No Stone Left Behind

May 14

No Stone Left Behind

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

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

*

CLOCKS

When the clock stops

I wind it up or replace the battery

I have to-----time doesn’t end

Because the arms grow slow.

The device wears down

But the day is not over

Even if my internal metronome is bollixed

The planets keep revolving.

I can’t step off the world

It doesn’t stop turning for me

I don’t always have to keep my head up

But I must always go on.

There is no going back

I can only remember yesterday

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

The flowers are still fresh.

Sometimes I struggle

To keep my hands off the past

Those are the days I secure my future

And wind the clocks

Be That Girl

May 13

Be That Girl

I have tried to protect the investment I made in the past by selling the soul of my future.  I arrived self-possessed, a winning girl, but I slid the self from the scene leaving me simply possessed.  I gained everything then lost it a piece at a time starting with the parts nearest my heart.  I must draw the shards together once more and mend this lovely crystal. The art of living is insured by my action not by grasping at slivers in terror of what slips from my fingers.  I am what I have inviolate and all else comes to fruition when I am pleased; when I am myself.   

Be aware which pens are poison

*

SOOT

I diligently work to remove the soot.

The residue from the last time I tried to hot wire my brain

When I attempted the short circuit of my safety-thinking

I caught my life on fire and flames, though brief, were spectacular.

Electric fires are very jarring

The burning insulation toxic

It leaves bare, stuttering lines crossing and recrossing

My stable base, the methods I once used to keep sane, is shot

All because I wanted to go joyriding in my thoughts

Suspended reality sounds so good but always bursts into flame

Leaving me with soot removal as a hobby

Box-a-week Tao

May 12

Box-a-week Tao

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

Try not to lose things you never had

*

CHOICE

Growth is my decision

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

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

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

Good days are good times to improve

How could integrity be retarded by joy?

I am not punished into recovery

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

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

My bottom may have been an inducement to start

But choice keeps me coming back.

Out Standing In My Field

May 11

Out Standing in My Field

Trying to remove expectations is like trying to unseed a field; it is damn near impossible until something crops up, though when it does I must act swiftly lest things take root.  Tedious as it is, weeding the fields of unreasonable expectancy saves me from so much frustration later on.  I don’t recognize it, but expectations are like little dictators forever ruling me; leaving no room for G-d or direction, not to mention flexibility or change.  Tap roots dive for the vein and my life depends on fleet elimination of unsuitable desire.  I can want. I can strive.  I can not leave expectations to grow in my garden.

Screen your comments when you can

*

STRETCHING

Stretching is not equivalent to change

Limbering is nice

And warms the muscles, body and soul.

Over-reaching, over-compensation is trauma

It distorts the symmetry

And breeds erroneous thinking.

Extension beyond the bounds sets me up for a fall

I misinterpret touching with finger tips

With a firm and able grasp.

I don’t step forward because I believe

I have a hand on things

Failing to see how this is different from an embrace.

The sinew tears

And the fabric of life is destroyed

I lean forward but I go nowhere.

More than a Fedora

May 10

More Than a Fedora

I have no explanations only expletives, I wish I had something to say that you wished to hear, but that is not current events; foul humored broadcasts are what fill the air this day.  Bad temper is tempting, but I can no longer be satisfied in this way nor is this a performance that you care to witness.  I will play FCC to my ruminations curtailing this colorful darkness for my benefit and the clearing of the air.  I have never shied from dramatic vocabulary and I do not now, but throwing out words is waste and I am learning to conserve.  I don’t have to leak my power I can cover my head and close my mouth. 

Know what you are holding on to

*

URBAN LANDSCAPE

I am taking this giraffe to the penthouse,

Do you suggest the elevator or the stairs?

Why do you chose these complicated tasks

To fill your days asked my sponsor?

You think this is beyond my abilities?

I didn’t say that, I do believe either you or the giraffe

Are likely to get bent out of shape

But that is the most obvious of observations

What if I told you being disproportionate

Is both of our natural states, I asked?

I know that too, my darling little lamb.

You may be a contrast to the multitude

But why make it harder?

Why not a ranch with a cathedral ceiling

Bay doors even?

You are taking out the spirit of adventure, I say

Baby, you may have confused frustration

With excitement, says my sponsor

Yes, but you have forgotten the view.

The Little Black Dress

May 9

The Little Black Dress

The holes in my pockets cause me to feel naked.  Though it is an inside pocket and no one can see through I feel exposed, my thinking changed and for that matter chained, one link looped through the next.  I start with a hole in my pocket so I know I can’t stay in this dress all day. I know I will need the storage later as time wears on but I can’t change now and I don’t want to waste time putting on my tights.  My legs are cold.  I fly from room to room.  I gather my keys, but forget my phone.  I am bare legged and unreachable, overexposed due to a hole in my pocket.

Keep in mind that love doesn’t conform to opinion, even well meaning opinion

*

SLAYING OLD DRAGONS

Your roar is Doppler-low

And I can feel my steps move the earth

As I go forward.

Former dominator

Scary from every angle

I come for you today

The scales are falling, I don’t rip them but they fall

I can breathe at the heights of you lair

I am not shrinking

The booming voice you had is gone

The power spilling away from you

I don’t fly from you

Gone is the tremble you once instilled

The curtain has parted

And you are revealed

A Good Ship

May 8

A Good Ship

Recently my life has taken on a surreal quality.  I stand in front of myself as if I were a business to be run or a project to be undertaken.  The intensity, uncertainty and drama seem to be on the wane.  There are choices to be made and outcomes to be determined, but this is all work and numbers, nothing at risk below the skin.  My heart is secure, true love its protector, faith its inborn light.  I am docked in safety harbor; the waves may rock me, but my anchor holds me fast.  

Follow your lead

*

ALL- BETTER NOW

Mother kissed the booboo

And I wait for the admonition to take effect

Waiting, I count the problems

Like telephone poles on a long journey

What will it be like

The world all- better?

The anticipation nearly breaks me for awhile

Until waiting turns to disbelief.

A chill fills the space

And all- better becomes the cry

My sponsor calls for moderation

And lowering my expectation

The child’s ears ring with the promise to be fulfilled

She cannot give herself over to a world

Where band -aids are not a cure-all

But only a cover for the slow work of internal healing, scars and all.

Sheer survival is not sufficient for the screaming toddler

Heartbreak from injustice calls for more than endurance

But alas, a kiss is all we have.