Moniker

September 30

Moniker

The Hurt carry on the tradition, would never think to give it up, don’t even know there is that option, strap on their weapons without a second thought. How can there be a second thought when there never was a first. Hurt is a reflex and it moves its way through the world like dominoes tumbling; everything’s knocked down before you ever saw it standing. So, what’s the use anyway? So, I fall down and in that action push you forward and we are all together in the mud, but it is so hard to recognize anyone in the mud, including myself and especially you. If I hurt you that makes it hard for me to see anything about you except my wish for your departure, which I subconsciously hope will take away the guilt I can’t afford to feel. If I make it out of the mud I can’t afford anything, but if I don’t pay up I’ll be in new mud soon, so I must break tradition and the first step toward that is seeing it and the second is calling it by its name.

Open up your secret vault and unload

*

BATTLESHIP

If the first is a guess, what is the second?

Paranoia or worse.?

Action is a blessing, reaction a debilitation

And to twist from reaction to self-doubt

Sinks the battle and the battleship.

When I can’t make sense, the gift is stepping back,

Better to put my hand down than to lose the farm.

When I find myself in a minefield I can walk gingerly

Or wait for aid to come from above, air rescue or other.

The option of rethinking every step sets me dancing

The tune which begins this hurky jerky polka of death which

Stems from the metronome of criticism playing in my ear.

When I am overwhelmed with critique

I give up acceptance of chance or joy of spontaneity

Throwing myself into a pit of apprehension.

I am safer being wrong occasionally

Then unsure forever

Kicks

September 29

Kicks

New balance is more than a brand of sneakers. New balance is a joyful revelation made possible through constant vigilance. I am tap dancing into a vision, no more soft shoed wishfulness. I can lift my feet knowing I can keep my up right posture; my musculature robust from climbing the steps and accepting direction. This bright tempo delights me; I feel stretched, supple, able bodied. Life off the balance beam offers me the world in which to embrace my equilibrium.

Pick up your toys, pick up your chin and move on

*

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.

A Verse to the Wise

September 28

A Verse to the Wise

Encoding truth into poetry makes reality survivable by giving readers the opportunity to dig truth up like diamonds. Throwing certainty in peoples faces like cold water give them a wake up call but nothing to embrace. The beauty of semaphore is the dance that need not be understood by everyone who sees it. Communication through device leaves headroom and breathing space while acceptance might be reached. The current of a conversation often leads me to face the facts, but a tsunami of candor could drown me.

Exhaust reaction with reason

*

DENY ONE---DENY THE OTHER

If you want to deny the problem

By necessity you must deny the solution.

Resolving a problem whose existence is rejected

Creates a split in the crust of collusion.

Often times the convolution and reconvolution of addiction

Causes a bloated roiling mass

That rolls through the streets of sanity.

How can a wedge be cut in a creature so dense.

How can I work on piecing together remedies

When I am readily assured by fellow sufferers

There is NO DISEASE?

Can I trust my personal depletions?

Can I employ faith to a resolution

When faith is utilized to fortify

The contagion I/m told doesn’t exist

But if not faith what?

One Street off Amory

September 27

One Street off Amory

Apology holds change at arms length. Apology is the thing I was taught to wait for as a sign that things will improve, but apology is not a harbinger of change it is quite the opposite it is the guarantor of business as usual; no amendment need occur, apology has been made and life goes on with no alteration. Without variation we all stay sick and apologizing for that won’t get us better. Restitution, amends, revelation, revolution these are the things which make the world bright, apology is just a scrap with which to wipe your ass.

Put down your bat, skip your rope

*

ALSO A GIFT

Sadness is as life affirming as joy

But in the same way that people eat together

But defecate alone, joy is encouraged in public

And sadness is a private matter.

Happiness is embraced and discouragement relegated

Even though personal experience shows disappointment

Is often a point of growth.

What beauty and change stem from disillusion

But still it is hard to look directly

At grief and not flinch away.

The temptation to fain pleasure

And leave sadness swept under the carpet is strong.

It is an unwelcome job to be the defender of grief

A job which should be unnecessary to defend

We are not giants who can step

From one mountaintop to the next.

Green Wood

September 26

Green Wood

When a nail is hammered into a living tree, the tree is forever changed. Even if the barb is pulled out the tree will never be the same. If the spike remains and the tree lives; over time the nail will be incorporated, the tree will get on with the business of living and carry the thing as just a part of what it took to get here. What was trauma is trauma, but life is big and the longer it gets the larger the life, is the hope. Piercing experience is engulfed by rings of fresh wood and a will to grow beyond the moment of impact. The tree branches out and even a hundred nails can’t stop that.

Educate domination when you can and cage it when you have to

*

VIRGINIA CREEPER

In a clearing grows a vine

As seasons change the leaves turn pale.

This type of vine grows throughout the woods

But does it grow pale everywhere

Or only in the sunlit space?

I see the trembling of the lovely foliage

And wonder the destiny of the flora.

Does growth have a will of it own?

Does it grow to light or is it a must?

Can I turn my face

Even if Virginia Creeper cannot?

And if I can------------

Should I just to prove a point?

No Dialing Tonight

September 25

No Dialing Tonight.

When it is late at night and I can’t sleep I wander and putter and plan my dreams. I hold out hopes and wash their faces; pray for rain and clean all traces. Thunderstorms rumble and lightning strikes; I tune up the plumbing and wipe down the pipes. All the paint and promises in the world won’t change me; I’m still lost in the dark without you. Tear stains are friendly till I wash them away leaving blotchy eyes that can’t be explained; an aching heart that keeps on ticking and wishes that can’t come true. Sunday morning is here, too, soon and life rolls on whether you think it should. Tiny thoughts come out to play and sad, sad fears keep them at bay. But the dog is curled up under the covers without a care; I long to disturb her but do not dare. She is the queen here and I’m but the naïve; I’ll tend to my writing and try to be brave. For the dawn will follow this endless nocturne; the whole world will be safe once more. I will cry but it’s all too late; though you are merely a phone call away.

Find the place where noise and music intersect

*

ALARM CLOCK

The dream killer plays its harsh tones.

I pull my lids, so unwilling to wake.

The tip of my tongue dry to leather

Welcomes the wet of my toothbrush

I grin a foaming smile.

I run through my night travels

I mentally wonder the highlights

Ponder the implications and meanings.

Dressed, with open door breeze in my face

I leave nighttime escapades

For daytime pandemonium.

The only thing I won’t leave behind

Is the last image before the gong sounded.

What is Dear?

September 24

What is Dear?

I am angry that I was taught I must hold on for dear life instead of being taught that life is dear, but they couldn’t teach me what they didn’t know and couldn’t know what they had not discovered for themselves. I wish I had learned earlier to love the life I was taught to cling to, but I am grateful I have been bound to life long enough to find the joy in it. I have found that knowing joy causes me to cling all the more, cling in sweetness to what was once such a bitter task. I am angry for what I wasn’t taught, but sadder still for what they didn’t know and all that is lost in their lives to ignorance and tradition. I wanted better for them and they wanted better for me and this is the circle which closes around the dear that I hold onto.

Make room for running starts

*

FRUSTRATING IMPROVEMENT

Improvement is frustrating, lonely and yet exhilarating.

It somehow starts with moths in the stomach

And ends with warm soup satisfaction.

Struggling, waiting, followed by further struggle

Progress made by tugging one string then the other.

It is hard to accept scaling the ropes alone

But tottering assent is always this way.

Once at the top I realize how easily I could slide to the bottom

Sometimes friction is all that keeps me up.

Establishing a new altitude is challenging.

I must ground myself in a new way.

My talents hinder and aid me.

I must open the correct doors in my mind

And avoid the traps in the floor.

Stuttering through requirements and obligations

I transform but only slowly.

Earning each drop of comfort from a job just done.