Posts for June 11, 2022 (page 5)

The Earth is my carpet
My Mother ~ My Home
I shall roam
Thru soft hushed beds of green

Your voice paints
Sacred visionary cliffs
Enneagram answers scribbled in cave lingo
Flaming ochre scriptures poured on
Parchment rolls . . . tumbling tumbleweeds  

Deliciously savored visions in fine French cafes

Anise brings me zee pastry ~
Voila!
Et pour un petit moment I’m home in marzipan memories of you

all the words
written, typed, whispered then etched
a conglomerate
mixture of way/way back
     and yesterday
pages, long forgotten
stories
everyday yields a story
tiny thoughts which become
     the written word
sometimes printed
given, offered, accepted
     often refused
love in language
distress uttered on a page
forgiveness, elation, heartbreak

I will pack it up and move on
discard some
emit a desire to burn a bit of the totality of grief
while uttering gratitude
this record served me well
     got me through
          pushes me forward

**************
(sidenote…I am moving residences and boxed up a bunch of journals today)

***trigger warning: violence, suicide***

I ceased to be
a human being
long before I quit the last job.

So hated was I that he couldn’t stand
my name being written
on anything.

Not my locker, not on files,
not the cutesy calendar we got
to team-buildingly write our birthdays on.

My crime was trying to see
the best in everyone, to help everyone,
to forgive little mistakes, and generally being kind.

He, the cynic, became jealous
of all the love I was receiving, decided
my light needed to be snuffed
                                        (driven to madness)

He needed to be the hero so bad
that he was willing to be
every kind of villain to get it.

All the work would be left to me
while everyone else was invited
outside for smoke breaks.

More work was pushed on me 
through power trip refusals; if it was undesirable,
I had to do it

no matter how burdensome it all became.
Who cared if I got tired?
Maybe I would quit
                            (snap and get myself fired)

His colleagues saw what was happening,
admitting he was wrong, but they were spineless,
scared to risk landing on his bad side.

I could only go upward, 
pull aside the senior management and beg
for help or I was going to leave
                                               (kill myself)

but they didn’t know the cynic’s job,
deeming it more important to protect his knowledge
than my dignity as a human being.

There was no force for good.
Just a narrative spun by the cynic
turning everyone against me.

There was no love, only poison
bleeding into dreams of justice
in the form of his bald spot
                                 (bulls-eye!)

Any day could have been that day at the end
when there was nothing left in my spiritual stores
to hold me back.

Only a sense of purpose kept me together.
To fade away quietly would give nothing to the world;
neither would making an angel of an earthly devil

but to write about it shines inspiration–
this visceral reminder that anyone can be on the brink
coming from one who clawed his way back.

Be.
Kind.
Always.

A nerve half atrophied,

Black vase’d azaleas sent

It’s true we’re cut off from it
but the distant crows call to 
the deep creases of my brain,
ancient ancestral memory.
Shimmering oak leaves
against the sky–
hypnotic
and I know of course we breathe
the same air.  We’re porous
to the world around us, and though
in the city there’s always the roar
of traffic, we can still make out
birds alive in the trees,
the world in all its technicolor beauty.

I wonder

my legs are sore from

dancing the night before

i forgot to charge my phone

and i know i’ll find my wallet later

i wake up to the sound of my cat

rummaging around my room

(only to return to lay at my feet in boredom)

instead of

a familiar and unwelcome alarm

i could workout if i wanted to

maybe go to the grocery

i’m sure i’m out of something i need

i could crochet

or read the new book i got

make myself some coffee

(instead of the the customers i see daily)

there’s so many possibilities

and so little time

on my day off

               Tingling begins in the first
knuckle of my pinkie; eventually,
it overspills the joint, fills
the void

               of the entire digit, moves
to the base of the next, envelops
my ring finger swiftly. Mission
accomplished. It’s only

               on the right, and it’s only
for a moment. Drop my arm
to the side,
                    wait,
                              adjust. Sometimes,

I adapt –
                     hunt
                                  and
          peck

rather than follow proper
two-hand style learned during
second period in typing class
under the demanding tutelage
of Mrs. Smith,
                         wandering up
and down
                          aisles full
of perky Smith-Corona electrics
smattered with a few random clacky
Underwoods,
                          Olympias,
                                               and Royals.

Be aware of your body, posture counts.
Don’t rest your arms on the desk. She
would announce from behind, Keep
your eyes on the manuscript, not
on the keys, as she slid
                                        a piece of paper
over your hands to block your view.
Perfection, persistence, and practice –
they all mattered.

                                         Now, I wait
          for my hand to remember
the tasks at hand, the memories
to transcribe, the feeling
to return.