Migration

March 7

Migration

Why does an alcoholic leave the drink behind? To go where it’s warm, because drunkenness has become cold comfort, because the climate has changed. The wind resists the flight from the bottle and the initiative to break the flow is rotated among the flock. Though each member of the band plays their part, the one diverting the air just ahead of me and the one just behind trumpeting still hold the majority of my attention. Flocking is my primary purpose because survival is the intention of life, demise the intent of my illness. One more sober day is all I can ask, it’s all I ever need, it’s all that’s ever offered.

Put wheels under procrastination

*

POPCORN FLAVORED LOLLIPOP

I can't know it, I can't believe it,
The world of popcorn flavored lollipops
Is now being visited upon me.

Both a surprise and a comfort,
A popcorn flavored lollipop
Given to me by a gas station attendant.

A blast of sugar and salt wake my tongue.
What can a mind do
In the face of buttered-salted bonbon on a stick?

I wouldn't have thought of it, no in a million years.
This is somehow a source of hope to me,
There are open minded people living in the world around me.

I often pray for creative thinking on the part of my Higher Power
I inadvertently dismiss the populace
Who are producing prodigies of ingenious originality and cunning.

I want the world to be gifted with what sobriety has given me.
Candy is not world peace
But many great things start with a little sweetness

The Price of Today's Ride

March 6

The Price of Today’s Ride

Much of my spiritual awakening has been spent separating myself from the nightmare of the past, reassuring myself that in fact, it, the horror, is over. As my present has improved my reactions are still invested with, the hide or fly, coping of a child dealing with terror. Things get better yet barricades are erected, departing flights secured. Disengaging the clutch of fingers wrapped so tightly around the escape hatch takes a great deal of my short supply of faith and confidence. Laying down my anticipatory reluctance in favor of optimism has had the breathtaking feel of pain, though in fact it was only the separation from a poisonous crutch and the vacuum it creates. Allowing myself to see beauty at the same time as I deal with the truth of the past; standing in the full light of morning and not blocking out the brilliant ache of night is the outstanding gift my spiritual path affords me.

Open stored creativity

*

ECHOES OF ACTION

Squares of light outline a patchwork on walls and ceiling.
Ripples of water formed this ancient glass.
Three hundred years these waves have shone through those panes.
Three hundred years these waves have held,
Like stability in a world of change.

Looking through the window
The City rams life down it's own throat.
The ripples are invisible,
Caressing currents imbed the glass
The wavelengths shining projections only with the street lights.

How much mundane activity is captured,
Only revealing itself surreptitiously.
What is not echoed from year to year comes to final rest.
My voice does not terminate at my mouth
How therefore can I consider a blunted end to my behavior?

What and When, When and How.........and Why

March 5

What and When, When and How……and Why

Arriving at the place where I have nothing to prove, afforded me the luxury of not having to proclaim the amount of time I have, when I share in a meeting. Taking the score keeping out of the equation I was then able to think of what it was that motivated me to speak in a meeting. Self-Possession, a great gift to inhabit, a greater gift to demonstrate; quiet dignity is a real favorite of mine. If I am calm yet in control, if there is time, if there is a lull, I can share parts of my experience. If I have chaos, an agenda, a theory, a grudge it is all better left unsaid in the meeting and saved for the less vulnerable ear of my sponsor. For if I am wrong I might persuade in error and if I am right I might convert in righteousness.

Why is it that what I never say rings louder than anything I do?

Leave gossip where you find it

*

MOTE

I dug the mote, the alligators came on their own.
The rain fell, I did not bid it.
I've burned all the bridges
I've sold the farm.

I wonder at the company I keep
The birds fly in and stay for a season
Friends used to wave as they passed
Now my island is overgrown.

I stand to my chin in the tall grass
I guess it's a matter of maintenance
What I don't keep pruned grows back
The connections I don't secure weaken and fail.

I am subject to all that falls, if I don't keep my roof on.
The wind chaps me without the walls of my home
No clothes and I burn
No joy and all I do is cry.

It takes more than a continuous ditch
To protect my heart.
More than water and reptiles
To safeguard my soul.

A Duck Trying to Teach a Fish to Swim

March 4

A Duck Trying to Teach a Fish to Swim

Just because you’ve been in the water doesn’t mean you know how to swim. Just because you swim in the water doesn’t mean you can teach me how. Floating on top and plunging your head under the surface occasionally, doesn’t qualify you to safe guard me. Poaching is unpleasant to those of us caught, we that were foolish enough to believe that birds of a feather can teach school are picked off and swallowed by the benevolence of so much quack.

Stand up to extend your reach

*

AND I BELIEVE YOU

"This will be easy." Says my sponsor.
"Oh yes, simplicity itself I'm sure." I respond
"I've participated in these plans before."
"We get good results." She retorts

I love how you pick goals.
They seem like intellectual straight lines
And turn into roller coasters.
You do it with an open face, not a modicum of guilt.

Why should I feel guilty?
You keep getting better.
I keep staying sober.
What is there to feel bad about?

The guileless look on your face,
I fall for it every time but no more,
I know you're cunning.
You know this will be hard.

I remember when we worked on Honesty.
What could be simpler?
Or Hope, how sweet a concept.
Or the thirty rounds on the floor with Setting Limits.

I've begun to realize you're like,
The bean seller that Jack met.
You say they are magic beans
And I believe you.

You say they'll grow to the sky
I know they will
And I will climb them
Just don't tell me it will be easy

The Horse of a Different Stripe

March 3

The Horse of a Different Stripe

When I arrived at the horse and pony show, I saw all there was to see; there were Morgans, Walkers, and Paints. Yet I couldn’t help, but return to this particular zebra, the spark of my imagination, the inspiration of my dreams. There was no help for me, I want what I want and need what I need. It was all about spirit, all about soul; the fire in its eyes matched the burning of my heart, ignition at the point of recognition. Then I stumble, then I fall, bad behavior and wrong thinking, the selfishness of the self-involved takes hold and runs my mouth, “Nice mount, great steed, But can nothing be done about these stripes?” The flash in those eyes, the knowing knickers, said it all. I was trying to stay in my small place and that would never work with her, if I wanted the Zebra, I had to be willing to go to Africa.

Respect randomness

*

DICHOTOMY'S' EMBRACE

Contentment and security
Bleed in through the doors and windows of my heart.
Peace blows its fine wind across my mind.

I fear for my identity
I raise my hand to beat the drum
Is my pulse still here if the beat of discontent is not?

The warmth seeps in
My fingers uncurl
I resist the urge to tilt my face to the sun.

How can I be I
If my countenance is not bleak?
Mirth escapes my lips, Am I a creature of laughter?

My brain feels through levels of sheltered memory
I am old and age hangs from my brow
I am young and exposure stings my flesh.

In all this----Joy?
Where can I enfold this antithesis
Shadows play across shade.

A child of extremes, Yes
Brooding and rage, howling and silence
How have sprinkles and starlight added to the mix?

Purring, musing and sweet kisses
What am I in this embrace?

Stepping Up

March 2

Stepping up

I look along the list of names, look upon the sea of faces. Are there any whose eyes I avoid? I gaze across the landscape are there any craters, any pock marks, any divots. I tick through my actions those I’ve recently taken checking for stumbles, glitches, snafus. These combined facts and figures create a portrait of my day; I appraise the eyes, the hair, the teeth. If I can smile at what I see all is well if not I begin the repair.

Plan for your contentment at least as much as you plan your escape

*

SWEAT

I turn the desk lamp into the eyes of God.
I put question after question
To the construct of my childhood concept.

Would you please explain?
Or exactly why did You do this,
That, or the other thing?

Are You now or have You ever been a member of?
I put the pressure on.
The beads of perspiration join and then trickle.

I have God in the box, I will not relent.
I don't understand You, I say disappointedly
As if speaking to a troubling adolescent.

You have so much potential, if only You would apply Yourself
The icon shakes It's head slowly and deliberately,
I shake my head too.

So much time has passed
And I am no closer to embrace.
You don't understand Me, says God to me.

Dawn breaks, I uncuff this mythic creature.
You are not the One I am looking for,
You are free to go

Reality and Desire

March 1

Reality and Desire

“I know the difference between desire and reality,” I whisper to my new found friend. Who I am and what I am, are a reality unto themselves, your recognition of that and how you handle said recognition are for you and G-d. The vastness of the true you; I hope to spend a lifetime surveying; but not sampling. What you want and your reality are not mine to mind or mend. If you are driving that train this is on you and if HP is the driver all the more incentive for me to be still, enjoy the ride and await the outcome. For in the end the question is never, will you be mine, but what will I be to you.

Explore beyond the bend in your mind

*

IF I HAD A SCREWDRIVER

If I had anything other than this hammer
Possibly, I would discontinue pounding
This helix into the side of my universe.

The slot is unused
The flat heat of my sledge slams.
A wide void is punched into my abyss
As the threads are pummeled, not turned.

If I had picked up the right tools.
If they had been displayed within my reach.
If my granny had wheels
She might yet be a wagon.

I have picked up new tools
But having never seen them used, I bang with them
Watching others twisting the wrist and angling the elbow
I try to wrap my mind around the posture.

Muscles I have never used
Laminated to mental configurations unthought of
Improvements in workmanship is slow.
May a fine toolbox has remained full and untouched.

The mind lacking the dexterity to grasp the in-workings
The body ill equipped for the outer
If I had a screwdriver, I pray I could bring to it
The flexibility of sinew and the nimbleness of wit