my mind.

What should I do to disengage this assault?
What can I do that won’t make things worse?
How can I resolve this now?

The pain is almost unimaginable
But yet all too familiar.
It all comes down to ownership
I must admit this baby is me.

I have to face this dog is my pet.
I have fed and groomed him
And now I have to put this dog to sleep.

Anti-Forfeit Activity

2011-12-07T06:29:00.001-05:00

December 7

Anti-Forfeit Activity

I don’t want to write bad, forced, poor, weak, care-worn poems, but I won’t write any good ones if I don’t lift this pen. The embarrassment I might feel for lackluster lines is far less than the shame of empty notebooks. I don’t always like what flows when I open the gates, but I am sure glad the current is live and so am I.

Tie a knot

COOCOO’S NEST

I ran away to join the zoo
Hoping a life contained would calm me.
The segregation hit me first
Isolated exclusively with those of my stripe
Drove my thirst for diverse scents and opinion.

Next the monotony of the landscape bore into my brain
The well-meaning efforts of the keepers
Bears the mark of folks who go home at night.

The blandness of the food and music
Lent nothing to the experience
And antiseptic could drive anyone wild.

The final blow, the one which struck constantly and coldly
Was the steady stream of observers
Just waiting to be entertained.

Flower Power

2011-12-06T06:14:00.000-05:00

December 6

Flower Power

The man with the chrysanthemum on his head walks up and down the aisle. Do I look like that, I wonder to myself? Have I taken personal style to the point of caricature? What is the boundary by which the embarrassment is kept at bay? Is there a point at which I can overcome who I present myself as, and represent the best of who I can be? Who I might be if only I can manage not to get carried away by impressionism? I am given this dwelling and it suits me quite well, when I treat it as a temple and not simply as a shrine.

Do without some things not everything

ALMOST TWINS

You and I are more alike than different
Yet we cannot get along
Though I ponder why this surprises me so.

A cloud and a watermelon are 98 % the same
And no one would mistake them in a crowd
Or expect them to be companionable
Except in the way of two things existing in the universe.

My expectation of liking you for our similarities
Is set up by my fear that I don’t like myself
But the joke is on me.

My dislike of you is not a reflection
Of anything but time and space
My friends are the people who like me
Not necessarily the ones who are like me.

The president didn’t like broccoli
Without slurring its good name
And I can dislike you
Without inferring you are a vegetable

My Most Important Meal

2011-12-05T08:38:00.000-05:00

December 5

My Most Important Meal

Sweet potato pudding sits on the plate; I sit in my place and wield my spoon until the plate is clean. I’m fed, my day begins. If this is the best part of my day, life is still sweet and fine. Time skips its way through and I meet and greet the splendid and the few. Picking my way, the raindrops step aside; I am gratified, though I never mind the rain. When the mud has settled and my bed calls me home; I look back to the start of the day and pray to begin the next one the very same way.

Look for your eyes in a crowd

WATER PROOF

What could water prove anyway?
I get in the water and I get wet.
I’m sure there is a theorem
But a proof is highly doubtful.

Naiads dance with tridents in their hands
Illustrating the beauty and danger of the waves
But this certifies nothing.

Juiceless arid dirt can make no claims either
I see ducks take flight
Pushing the air with their wings
And rivulets trailing from webs.

This is the thing to scoot beneath at the surface,
Take sustenance and pleasure
but never to become so saturated that the air is lost.
Waterproof, is the way to go.

Relay

2011-12-04T07:50:00.000-05:00

December 4

Relay

I have waited so long for the chase, the trap, the dig a ditch for safety, to be over and here we are; ringed, safe and surrounded. Now the sweet work of living the life we have striven for, striven to. I now long to be my best, do my best, for you are the best for me and I am the best for you. I tense and press against the blocks; the race I wish to run, but all I knew was to wait.

Explain how petals are different from leaves

YOU ARE ALLOWED TO CLOSE WINDOWS

OR KEEP THEM OPEN

Not every open window offers a warm and welcome breeze.
There are windows, which greet with arctic blast and little else.
Frosted cheeks and chapped lips I face these frigid openings
Believing it is my lot to forge ahead in this bluster.

Never did I think to shut the glass on this disagreeable weather.
I am allowed to close windows but I didn’t know it.
Every irksome thing that comes my way is not mine to face.

Many things will pass my way.
This does not make them my responsibility
On the other hand, when spring blows honeysuckle through the air
It is a fine idea to prop the window open with a stick.

The Twelfth of April

2011-12-03T07:52:00.000-05:00

December 3

The Twelfth of April

When I met you, you were a power tagged and trapped in a box. A tiger caught by its toe and yet I could do nothing but fall under the spell of your roar. The suppressed growl you leave for me like an invitation I could never decline. I write to you a note of explanation; words testifying to my desire, which I promise to hold back out of respect for you. And a wish to survive my drive toward you and your furious stripes and claws. Your bite which I long to feel, yet know I must not ask for. When I inquire if you have read, you say with sanguine smile, “Read it to me.” When I am done and with tear stained face, all you reply is, “I have lost my taste for anyone but you.”

Keep an ear out for more than danger

GOOD SAMARITAN PIE

The meal prepared from my cognition,
The bread and jam of humility, salad of expectation,
Roast of determination and Good Samaritan pie
Wait on the table to be devoured.

The courses pass and come desert, my kindly intentions.
Are cut to wedges and pushed from setting to setting.
I can dollop after dollop cover the requisite desires
Of this tart in attempt to deny my addiction to fixing
Or I can serve up the plain truth.

I help and help, and wander down roads looking
For lost puppies to return to their homes.
I must admit my longing to lend support
Is sometimes half-baked and if kept to home and hearth
It might serve me better and make a sweeter dish.

Assistance is best in proportion to the meal
I must live my life and save my Good Samaritan pie till last.

At the Dodge

2011-12-02T06:23:00.000-05:00

December 2

At The Dodge

I remember so long ago when I would come and sit and listen; soak in the poets and the Consort, sop it all into the sponge that listened and sat. I did not know exactly what they were doing and I didn’t know why I was there, but I went and had a soak. Now so many years hence I am the writer I never knew and I know just what they do because, I do it too!

Write a poem on your foot

GOOSE

I round this corner nearly every day.
There in the field stand a flock of problems,
Pecking the ground and flopping their wings.

Uniform and regular, the honking and squawking
Is undistinguishable from yesterday.

I ponder and squint, are these the same
Or yet another gaggle making their way
Along the migratory path?

Trouble is feral, skulking the edges of the field
But never sheltering in the yard.
I must leave my hands off
Knowing these are not mine.

The feathers fly and I gather the strays
Acutely aware of the ticklish nature of this.

Awkwardly I face the truth
No matter how much of a perplexity this is to me
Or others, it is only geese.

Poorly Chirping

2011-12-01T06:07:00.001-05:00

December 1

Poorly Chirping

She writes poetry like fusion jazz, more fun to make than to listen to. She stands at the podium serving as a bad example. I pray as she reads, “Lord, please don’t let me get sucked into the self-importance of bad poetry for the sake of peering peers, and forgetting to write what is there for the world, the readers, the things which bring the word pictures and sets them before me. Lord, remind me that the writing is not done for me, but done as Billy Collins quotes, for the love of strangers.”

Tops spin, do you?

DO WE SEE

The old man walked down the road to see the end,
I followed to glimpse the fruit of his pursuit.
Does the highway come to rest
Or like the river just feed a greater sea?

And time, will the clock stop him?
Can he win the treasure hunt
As the seconds tick away on the metronome?

Will the slowing of his steps
And the advancing of his age
Create a curve which will prevent his accomplishment?

Does this tag-along I am doing
Make me a part of his project?
The road is long and its end may never come, only ours.

When we take the road the road takes us.
More and less is what we are and so too the road.
I follow the contour of the ground
Which curves around the world
Spinning in our sky so we can all see the stars.

Precious Cargo

2011-11-30T06:31:00.001-05:00

November 30

Precious Cargo

Do I carry myself as well as I could? Do I understand the value of what is contained within me? This journey matters, it requires my attention and comprehension, if only I am able. When I fall short the road changes. The distance I go has much to do with how well and whether I acknowledge the nature of the cargo with which I am imbedded.

If you have to put your foot down; open your fist

WHAT IS MINE

The cloud of snow slept in the tree overnight
And poured from the branches with the morning breezes.
Showers of crystal, drop from a clear daylight sky
As a telltale of intentions delayed.

What was meant for moon time
Has been kept till sunshine
A treat for bright eyes and young hearts.
How can I weep over altered destinations?

Arrivals and departures are truly the province
Of poetry and postcards
Not a thing for worry or fretting.

Putty is for forming into an image of my desire not the worlds.
Time is a liquid substance I cannot decant at will.
Shoulds and aughts are parlor games for the bored and senseless.

If I waste my life playing a game I can’t win
I will fail to see what I can’t lose.

John Grisham

2011-11-29T06:39:00.000-05:00

November 29

John Grisham

My time hovering low over the ocean has filled me until I am ready to drop. The weight of what is inside me bears down; I know with the slightest cooperation I will become a rainmaker. I am mostly fine with this; I know from whence the rain was derived and I can let it fall in peace. What I don’t know how to handle is the acknowledgement. The difference between what I know and what you might think is vast and if I try to dissuade you I sound disingenuous or fraudulent. I have to get my head around the part I play and accept the roses when they come. I don’t understand how this looks from offstage or what it means to those who watch. I hope they will enjoy the work but never mistake me for the playwright.

Greet the day with open eyes

BLEATING FORMALITY

Stupidity stalks me when I’m tired
Hi-jacking my mouth and my mind
I can put this off to pilot error or interruption
Of service on my neurologic pipeline
But truly I have been captured
By senseless irrational mutinous.

I would love to say it was pig headedness
But alas I am not self-determined, I am a sheep
I open my lips and out pours the same
Plaintive cry as the surrounding herd.

In addition, once begun the wail is unending.
It’s as if the bellows works on its own
Carrying a tune which blends
With the entire wool coated world.

I shift and run with my position
According to the movements at large.
I am following the reactionary breed
Dropping the specifics of my personality
As one of the crowd, my brain switched off
And a quick veneer grows over my eyes

I can’t see, think or speak for myself
And yet it doesn’t occur to me to hit the hay.
When as a petulant three year old
I fall asleep in my tract, I awake as myself,
With many bleating apologies to be made.

How I've come upon the World

2011-11-28T06:07:00.000-05:00

November 28

How I’ve come upon the World.

My first exposure to Bogart was as the man who was after Bugs Bunny, and Lauren Bacall was only referred to as Baby. I only ever heard Kaw Liga because Stephen King referenced it too often and I had to go have a listen. I come through the back door on so much of the world and it has served me rather well. Yes, I often feel ignorant, but at least the knowledge never sees me coming and I get the drop on it. There is a quality to not having been spoon-fed, that keeps me sharp and allows for depth. The universe sends me clues and I go investigate. It cuts down on the agendaed learning of the social norms and cuts me a wide swath beyond the common path. There are times when conformity is key; then again it’s a sweet thing to have a choice.

Level inequity

TAPERS

I wax poetic and burn the candle at both ends.
I borrow from the beginning, I steal from the end
And come up short; feeling deeply cheated.

I pass myself off as the time-keeper but am the time-pleaser
Arch-traitor selling short the days and hours
For approval not fulfillment.

I put away my true identity, mammal, human, the love of.
I have exchanged it for the mask and cape of the Do-do-doer.
A tragic figure of myth and legend who breaks the spirit
Of everyone who attempts the portrayal.

In spite of this the roads teem with actors
Becoming caricatures of a life less lived.
The world is more than a stage
And I must free powers greater than to be more than an audience.

Five Fingers that Gobble

2011-11-27T09:15:00.001-05:00

November 27

FIVE FINGERS THAT GOBBLE

It only takes five crayons to turn a tracing of my hand into a turkey and it only takes a few things to change my drunken life into my sober life. Looking back I am amazed how little it has actually taken to transform my life. My drunkenness looks about as much like my sobriety as my hand looks like a turkey but the transformation has taken place. The red, the yellow, the brown, the meetings, the steps, the sponsor, these basics are the bulk. Sometimes it’s the small extras that help push this work of art into the realm of believability. Accents of green, up and down the fingers, or a few bonus phone calls to women outside my network. Anything can be the thing that kicks it over into a plausible and convincing reality. I can never be more than I am, a drunk is always a drunk and a hand is still just a hand, but within each of these things are unimagined possibilities waiting to be explored. Michelangelo believed that sculptures lurked in chunks of stone. I have come to see that a sober woman prowled inside this drunk and every Thanksgiving my hand yearns to put on feathers once again.

Read your own palm

ELECTRIC CONNECTIONS

I step into a room and take its currency.
Is the flow good, steady, the pulse even and strong?
Where are the power brokers
And are they sharing the time
Or using their magnetic personalities
To draw the current off others.

I check the complement of resisters.
Examine their stripes and access the possibilities.
I pump energy when I can and take when it is available.
I keep in mind we are all transformers
And change is possible for everyone
As long as we make the connections.

No Mickey Mouse

2011-11-26T09:33:00.001-05:00

November 26

No Mickey Mouse

The Wonderful World of Disney belonged to normal children; kids with Sunday nights and not the tear filled screaming which punctuated my weekends. I had no time for the creative melodrama built to add interest into the dull little lives of safe little ones. There is no Disney for me; no clean pasteled figures frolicking. I know only the freshened wit of the wizened rabbit and the frenetic slamming of that distorted duck; these are there for me. Teaching me the dark humor of the life I lead; preparing me to laugh at M*A*S*H, yet still never cluing me to the fact that Carroll O’Connor was only teasing, so still I cried to hear his rants, but the dry irony of Hawkeye, war and blood, those I got. I was carefully led there by the Merry Melodies.

Check your mental attic for spiders

CLIMBING ON THE ARC

If time swings and the seasons swirl
And I pulse out my existence
Why does the birds wing flap
And rain fall down?

If the song comes from my Mothers lips
And my Father tells his tales
And I dance my heritage with each step I take
Why does the flower open to the bee
And the swan trumpet her way home?

If everything pulls from the ground
And reaches for the light
Then how can I duck my head, hide my heart
And pass this all off as a coincidence.

Am I less than the rain or greater than the swan?
Why can’t I just climb on the arc
And let the continuum spin its web around me
Well, you see I can but will I?