The Order

March 25

THE ORDER

I can’t expect delivery if I haven’t placed the order.  I never seem to know what I want until after I have accepted something else.  I can remember thinking order meant procedure not procurement---set the table, not end my hunger.  I focused on rational intent and turned my face from desire.  Assailing outcomes leads to disappointments.  Asking for a hole to be filled may cause dumping not management or conservation.  It’s good to have a plan before signing the requisition.  Please help me know who I am, so I will know what I want, so I can make a request and stop accepting orders of attack.  Don’t let me order the end while I am still at the beginning.

Self-respect is the gift you bring to everyone.

*

Whirly Gigs

Pivot points and reference points

subtlety disguised as harmless bric-a-brac

escape my comprehension until I either stumble

or land on one or the other and ponder the affect.

Realization that much of my life’s contentment

hinges like a door shocks me,

though I don’t know why it should.

Isn’t it the way of things that it all turns on a whim

or at the very least hangs on fine gauged calculation?

I am not the capricious vixen I accuse myself of;

I am however human

and given to a certain amount of fickle fussy frenzy

which all reckons out given enough perspective and wit.

You are reading selections from Sober on the Way to Sane and More Lines From My Life by Sherrie Theriault

http://www.amazon.com/Sober-On-The-Way-Sane/dp/1440417342/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1388576888&sr=8-1&keywords=sober+on+the+way+to+sane

http://www.amazon.com/More-Lines-From-My-Life/dp/1448677203/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1388576956&sr=8-1&keywords=More+Lines+From+My+Life

The Throng

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.

You are reading selections from Sober on the Way to Sane and More Lines From My Life by Sherrie Theriault

http://www.amazon.com/Sober-On-The-Way-Sane/dp/1440417342/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1388576888&sr=8-1&keywords=sober+on+the+way+to+sane

http://www.amazon.com/More-Lines-From-My-Life/dp/1448677203/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1388576956&sr=8-1&keywords=More+Lines+From+My+Life

Wasilla

October 8

Wasilla

I don’t appreciate those who wear ignorance as a fashion accessory, but then I have to work too hard, not to wear intolerance as a badge of courage, so what can I really say, while I’m on this topic, what kind of game is “Playing Dumb” where do we get with that as the vehicle?  I don’t know why grown folks act like corralled farm animals, nor do I comprehend the idea of salvation through unnecessary sacrifice, but here I am in a society riddled with it and I try not to drink in the face of this idiocy.  This is a job for which I am unprepared, I have spent so much time feeling my internal lacking that when facing the siphon created by the general public I start looking for a glass and some ice to tinkle, but I have tried this before and it solved nothing.  I can climb under this pile of human failing or try to crawl on top, but what I really must learn is to look at it without a drink in my hand.    

Count displaced souls

*

REFLECTIONS OF YOU

When people meet me they listen and stare
Then the familiar words tumble from their mouths,
“There is something about you”.

I know it’s the reflection of every person I saw
at the meeting last night, the sober voices that created them
also the mirror of years spent in rooms just the same.

I know this is what is seen in me
the bright light shines on me and the prism of time
fans the colors to my new acquaintance.

I thank my Higher Power for letting me be a
spectral instrument and I am grateful to the fellowship
for shining the light on and through me.

You are reading selections from More Sober on the Way to Sane and Lines From My Life by Sherrie Theriault

http://www.amazon.com/More-Sober-The-Way-Sane/dp/144141231X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1374072329&sr=8-3&keywords=sober+on+the+way+to+sane

http://www.amazon.com/Lines-My-Life-Sherrie-Theriault/dp/1448652820/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374072576&sr=1-1&keywords=Lines+from+my+life%2C+Sherrie+theriault

Periomenville

April 28

Perkiomenville

Being actually alive does not feel as good as I imagined the relief of being dead would feel and therefore I have anxiety and dread, or is it disappointment.  I feel like a failure when I am in the process of trying and I want to throw the pieces in the air and run.  Does this mean I’m weak or does it mean I am frightened?  Or is there some heavenly host of other reasons why my crêpe paper soul twists and turns in the breeze of the marketplace?  Some part of me was auctioned off and its removal left a psychic scar that even equanimity can not ease.  I am all things wonderful and yet there is this flaw, this toe tied thread which holds me back, holds me down with painful accurate precision.  I look for the knife with which to cut it all the while wondering if this will turn it into a toe tag or a price tag.

Police your self destruction

*

K-TURNS

I do not believe in a universe that makes complete sense

I often find myself trapped

Because the things I pull into no longer feel firm.

I attempt K-turns in alleys far too narrow for the maneuver

I can’t back myself through the passages I plunged into willingly

My faith doesn’t compute in reverse and I find this disconcerting

I may walk into the face of fire

But find it impossible to turn my back on the flame

Today a one-way faith is fine

As long as I am moving forward.

Failed Soup and Distrust of Burgundy

December 31

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, hopes and folklore, I couldn’t rely on drinking to take me where I wanted to go and I surely couldn’t depend on it to keep me there.  The struggle is great; the attempt to cling to salvation through decanter is mighty but in the end this joining of my chemistry to other chemistry 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.  Failure to cooperate fully with alcohol lead me to try sobriety as an alternative.  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.

Make a private heaven with plenty of windows and doors.

*

Failure of Imagination

The failure of imagination feels worse than it looks; it’s that rancid oily coating on the skin that I abhor.  The sweat that appears when sloth becomes a burden, the confusion of an unused intellect, the mumbled acquiescence of a weak will, creep me out of the permission that I wished to offer myself but can not accept.   The languishing mind that I left to wither in the confines of my skull requires my perseverance.  Falling down, giving up, throwing in terry cloth objects is impermissible, I must pluck up my willingness and apply whatever drops of genius I possess to every muscle fiber I can find.  So much has been made available to me and I must return that favor.  You see imagination only fails me if I have failed it first.

One and One

November 25

One and One

The person who has nothing is vague. The person who has too much alludes. And these people may falsely mistake one another for kindred when what you draw your conclusions from are the poems, sweet words, which flow out of these divergent folk. A paper house is built, but the living is impossible. Tying strings to dreams doesn’t permit you to fly away to fairy-lands it just leaves you prone to lightening strikes and long wet wicks. What could be the truth unfolded; spread broadly for all to see? Where could the roads so very far apart lead to a home, a hearth, a life? Or is this just a field of fantasy flowers blooming in our minds? Mist is vapor pretending at a marriage to a world it will soon evaporate and leave. You and I are passing ships on a short sad night.

Tip the scales toward optimism

*

THE WAY I DO IT

Cooking by smell.
Parking by ear.
Recovering by touch.

The later has to be done this way
I cannot see into the black-box technology
Which keeps me sober.

Feel through resentments, pain, sadness, joy.
Find myself under a pile of rags
With a match in my hand.

The many times the steps have saved me
From becoming a human torch
Are balanced by the weight of the rope.

Woven from these same rags.
That together we use to drag
One another to safety.

The savory scent of a meal
Or the glee of front row parking
Can’t compare with the tender sense
Of a sober heart.