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Fall in love with me
I need the chemistry
An addict in the third degree
Fall in love with me

Taste my savory sweet
Wave my flag of defeat
You’re the fire’s heat
Taste my savory sweet

You’re the man in me
Powerful physically
Burst my energy
You’re the man in me

Fall in love with me
I need the chemistry
An addict in the third degree
Fall in love with me

Take me for a ride
I invite you inside
The worse of me supplied
Take me for a ride

Promises I’ve made
Perpetuate the shade
Your hand was better played
Promises I’ve made

Fall in love with me
I need the chemistry
An addict in the third degree
Fall in love with me

I’ve been dead before
Spilled upon the floor
Darkness’s little whore
I’ve been dead before
I’ve been dead before
I’ve been dead before

Fall in love with me
I need the chemistry
An addict in the third degree
Fall in love with me

Image: Boicu Marinela; Pen and Ink Drawing “breaking”, 2012

Told to leave

I was told to leave

Toothpaste girl was invited in

I wasn’t even asked to leave

I had no chance to defend

or explain myself,

to redeem myself

They wanted me gone

So I had nothing left to give

And bubble gum girl dissolved

and faded like a mirage

They wanted the mirage

So I had better disappear

I didn’t blink like light hitting a tooth

and then crediting those that created

the effect

A whole person denied

to artificial rot prevention

I wasn’t shiny

I looked up antonyms for narcissism, and for the most part they all point to humility. I kind of feel like there is a more hands on approach to what seems to be an epidemic.  One term I found compelling to be opposite of narcissism is substance.

Narcissism is a hollow state, as well as a hollow life. A narcissist’s life purpose and practice is superficiality. It’s all about presentation along with what they wish to present; all about being impressive, and nothing else. It amazes me how we fall into the endless abyss of someone empty. They’re very convincing that there is something great on the other side. But nothing ever materializes. We bite into that cute, hollow chocolate Easter bunny, but it tastes like shit. I’d rather be tangled up in someone who is dense with love, wisdom, action, and human complexity.

Admittedly, narcissists are great reflectors of ourselves. Masters at telling people what they want to hear, we need to consider our greatest weaknesses – our own hollow spots. The more matter a person possesses, the better they are protected. To gain the upper hand, present to a narcissist that you have substance, and are loved for it. Your proof of worth will call their bluff. Narcissists are loved from the outside-out. There is no in.

Image: Matthew Spiegelman – Portal

Love died

The death of love

He’s gone

I grieve

Love is a HE in this thought. I’ve noticed my masculine qualities missing, as of late. I lack muscle, single tasking, and automatic ego. I crave pillar shoulders to hold me up.

Perhaps the Mars qualities within are simply ill. To compensate for mere functionality, intelligence is an information addict, and emotions rule. So, I’m gathering and surviving. Until the tinder in my belly ignites, hunting has ceased.

I thought I caught sight of love walking away. Was he so wounded that he left to hide and die? Or am I such the injured party that it’s best to abandon me? All I know is the existence of this tremendous loss. I’m on my own, left unprotected.

Love took bullets for me. He would fight for me. My intuition and education are at full capacity navigating life’s war zone, but there is nothing in me charging over the fields. For now, I take shelter in a cold cave; a furlough for rebuilding love, attracting new love, and constructing his pyre. I can no longer selfishly prove my value, but instead, I will prove his.

Image:  James Linkous, Brooklyn, NY – Diffusion Self Portrait 4′ Charcoal on Paper

 

Guilt

Guilt
As it is and under the radar
An undetected cancer
The puppeteer
I thought I just couldn’t keep up
Live in the guilt, but continue
to do the guilty deed, anyway
I can’t move because of guilt,
but I move because of guilt
A disability
that I didn’t know was one,
and lived with it, anyway
A liability
and just keep paying for it
not realizing it could be negotiated
I’m not a burden, my guilt is
So other people
really don’t feel bad about everything 
I feel bad to feel good
It’s an external life
Nothing to do with me
I want it to do with me

Sculpture – Paola Grizi, Courtain, 2015 – collezione privata, Venezia

Breathe. Let’s call last Thursday, Monday.

Out of respect of this past week, I want to leave a space for the fallen, and those closest to them. From artists, to fans, this space is yours.

A LATE SNOW   

A late snow

Under a sun so cold

Like finally feeling old

Winter expressed

March is near

Anticipation waned

But the ice appeared

Unpredictably, uncontrollably

The answer

On the ground

The truth

A late snow

A cold sun

Delaying relief  (2015)

A long winter. A delayed spring. Either way, relief has to wait. There is nothing to gain. No heat, no light. Just a dull ache kind of day that’s Permanent Gray with a dim sun. Mountains like decayed teeth, to an oceanic wasteland. The sun isn’t dying yet we just don’t see it much anymore.

I get as much done as I can when the weather is affecting me negatively. Always trying to stay productive no matter the outside. We have to, right? Sometimes I want to be as thick and still as fog. I can sit in misty silence until soaked through. On inappropriately cold days the sun is a distant lover. I try to forget about him.

There is emotional safety in the sun, but a physical killer if not careful. Perhaps the earth is still trying to sleep. She has been running a fever, but is still dancing none the less. I see the colors of her pulse in every due blossom. My pulse, a cold hammer on a cold anvil. Frozen in Spring, but I have work to do. No sun, no mountains, so I follow the blossoms.

Image: http://dustoncrowns.tumblr.com/post

Sick

Sick

A bug

A virus

Cure, need a cure

Sick, sickness

Illuminated brain area

Sick

Blue, the color blue

Fire, fire spot

Life slips

Sick

A bender

Pass

The state of this world feels like a stomach flu mixed with bipolar disorder. There is no balance in medication, and no recovery anytime soon. The green puss coating my heart is due to micro and macro environments. For now, all I can do is collect intelligence.

It amazes me how the body reacts, and even changes according to what is going on inside the mind. Life is inside, out, to inside again, and out again. Start with how you feel on the inside, and it is projected out – first through the body, then to the universe. The universe comes back, absorbed through the body to get to the mind. The mind decides to either take action and give back transformed energy, or succumb to what is being absorbed. The body and universe follow suit. The great equalizer is gratitude, no matter what is exchanging.

The body is being challenged therefore can feel ill during the process of transformation. And worse, if in the exchange is only filled with venom, then total sickness.

The world around me, close to me, and in me, is ill – and I look the way I feel.

Image: Sasha Vinci | L’Eterna Attesa – The Eternal Wait – 2008 – mix media

Emily

The sweetness of a flower, Emily;

The gentleness of meadow down, a skill

Whose soul is brevity; a wit to thrill

With master strokes levity. A plea

For nature plied your pen. Aesthetically

Enchanted men do kiss those lips now still.

Yet, even Death and Time cannot unwill

Those lyric steeds that prance poetically.

O Virgin ravished by Erato, who

Begot a summer’s day, a lovely lea,

A humming bird; o Bride of Beauty, do

Make room within your chariot for me.

Such verses as define “a funny fellows,”

A lign with Byron’s rhyme and Milton’s bellow.

©November 26, 1962, Donal E. Doyle (b. 1933)

The author of this poem, Donald Edward Doyle, is my father. We are both fans of Emily Dickinson. One of my favorite Christmas gifts my parents ever gave me was The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson. Though obvious, it was still revealed to me that it was my father’s idea to get it for me.

This post would be the longest digression ever about Dad’s history. I want to simply dedicate this space for private poets such as my father, and even Emily. Both of them had almost a secret relationship with their art their whole lives. Yet, keeping their poetry to themselves was not always by choice.

I wrote a short poem for Dad (or about him) a couple of years ago based on a video I saw. He was performing a dark and beautiful ballad on the piano. But as the video continued, it revealed something less. The artist is doing his job, the beholders are not. The ordinary minimizing the extraordinary.

the lens focuses
on young, old, and mundane
shallow chatter dominates
the camera’s interest
even in passive-aggressive lighting
attention merely winks at
the illuminated artist
his piano ballad will haunt memories
without creating them

I hear you, Dad.

(©2015)

Happy Poetry Month.

Big Different World

I want to see everyone.
I want to see everyone sitting
and standing and talking together,
working together,
partaking in differences.
Share your differences with me.
I want to hear your stories
as they stretch my mind.
I’m not afraid to handle 
how small I really am 
to our big different world.
I can face where I am incompetent
and you are skilled.
I will render unto you my entitlements
where you are denied.
Let’s see each other 
as we move, sleep.
Changing me won’t make you happy.
Feeling you as less won’t raise me.
But our energetic exchange
of passions, of ourselves
is with eye contact.

Image: “Weird Beauty” a project by the Russian photographer Alexander Khokhlov in collaboration with great make-up artist Valerya Kutsan.

Hope

Pressed down by iron black
Unimaginable cold
Cold darkness, cold blackness
We sit, move
Separated enough to touch nothing
Isolated frozen dark

Enters hope

Heat 
The heat of hope
Warmth in the dark
The Antarctic dark
Self generated calories
In the unbreathable dark
Enough for now
There is no light
Nothing in sight
A wasteland has no trails
But walk
Keeping your core temperature
From falling

When I hear hope described as a “ray of light,” I go dark.  Symbolizing hope as a means of illumination is to say one can see ahead because of it. As if hope is a predictor of the future. I will argue instead that hope keeps one going under tough circumstances to create the desired future. So I associate hope with heat.

Hope as light is a beautiful image. And coincidentally, light is often associated with warmth.  Technically, nobody projects actual light (rare people who can light a light bulb in their mouths is another discussion). But we do incubate, or wrap up ourselves in warmth for good measure. A loose analogy for hope can be described as wearing a good winter coat in a snow storm. Shining a light into a snow storm may reveal the severity of what someone is up against, but in itself doesn’t help one survive.

Does hope really create anything? Energetically and emotionally, I think so. Tangibly and quantifiably, not so much. But we can all agree that hope is one hell of a motivator. Ignited by inspiration, and self generated. Collectively, it can be powerful. Perhaps hope-light projects what can be, but hope-heat drives one long enough to forge what one is hopeful for.