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Seasons of Mourning

Seasons of Mourning. Season after season….

A dark Summer
A burnt Autumn
A literal Winter
A starved Spring

A gray Summer
A barren Autumn
A punishing Winter
A colorless Spring

A windy Summer
A dry Autumn
A slumbering Winter
A green Spring

A weathered Summer
A speckled Autumn
A quiet Winter
A purple Spring

A clear sky Summer
A storybook Autumn
A sculpture Winter
A kaleidoscopes Spring

A deep Summer…

The Season Cycle is Earth’s clock. Healing is on Earth’s terms. Years may pass before a day feels ordinary and mundane. A small victory is not noticing a regular schedule. With every season functioning will improve. But it takes season after season after season….

IMAGE: ?

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It’s The Inside

It’s The Inside. It’s the inside that counts.

“It’s the inside that counts” is a barren affirmation.
A person is not 2 people, nor 2 halves.
There is not an inside and an outside.
We are a whole package.

We market the inside when the outside is in question.
Or we sell our “curb appeal” over a dilapidated interior.
Nobody gets to cherry pick another person.
Nor should anyone sell themselves short.

We have as many varieties of our species as there are human beings.
Enhancements here, disadvantages there.
Opinions and judgments aren’t real.
When presenting oneself, proclaim, “It’s all or nothing!”

Something got under my skin. This is less of a poem and more of a rant. 

IMAGE: ‘You Blew Me Away’ sculpture by Penny Hardy

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Peaceful Moments

Peaceful Moments. One, two, three.

Peaceful moments
Are like pleasant dreams
Few and far between
I stand in the center
Of a labyrinth
Crowned in trees
A bird sings
One, two, three
Fall back onto my knees
Crawling home to reality

When inner peace is random and infrequent, and turmoil is the norm, we are a collection of bad decisions. We underestimate the ego boost conflict gives, and serenity is confused with surrendering to an enemy. Who am I without a fight? Probably a better person.

I want inner peace and outer quiet to be my normal. I want chaos and restlessness to remain on the fringe. I don’t know what that looks like, and I can’t name the feeling. However, when I am absolutely present, such as writing this now, I owe nothing and am owed nothing. One, two, three.

IMAGE: Santiago Caruso

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Cement

Cement

Descending stairs
In the cement dark
Not cold but stifling air
Cannot see one cement stair
Would a florescent flicker show
Blood unknown?
Splattered, smeared
A red cascade rolled out for
A VIP
A guest of honor
Keep out any light
Guess the way down
Cement wall
Cement hall
Inside of anywhere
Cannot see a single thing
The smell of a diamond ring
The unseen bloody scene
Cannot keep cement clean
The descending cement stairs
Blindly leading anywhere

I don’t know where I got the imagery from. But there it was in my head so I wrote it down. 

IMAGE: darksilenceinsuburbia: Maryam Savoji. Steps Towards Love.     Saatchi Gallery

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Importance

Importance

I was important once.
Then I was pushed
Into the vacuum of
Unimportance.
Never to be seen again.
I bet my life
On my self aggrandizement.
I thought I would be safe
As long as I was important.
The world finally had enough
And told me the truth
Then let me have it.
The world tried humbling me before
With little success.
The time was now.
Besides, importance depends on
Who you ask.
Unhealthy ego equals
Unhealthy attitudes equals
Unhealthy attachments.
I surrender from here,
And am important to unimportance.

IMAGE: ?

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Captured Mist

Captured Mist

I don’t have a who I am
unless you can capture mist
I’m something different
day to day
I’m someone you know
but have never met
A finger print
depends on which finger
Blood color
depends on where in the body
I pick my words
as I pick who I talk to
I am not finite
I have no definition
No direction
Liquid is more solid
than my name
Who I am is anybody
There is no who I am
I have as many faces
as I do cells
I start and stop
I am just here
Thick, damp, and everywhere
With nowhere to go

This is a season of feeling cold, stagnant, and dormant. So much of what I loved didn’t seed this year. Since I nurture no life on the ground, I exist only as air water. I fuck with visibility, I’m clammy, and my life depends on external requirements like temperature. I am merely atmosphere. The only positive prediction I have is that this winter will be short. I won’t be hibernating, just hunkering down.

IMAGE: Woman, oil on canvas, 1992, Alison Van Pelt

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Thank You, Erwin

A day is not a year…

Thank you, Erwin
I needed that
Got through the night
On half a glass
I think it’s my timing
Bringing me down
I thought tomorrow
Would come around
Thanks, again
For looking out for me
And the violence of the seas
Downtown is changing
There’s nowhere left to go
The outskirts are aching
But at least we can catch a show
Work hasn’t been much these days
A glass is all I have to raise
Wiping up spills
Picking off gum
Is what I have left of fun
Thank you, Erwin
For the paper cup
It hides the color of my luck
When I get home
And hydrate my fear
I’ll exhale
A day is not a year
A day is not a year

IMAGE: Adam Schmid, “Danbo And The Long Walk Home” – Phoenix Rising Photography

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Sinking Deeper

Sinking Deeper

Sinking deeper into the sea
The cement blocks are
External burdens
The rope wrapped around me
IS me
If I can release myself
From myself,
I can cut away the weights at my feet
And unravel myself free
Burdens are fixed
A limited mind can be tricked
The objective of blocks
Is to anchor me to the aphotic bottom
The rope is my imagined constraint
The rope alone drowns me
The blocks alone drown themselves
One hand loose, and I go up

Changing oneself is the obvious solution. Why do we miss it so easily? Perhaps because the weight of our circumstances is more noticeable, even painful. The ties that bind are uncomfortable, constraining, and annoying, but weight hurts, exhausts, controls the direction.

To cut off life’s problems is also swift. Escaping from personal knots can take a long time. For peace of mind you don’t get to do what’s easy first, then what’s hard.

Talk about keeping us humble.

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Exiled

Exiled

I was told to leave
Forced to remove my sleeves
Exiled by all means
She smoked a cigarette
As if it was good sex
I was on the bottom
I was the most less-than
She outed my silences
The most civilized violence
The longevity illusion
Everyone putting up with each other
Until someone can no longer bother
To watch my transgressors
Rot in stagnation
I move, I move
And they look up
They may have been right
They may have been just
I pack my shortcomings
Doing more taking than giving
More draining
And in the way
Was I really useless and a discomfort?
I will have something to say about this one day
Maybe they’ll read about it
I go my own way
As they say
They won yesterday
When everything was better without me

IMAGE: Maximilian Jaenicke

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Wake Up

Wake Up

Wake up, wake up
‘Cause I know there’s no giving up
Must make up, wake up
And so I brew one more cup
To wake up, wake up

And I wait for the day
I catch up with time
But for now just breathing
In and out is fine

Until I wake up, wake up
Doesn’t matter what I’m dreaming of
To wake up, I must wake up
When I arrive will it be enough?
To wake up, wake up.

‘Cause I know tomorrow
Answers to no one
What I have to show for myself,
A dream undone 

And I wait for the day
I catch up with time
But for now just breathing
In and out is fine

Someday I’ll wake up
Wake up

This is a song I wrote for a friend’s post on a story site. The main character would drink a lot of coffee to get herself through some difficult days. I wanted to capture the inability to burn off the heavy fog from lack of sleep, coupled with despondence. This song pays me a visit occasionally, this is one of those days.

“Stillness is our most intense mode of action,”  is the first sentence of a great Leonard Bernstein quote. Stillness is practiced from a place of power, but forced from a place of powerlessness. I ask myself, does this stillness feel like a split second of nirvana, or years of drowning? Either way, my revelation is understanding who I am under my circumstances. The painful freedom of the truth.

And then what? Am I ready to take action now, or soon? Who will I be under new circumstances? For now, I wait. 

IMAGE: ?
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I’ve Heard Enough

I’ve Heard Enough

I think I’ve heard enough.
I get it, you like it rough.
There really isn’t a conversation,
discussion, or debate, is there?
We’re all about your way.
And your way is my pain.
Like the small animals you maim.

I’m sorry you can’t feel yourself.
I’m not feeling you either.
You’ve limited your imagination
to only what resembles you.
And torturing others is progress.
To see someone else suffer
is cause for applause.

I understand now.
This is your time to weaponize
what makes you uncomfortable.
Your problems are now my problems
to prove you’re a victim.
I’m done fighting fair, or my way.
I’m playing your unsustainable game.
But I guess you’re winning.
My destruction is your living.

I’m finished listening. To call out an asshole for being an asshole is a compliment to an asshole. They’re having the time of their lives.

I’ll survive, self sustain, perhaps even be more neighborly.

Smart or not, educated or not, an asshole is an asshole. I’m recalibrating my position, starting with being done.

IMAGE: ?

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Her Reaction

Her Reaction

We treat Mother Earth

the way we treat women.

We’re not really doing anything wrong to her,

her reaction is what sucks.

I’ll sometimes humble myself by standing next to the ocean. As much as I’m too restless for my own good looking for greener pastures around the world, the town I presently reside in offers a voluptuous shoreline. A Puget Sound sunset should be on a bucket list. But this isn’t a tourism ad. The health of the planet is what has been on my mind. 

I expect to see some dramatic changes in climate and nature in general over my life time. I’m not supposed to. Despite my dissatisfaction almost everywhere I go, I don’t want to move to another planet. I’m actually content here. What’s worse is being forced to go because someone had to be an asshole instead of a whole human. And way too many of us are like that.

I know haters don’t want to be convinced. But the reality of our existence is beyond them. Is it simply human to be entitled? Are we so ego centric to think the Earth is ours and should just give and give? She’s not going to take it any longer. Right now she’s just being passive-aggressive. Watch what happens when she snaps. 

 

 

 

 

 

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Life As Better

Life As Better

Measuring the time of a better life

depends on who you ask.

Life as better cannot be defined

in a three dimensional photograph.

Life as better hasn’t happened yet.

If I wanted to remain in the past

I would have ended myself then

and left a nostalgic corpse.

Instead, I go onward

along with the erosion of mountains

and aging of the moon.

An old oak that outlives generations of humans

does so by periodically sprouting new life.

A life of perpetuating memories is a life stopped.

Blasting back to the past makes me uncomfortable. Nostalgia is rare for me. When I observe others trying to recreate the atmosphere of their childhood, or keep repeating a personal era that appeared special, or hold onto tastes that they insist should still be relevant, I find this existence to be anachronistic. A burden, and insecure.

I want to keep pushing onward no matter the damage done to me. I haven’t had any glory days so far, at least I hope not. I’m pretty unimpressive if the past is the best I can do. Priorities change, but the goal of arrival has not.

Humanity seems split between those gripping fast to an unreliable past, and those trying to brave the unknown future. I must be a young soul, always looking forward to what is new. My past hasn’t happened yet. I wear life on my face and process age in my head, but I brave the unknown future.

 

 

 

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Investor

Just one investor

A going out of business clearance sale

Only salvaging pennies on worthless items

Just one investor

To reflect back in his eyes the value of potential

I never got out of the red

Should’ve never got out of bed

I rely on the outside at the cost of pride

An empty store front

Bought up by something new I’ve never heard of

I needed just one investor

Sometimes we rely too much on external validation. I’m terribly guilty of that. From love to worth, what is around me reflects me.

Sometimes I so badly want someone to come in and save the day, whatever that means. I seem to fail at helping myself. And watch the world go on without me.

The internal world is my new investor. She doesn’t have a lot to offer, but space and time. I can work with space and time.

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The Answer

The Answer

The Answer

Everyone has the answer
The answer is everywhere
The answer is right in front of you
The answer is in the details

The answer

The answer is forced
The answer is ignored
The answer is the right energy
The answer doesn’t smell right

The answer

The answer is money
The answer is black and white
The answer is male and female
The answer is children
The answer is prayer

The answer

The answer is in a holster
The answer is regulations regulating regulations
The answer is blood

The answer

The answer is an erection
The answer is a gentle touch
The answer is his bravery
The answer is her leadership

The answer

The answer is to demand
The answer is to shut up
The answer is to vote
The answer is to congregate
The answer is to divide and conquer 

The answer, the answer

The answer is abstinence 
The answer is sex
The answer is commitment
The answer is choice
The answer is independence

The answer

The answer is to talk
The answer is regular checkups
The answer is in a pill
The answer is timing

The answer

The answer is understanding
The answer is faith
The answer is to learn

The answer

The answer is freedom 
The answer is the law

The answer

The answer is trust
The answer is distrust
The answer is the truth

The answer

The answer is in the question
The answer is to find an answer

The answer

The answer is  
You
Me
Us
We
Love

I’m back online, looking for answers. Giving answers.

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Papa, I Borrowed Your Gun

Papa, I Borrowed Your Gun

Papa, I borrowed your gun

I decided not to run

Papa, I borrowed your gun

You were right about that one

I borrowed your gun today

Some say you raised me right

Others believe I shouldn’t fight

But I borrowed your gun today

Who is the villain now?

The one who starts it, or the one who finishes?

Who is the victim now?

The one who starts, or the one who finishes?

Papa, I borrowed your gun

He tried to run

I borrowed your gun, Papa

It wasn’t for fun

I guess I could go to the police again

Straighten out my heart and head

But I borrowed papa’s gun instead

Change out the word “gun” with “power” and re-read. I know, the rhyme scheme is interfered with, but that’s not important. How does the poem resonate now?

As long as she’s a father’s daughter, like how the old fashion comfortable story above illustrates, she’s approved to have access to “power”. If she was an individual taking matters into her own clutches, she being the gun owner, she’d be simply investigated.

Finding an image for this post was eye opening. Images of women with guns were mostly models with ridiculous cleavages, a few military service women, and as for girls, daughters looked more like sons. There were no images of everyday plus size women with rifles, no women over 40 packing a Crimson Trace, no girls in glasses with braces wearing a tiara pointing a glittery but real shotgun. It’s no accident women are hardly  marketed to, or encouraged really to purchase “power”. Women with “power” is to be kept as a novelty. We’re still borrowing. And not for our sake.

IMAGE:  Eiko Ojala “Tough Talk and a Cowardly Vote on Guns.”

 

 

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No Call

Disconnected

No Call

No Call

No Echo

Nobody signaling ‘over here’

No finger pointing

Even with whom I’m connected to,

There is no connection

I’m a fly

Wanting to join the party

I only crash them

A door to door salesman

Nobody buying

No longer charming

Been feeling really disconnected from everyone and everything, lately. An island. I’ve even put down my phone. I start to wonder how alienation will take form on my face. It’s just me and the news; what a weak combination.

So I start from the beginning. I walk. I walk among trees. I walk along the shore. I walk with the river. Mother is a good place to start to connect. I’m still at her breast. I will grow soon.

I want to touch nothing. I have nothing to say. But maybe I’ll start to wave.

 

 

Happiless

Happiless
When I feel this way
Happiless
Is how I feel today
Can’t tell the difference between blue and tired
There is no light at the end of this tunnel
There is no light at the end of this tunnel
Just gray
Happiless
Present love
An easy cure
The problem now
The problem before
Happiless
Is a cold entrance wound
I’m not sad
Not mad.
Just happiless

Not sad. Not mad. Just tired. Just gray.

IMAGE:  Leslie Avon Miller / December 03, 2011

Best He Can Do

Best He Can Do

His hands are dirty
The best he can do

Half a day he can get through
A half-hearted attempt
To show he cares about you
It’s all enough to him
The best he can do

Energy is something to lose
Sometimes for money it’s worth it
Intake is measured by the type of elevation
Everyone around him is irrelevant to the equation
This is the best that he can do

So strong in the way he holds himself up
On shoulders he uses as a crutch
The smartest guy in the room
If you are a guy in the room
The best he can do

The problem really is the double life
And not just the lies
They are a symptom
Fall though the trapdoor of deceit
When that’s the best he can do

Isolate or contain
Don’t spread his pain
Distruction is dominance
The best he can do

IMAGE: dum dum dum – Snailbooty

Black Grass

Black grass

Black grass
White sky
Fog walls
Comfort from the stage
Safe
No one can invade
Out here
No shade
Black grass blade
I breathe
You suffocate
I walk today
Chilled and damp
Heaven made
Red stains
Biological rain
Red on the blade
A red name
The old neighborhood
Wasn’t that friendly
Keep me in the white
I’m the memory
Safe in my grave

I’m reading into many things in only black and white. Gray is smoke, not contrast. I’m starving to decide. The in between is memory.  Black and white. 

IMAGE: Riensberg Cemetery Bremen, Germany

 

I’m Not Laughing

I’m not laughing anymore

I’m not laughing anymore
I do what I have to do
To pay, expend, and give
I slip on moss fallen trees
Across my path

My hopes don’t go up anymore
I use hope like a sponge
To clean my house with
I win when I bet on the horse
Stuck in the gate

I can’t remember when I last danced
As if I take up too much space when I do

I find nothing funny
Buried under the freeway
Luck is when I catch a sunset
Not when the closest person standing next to me
Leaves my shoulders alone

Surprizes are shocks and startles
Things are shitty
Because they can be
My folly, my merit
I can’t laugh anymore

IMAGE: ?