NaCl

May 21

NaCl

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

Bang the drum, expect a sound

*

FROZEN STRAWBERRIES

I have them in the freezer, I tell my sponsor

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

And reenact spring, she retorts.

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

I don’t want them to go to waste.

Oh the Excuse Maker, the Staller

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

I thought you were going to defrost the strawberries.

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

Eat the strawberries or not

But it seems to me you didn’t get sober

To avoid the sweeter things in life

Keeping all your goodness locked up

In the deep freeze

Destined for frost bite.

Matinizing

May 20

Martinizing

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

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

*

POWER

When power arrives

It comes complete with a blindfold

Mask and lullaby

I am blinded to what effect I have

Others can not see me

Only the unchanging masquerade covering my face

All my fears and apprehensions are soothed

By the melody singing in my ear

I am possessed

The hard thump of the bottom reaching up to get me

Is my sole hope of release

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

The isolation is too far reaching

My senses numbed

My thinking biased

Salvation as a cold smack is the jolt required

Fire takes fire

Power takes the same

Who Rang?

May 19

Who Rang?

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

If you reframe the past don’t crop reality

*

NETWORKS

Testing my sponsor when I’m hurt

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

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

It’s guaranteed I will get an explosive response

I need a network

They follow me with sand

Snatch from me my burning pacifier

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

We all need a little excitement in our lives

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

I forget that boring isn’t the same as death

It just feels that way

Some days distance prevents disaster

A good support system carries me away

To face it on another day.

Pearly Whites

May 18

Pearly Whites

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

If you take the cake don’t take it far

*

DRIVEWAY TIME

Layer after layer of blue stack the sky

The moon risen and the sun dipping away

I wait for the twin lights, the constellation of headlights

My ride to the meeting.

It will be the entry vehicle to a world of population

Leaving behind the galaxy of me, the single star

I stand silent and the feeling of fellowship carries the miles

Laughter flies the winds of memory

And all the old jokes of truth and tribute are fresh

And abide with me until the car arrives

And we make it all new again.

Underoos

May 17

Underoos

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

Be kind when you win; be kind when you lose

*

PIROUETTES

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

I am erect, proud of my self-possession.

I can stand the forces of vector rotation

Public opinion and gravity.

Sobriety has made a dancer out of me.

I sprint the stage and take my place.

I know the moves and trust, as best I can

The choreographer and choreography

I feel the wind move on my body as I revolve

The blur of existence spreads out before me

I can let it pass

To spot myself and keep my upright posture

The only place that requires my clear and unobstructed view

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

Life Events in Burlap

May 16

Life Events in Burlap

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

Allow your imagination to put on a slideshow for your resistance

*

THREE ROOSTERS

The three roosters came to the meeting

To hear themselves crow.

The membership purely spectators

In the longest, lowest, loudest sobriety competition.

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

Who learn slowly not to put our heads up

To spare our eyes and hearts.

The same noise comes repeatedly

Suspicion is never aroused

The heads nod at all the right places

Orchestrated for ego and nothing else.

The meeting is closed with a momentary prayer

For the still suffering, in and out of the room

I pray that will be enough.

Madame Alexander

May 15

Madame Alexander

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

Make a suggestion box for your heart

*

CELEBRATIONS

You wore a wrist corsage to the dump?

You said to celebrate every activity

I retorted to my sponsor

Yes, by doing them with purpose.

Not everything needs to be a production number

Sometimes just showing up is enough

Putting to much energy into preparation

Can leave you without resources

It’s okay to make an appearance

Do the simple act and move on

That is a celebration in its own way

Don’t squander your vitality on the mundane.

Do you know what I mean, asks my sponsor?

Don’t waste flowers on trash heaps, I answer

Yes, and don’t wipe your bottom with poetry

I mention this in case you get any ideas!