Poem for Today

Headache

I've stuffed my head
With thoughts.
Enslaved,
They rage
Clamor
Scrape
Free us from this dark keep!
Go on,
Open the hold.
Release them to air,
Wash my skull's walls
Of fingernails & blood,
Scrub its floor clean
Of vomit & filth,
Sweep out the
Pleas & the fears--
I'll have it full again
In a fortnight.
Or--to hell with this,
Just blow the heap
To smithereens.

Gnash...

That's Right!!!

You know what makes me happy? Space exploration.

Maybe and mayhem...

I will be the silence
Left between your blasts of relevance;
I will be the liar
Who invents the daily circumstance.
I will be the spire
Pointing deep into an empty sky;
I will be the ugly one who asks them why.
 
I will be the violence
Bringing chaos to their temperate views;
I will be the mire
When they try to wash their falsehoods true.
I will be the fire
When the world has left us cold and blue;
I will be the only one who stands beside you.

Why hello there, baby hellbenders.

Do you see these? They're Ozark hellbender babies, propagated in captivity due to the disappearance of their stock in Missouri's rivers. The decline of populations in the past century has led to their unfortunate positioning on the federal endangered species list.

The St. Louis Zoo and the Missouri Department of Conversation has been working the past decade to keep this incredible creature--the only giant salamander this side of Asia, and a bit of a boggler when it comes to figuring out how it came to exist in North America--from passing into extinction. In November 2011, the captive breeding program successfully hatched this batch of babies.

My first introduction to the elusive hellbender was in biology class; Doc Hatch had a preserved specimen in a gallon jar on his desk that elicited plenty of awe from us all and particularly great horror from most of the girls.

I saw a hellbender in person while gigging with my brother and dad one night on a trip home from college. For the uninitiated, you gig by taking a john boat rigged with halogen lights out on the river at night, allowing you to see the contents of the murky river that are invisible in the daylight. A skilled hand can use the gig pole tipped with a small trident to spear freshwater suckers, a fish most people don't cotton to much since it's rather boney. My brother, remembering the bottled hellbender from biology class, made a point to show me the hellbender wiggling quickly back down out of sight. To this day I consider that sighting of an Ozark hellbender in its natural habitat paramount to seeing a sasquatch or a wild okapi.

There are two subspecies of North America's Cryptobranchus alleganiensis,  which together form the genus Cryptobranchus and join the Andrias genus of Asian giant salamanders to form the Cryptobranchidae family. Fossil records of these giant salamanders date back 65 million years, making them a truly remarkable creature in my mind.

One subspecies, Cryptobranchus alleganiensis alleganiensis, known in vernacular as an Allegheny alligator, is found in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Kansas. The Ozark variety, known as Cryptobranchus alleganiensis bishopi, is found only in the rivers of lower Missouri and upper Arkansas, but in the past few decades, populations have dwindled to nearly nil.

No one truly knows how giant salamanders came to exist in North America. I, of course, have wacky theories related to Missouri's many caves, but we won't get into that right now. Considering they've been preying on and falling prey to the other creatures in their ecosystem in the rivers of my home state for thousands of years, I certainly hope this anomaly's time has not come. Some deride the Missouri Department of Conservation for its sometimes unexpected maneuvers, but I personally laud the captive propagation of Ozark hellbenders. It'll be a sad day in my heart should this five-fingered living fossil ever find itself locked in history for keeps.

Just wrote a new song...

Mater Mea

Verse
You strolled into my life
When all had left my side,
Oh, little did I realize
How well you improvised.

Chorus
Oh, what would I have been without you?
Where would my road have led?
Your hand upon me softly,
Your love in every word,
In every word you said.

Verse:
There was no guarantee,
Yet you never took from me,
You tried to set me free,
Past walls I failed to see.

Chorus:
Oh, what would I have been without you?
Where would my road have led?
Your hand upon me softly,
Your love in every word,
In every word you said.

Verse:
Your years defined my grace,
I'll miss your sure embrace,
Your courage kept us in the race,
You'll never be replaced.

Happy Mother's Day

I received my Mother's Day gift early, and it may well be the best Mother's Day gift ever.

A compound bow, half of the resolution I made over a year ago. A bow and a motorcycle are the two corporal things I discerned, after the great paring away, that would complete the essential me.

What does the mongrel need with a bow?

The mongrel needs to eat something of substance, the likes of which she never gets these days. One can't be raised on the dark savoriness of the wild and then achieve satiation with the flesh of the captive-bred-born-and-slaughtered.

The mongrel needs to eat flesh that has never known a pen. Free-range chickens are not the answer, nor will buying another's kill negate the need.

Muscles must now memorize, acute alertness must be honed, stealth and invisibility must become first nature.

I begin now, with the past 12 years burned behind me. From those ashes I rise a new being. In time you won't even remember that girl glutted with the gross acceptance of bondage latent in her tasteless repasts.

Lover

Why hover o'er a silent town?
Come, lover...lay your body down
At my feet again,
Lay it down.

Discover worlds you haven't seen,
Uncover what you are to me.
Let me show you what you are to me,
Let me show you what you are,
Oh, what you are to me.

Don't stutter if you'd rather scream,
Beloved, cry your aching heart clean.
Let me hold you while you cry it clean,
Let me hold you while you cry,
Oh, while you cry it clean.

You suffer, but without a sound,
Beloved, lay your burden down.
Find your strength again...
Lay it down.
Lay it down.
Lay it down.
Lay it down...

...a blind bird sings inside the cage that is my heart...

The Bottle That Changed My Life Forever

This is the bottle that changed me for good.

My name is Darla. I am an alcoholic.

I stand in the rubble of what should have been a reasonably good life, with the very sledgehammer I used to destroy it in my hands.

I have a drinking problem.

I had a drinking problem.

I've been sober since April 22, 2012. I quit. I had to. I finally found the bottom of the bottle. As one might expect, it's hard, cold and painfully transparent.

I gave the past decade of my life to drinking. I've never needed it, but it's been around, so I've succumbed to it as a necessary evil. It did keep me from having to focus on myself, my loved ones, my emotions, my past, my future. It allowed me to sail from one day to the next on mostly fun though somewhat foggy seas.

I started drinking at 4, when my dad would give me sips off his Coors. I liked the taste of it a lot. He became a minister when I was in junior high, though for several years prior he had already given up his habit. But I remembered the taste of it, and craved it.

My mother's dad died of alcoholism at 46. His kidneys didn't just shut down, they exploded. That's what the doctor said, anyway. Three of his brothers struggled with alcoholism, one to the point that he was the laughingstock of the town, ending up naked in the ditch far too many times. He had to move out of state and spend years in AA to stay on the wagon.

The first time I got drunk as an adult, I was 20, and downed half of a fifth of tequila in 30 minutes on an empty stomach. I can't even imagine what horror my pal Jesse experienced in the hour before my blindness finally turned me over to sleep.

I blacked out another time after drinking too much at a Halloween party. The sexual assault I found myself subjected to resulted in six athletes being dismissed from university. I became a pariah the likes of which the town had never known.

In the past two years I've blacked out more times than I can remember. Each time I've thrown myself around like a dog, leading my husband to believe that I have no moral compass whatsoever, and that I am intentionally trying to smash his heart to bits.

This last episode was the worst yet in regard to his feelings, and finally made me realize that I have a serious problem.

So I quit. I did it without God, I did it without anyone. I did it because my remorse shrouds me at all times. I will never again touch a bottle. I can't retrieve the past 12 years of my life, but I can for damned sure ensure that my problem won't rule me the rest of my days.

Life is hard here lately. Facing your weaknesses is painful, crippling, devastating. Having to do it quietly while still trying to work, raise your children, struggle to save your marriage and get a band out of the garage is...a little harder.

Thankfully, I'm strong. I'll make it through this, and I won't always feel this broken. For now, though...

Three Regrets

As one who makes mistakes on a regular basis, I try not to litter my heart with crippling regrets. I carry three to date that refuse to be buried. I fail to discern if they are now permanent elements of my personality, or if I am simply not seeing the lessons that keep them fresh in my mind.

Julliard

Scott

Daniel

Julliard was my first choice for study after high school. In retrospect, I should perhaps instead bemoan the fact that I ignored all the personality exams qualifying me best suited to be a physicist, but as an oboist, vocalist and award-winning dramatic artist, I could see no better sanctuary than Julliard to hone my passions into a blissful lifelong career.

My parents, bless their hearts, saw me careening toward the edge of the nest and did their best to keep me from plunging headlong into the maw of all the world's predators, both real and imagined. When I reported the amount of automatic academic scholarship awarded me by Julliard based on my ACT scores, and asked permission to schedule an audition for oboe and voice scholarships, I was shut down with such ferocity that my poor little dream withered in the wake of my parents' horror. Was I insane? Scholarships or not, talented or not, did I think a little rube from the backwoods would stand a chance in The Big City? I would be snatched up, raped, murdered and thrown into the East River within an hour of stepping off the plane.

No. A massively emphatic NO.

I was too soft at the time to know that certain aspirations are the foundation of our very selves, and that if they are allowed to die, one begins crumbling slowly into the mud. I tucked away my visions of swimming euphorically in history's great masterworks from my oboists chair in the world's most revered orchestras, I dropped my head and tried not to think of that beautiful feeling when one's voice pours out and fills an auditorium of appreciative ears.

I went on humbly and fully financed myself through three years at a close-by Baptist university. I kept myself busy winning awards for interpretation of poetry, prose and drama, but the lackluster mid-Missouri life sucked the very desire for greatness from my soul, and I ultimately dropped out to distract myself from disappointment with booze, short-term promiscuity and self-mutilation.

***

Scott was born four days after me, to my mother's aunt. Even as small children, we were obvious soulmates, opting to sit quietly and talk while the other children ran riot in the yard. Without fail we greeted and departed with warm hugs.

As I entered the university, Scott followed his father's footsteps into the military. I often wonder if he, too, lacked the passion for his path that I did, but he faced the service with determination. My sophomore year and his second year as a private, we penned letters back and forth for a time, until I moved from the dorms into my own apartment and found myself busied with work, school, competitions and playing oboe in the church orchestra.

I missed my missives from Scott, but as an ignorant young adult, I assumed that I would always be able to pick up the train again once my life calmed. Several months into my dreadful self-absorbed post-university descent, I received a call from my parents. Scott had killed himself. He had just been promoted to corporal. He had been found in his chair at home with the pistol in hand.

I can't write more about this right now. It should be easy enough to surmise the shape of my regret.

***

I met Daniel soon after moving to Oregon. I immediately disliked him, as he rather cheekily invaded my personal space and touched my ass, then laughed at my discomfort. He looked eerily similar to the fawn in Pan's Labyrinth, though at the time I wouldn't have made that association, as that movie wouldn't be released for five years. He was half Cantonese and half British, and an albino to boot, with horrible gnarled teeth the shade of dirty dishwater. And he was always smiling. He was also nearly blind, but had an uncanny ability to take photographs that captured the essence of the scene he couldn't really see.

Daniel subsidized his small income selling fried rice at Saturday Market by selling weed, so of course I met him via my husband's many head friends. In time I warmed to his familiar nature, but I never felt fully at ease with him, as he attributed some great beauty and power to me that I found highly suspicious. Yet as the years passed, I found myself growing to appreciate his uniquely offbeat personality, and we became heartfelt friends.

There was a point in time when Daniel approached me about "subsidizing" his income by letting him share a house with my husband and me. We didn't have children at the time and in retrospect, the situation would probably have been delightful, but I let some strange belligerence rule me and denied him, even though I knew he was struggling and that he had mustered a great deal of courage to even ask. Shortly thereafter, I bought a new car, and Daniel saw the commitment of funds to a machine as an enormous betrayal. In typical fashion, when faced with his anger I simply stopped seeing him, using my silence and absence to drive the hurt deeper.

Reconciliation began the week my eldest was a week old. At his behest, we brought Mars for a visit, and of course, he fell in love with the little bull. During the six months that followed, we saw one another again randomly, as he would drop by the house to see the baby and while away a few hours. 

When we moved to Veneta to escape what we considered at the time to be intrusions by our many friends, Daniel's visits ended. Two months later, my husband's birthday came, and he dropped by Daniel's cramped apartment across from the library for a quick visit, but unusually, no Daniel came to answer his knock. A day later we received a call from a friend that she had found Daniel dead on his floor. By all estimations, he had probably been dead when my husband attempted his visit.

I had let a beloved friend, who saw more value in me than I saw in myself, go to his death with the pain of my anger in his heart. I regret this deeply.

***

The past is locked, so I can do little more than learn from my mistakes, but writing these thoughts down today helps me considerably. The force of my will is sometimes stronger than any situation requires, and I must learn how to put this force to better ends, lest I compile more regrets than these three.

Cycle Time

Soon, soon, soon...I'll be one with my little red racer again.

I'm still slightly miffed that my easy path to the Greenway--my J-Mill-I-Water-H-Kelly zigzag--turned into my less-interesting and sometimes frenetic shot up 5th to D once we moved, but it's certainly better than trying to shoot the gauntlet across Pioneer at Q to the path at Mill. What a noisy hassle, that one.

My winter legs need thinning and my winter face needs wind in it again, with the smell of the woods along Pre's Trail and the sight of the rapids at my left. My boys need the exercise, too, though I hardly expect the wee-legged one to do much pedaling, the trailer's far more suited to his imperialist ideas about his mobility and mommy's servitude to it.

I can't wait for my fuel frenzied motorcycle days to fire up, but there's little in my world as purely satisfying to my soul as being wrung out by my bicycle in the spring and summer. Soon, soon, soon, little red racer.

A Poem for Today

At Sea

By Aleister Crowley

As night hath stars, more rare than ships
In ocean, faint from pole to pole,
So all the wonder of her lips
Hints her innavigable soul.

Such lights she gives as guide my bark;
But I am swallowed in the swell
Of her heart's ocean, sagely dark,
That holds my heaven and holds my hell.

In her I live, a mote minute
Dancing a moment in the sun:
In her I die, a sterile shoot
Of nightshade in oblivion.

In her my elf dissolves, a grain
Of salt cast careless in the sea;
My passion purifies my pain
To peace past personality.

Love of my life, God grant the years
Confirm the chrism - rose to rood!
Anointing loves, asperging tears
In sanctifying solitude!

Man is so infinitely small
In all these stars, determinate.
Maker and moulder of them all,
Man is so infinitely great!

Yard Goods

 

The sewing bug bit me again recently, so I bought a few new dress patterns. I'm hand sewing, something I haven't done since my parents bought me my first sewing machine on my 11th birthday.

There are a wealth of pretty calicoes to choose from, but I think I'm going to start with a few plain muslin frocks. I might embroider some details around the hem, but I'm going to let simple cotton fabric take center stage this summer.

We begin recording (again) tomorrow. Thankfully, we all agreed to just release the ass-backwards attempts of the past few months to the past, where they shall remain. I'm hopeful about what gets laid down, and about getting out and playing soon. This one in particular is going to be fun, written back in September 2010.

Panacaea

Verse
Buster, get your good shoes,
We’re going for a cruise.
I’ve got a pocket full of pinch
And nothing else to lose.

Chorus
Panacaea’s calling
Tomorrow saved us all a seat.
Panacaea’s calling
Get some shoes on those bare feet.

Verse
Buster, bring me the keys
And wipe off your knees,
I’ve got a feeling you’re not aware
Of just what your woman sees.

Chorus
Panacaea’s calling
Tomorrow saved us all a seat.
Panacaea’s calling
Get some shoes on those bare feet.

Interlude
Man of mine, why do you pause?
I’ve got a ticket to time.
Man of mine, why question cause?
I caught a ride to the sublime.

Verse
Buster, blanket your fears
Don’t hem in your years.
I’ve got a mind to leave you here
With nothing to drink but tears.
Boy, you’re getting me riled!
You foolish, Earth-bound child.
I found a way out of the maze
And now you’re giving me bile?

Chorus
Panacaea’s calling
Tomorrow saved us all a seat.
Panacaea’s calling
Get some shoes on those bare feet.

Interlude
Man of mine, why do you cry?
I’ve got the number of Death.
Man of mine, I am that bold.
Man of mine, what is your hold up?
Man of mine, why be so cold?
Your life musn’t be so bleak.

Buster, take your time.
I guess we’ll be fine.
Panacaea’s calling....Panacaea’s calling...

Fucking Laughter

They're laughing at me. They're all laughing at me. I can feel the supercilious sneers in their words, and I know it is happening, and I caused it, and I can't stop it, and all I can do is stretch my fingers and toes to allow more rage to fill me.

Again and again and again and again. Why do I bother with this deplorable attempt at life? Were it not for the two beauties the universe placed into my care I would slaughter myself in the most gruesome way. I would take them all down with me, I would paint the sky and the dirt and the rivers with blood. I would leave a wake of ripped rotting flesh so wide that maggots would flow like a river into the sea, that the air would hang green and putrid above my obliterating vengeance.

Oh lamentations, lamentations a thousand times more intense than birth's travail, cripple me, break me down, crush me, smash me so flat that I have to come back together in a completely different way. Destroy me, undo me, unmake me, erase me.

The imperative to do something of worth now looms higher than ever. I cannot kill them, I've never been able to kill them, though I've dreamed a hundred maniacal ways to do so, with the most clever and personalized mechanisms of torture. Turn, mind, from the horror you find so easy. Turn, mind, to the light, try to be good, try to be kind, try to love, try to ignore the blight that you are in so many ways.

I am human. I am fallible. I am the laughingstock. They are laughing. They will always laugh. They lay in wait to tear me down. I must be diligent forever. I must perfect silence. I must perfect silence. I must perfect silence. I must perfect silence. I must perfect silence. I must perfect silence. I must perfect silence. I must perfect silence. I must perfect silence....

The Lilacs are in Bloom Again

Three months steeped in the cold, damp and mold,
Fraught with such fear and seemingly endless frustrations,
Ended at last in a cheap little piece of heaven,
With running water, heat and an electric stove.
My heart slowed down a little each time
I felt warm water running over my skin
Or stood in my tiny galley cooking a meal,
But most when I took in the wee slice of a back yard,
Bordered by four dormant bushes some eight feet tall.
Unaware of what the bare limbs promised,
I secretly hoped for overwhelming beauty
As the electric heat mellowed December's ague,
And the abundance of water washed January clean.
February felt something like shy forgiveness
And March blew out some of the self-loathing,
So by April, I was hardly whole again,
But I felt slightly more human than ghoul.
The bushes put on pointed green shoots
That sent me back to my Ozark childhood
And a little struggling lilac bush facing the front door.
Spring frosts in Missouri often thwart
Even the heartiest attempts at a sweet little life,
As though one must be perpetually reminded
That their natural state trembles weakly
Against the statutes and wild whims of nature.
I remembered, too, my granny's bushes,
Planted after the descent from the barren rocky top
Down to the fertile valley by the creek,
Where watermelons and corn grew so well.
By the time I arrived on the scene,
Her lilacs and forsythias and hydrangeas
Stood nigh as tall as Granddad's white crown,
And her daffodils and the sweet honeysuckle
Banking the top of the fence had matured
To a strength even Spring frosts couldn't touch.
When the winds carry me home I always go back,
Though it must now be clandestine,
In trespass upon some out-of-towner's property,
Where my memories grew up simple but enduring
From the uninspiring Missouri dirt.
They tore out all of Granny's beloved flower bushes,
Yet I can sit with eyes closed and almost remember
The way the wind mingled heavenly perfume
With the uniquely sour stench of urine and dirt
Made when the men pissed from the front porch into the yard.
Her entire life could well be defined by that smell,
As though her thirst for sweetness and beauty
Was never without the taint of a man's demand
For freedom to do as he pleased without mitigation,
Be it her father leaving her to ward her siblings
While he left to Dapper Dan about St. Louis,
Or her husband pissing on her yard and planting child after child
In her overworked womb, til she was overrun
With children and their children and all their needs.
After 60 years in the yoke, with all her toil taken for granted,
Hated and maligned for never being fully meet to the task,
She buckled, her muscles could not even hold,
And her ribs began to lap over one another,
Giving her pain unimaginable as she fell to her knees,
Unable to further endure the strain of poverty's thankless toil.
So when the buds of April revealed to me lilacs,
I felt almost like myself again, and when the buds blossomed,
I buried my face in their softness and remembered her,
As their heavy perfume, almost palpable, melted my misery
By reminding me that I rose from strong, simple stock,
And that no matter how sour the stain on my sweetness,
I would always have the flowers and their perfume
To remind me of days of laughter and love.

The Trouble with Dreams...

Treacherous Heart

Oh heart, why are you climbing into my throat today? Seeking escape, are you?

I have many things to do and many people to see. What shall they think of this load of tears your ardent perspiration has dropped into my eyes?

Why can I not hum a line without tears falling? Why can I not look at the sun in the clouds without tears falling? Why can I not see a flower without tears falling? Why can I not think of anything without tears falling?

Your betrayal is killing me. I know well why I keep you locked away. When I give you air and light, you suck up the sorrows of every being around you until you're nigh to exploding. What are you? Semipermeable? Only allowing anger, frustration, suffering and need to enter?

If only I could turn all that into love and emanate it back into the world, I might be a worthwhile being, but no…you and I have only figured out how to cry, useless lot that we are.

Let's stop this nonsense and do something. Crying gets us nowhere. Don't default to hatred, either. Let's keep looking for love, we will find it or die trying.

Remember this? Sad that it continues to be so pertinent, week after week, month after month.

Tender heart
Raging heat
Love laid down
At your feet.

Fear prevailed
You sent me aft
The fire died
For need of draft.

Fathoms devoid
Of simple joy
Flesh denied
Hope destroyed.

Ten long years
In exile cold
The need you feared
Carved out a hold.

A brigand black
Awaits you here
Will you retreat,
Consort with tears?

The magnitude
Of your remorse
Calls up the blood
To lift your curse.

Light the fire
And call the wind
Burn the past
Let’s start again.

The Tawny Owl

I dreamed again of the tawny owl.

This marks the third time I've dreamed of crossing a precarious bridge by bike and finding myself in that glorious little glen between a wooded hillside and a river. On my side of the river, two gargantuan sycamores secure the bank. Across the river a large sandstone barn sits intact but abandoned.

The scene again enraptures me with its unaffected beauty. The colors are few, yet richly saturated. The bark peeling from the white boles of the sycamores complements the variegated stonework of the barn. The branches of the sycamores frame the barn in such a way that the greatest opulence of the scene occurs from the perspective I have just upon entering the glen.

As I drink in the scene before me, I am always aware, even in dream state, that I have some connection to this place that continues to bring me back. As I ponder, the tawny owl flies from the upper left quadrant of my vision and lights upon the right-most sycamore's largest branch, which extends horizontally from the trunk. Startled by its sudden appearance and by the recollection of its presence in the prior dreams, I pull my camera to my eye to capture what is now, in my mind's eye, a representation of some great beauty and meaning I have long sought.

The auto-focus on the camera hangs, so I switch the lens to manual and, for the first time in these three dreams, attain the shot.

I then awaken into this day.

Free

The moon hides in the hollers,
The stars stare through the trees.
The whippoorwill is calling,
Calling softly,
Love, come to me.

The wind waltzes so wildly
The creek can't catch its breath.
The sycamores beguile me,
Guide me to the depths
To find the peace
That still runs from me.

Wasting my days
Casting my strength away.
Oh Truth, take me now,
Find me a quiet place,
Lock this life beneath all grace,
Wash my soul of his face.

The world fades far from reckoning,
My crumbled will succumbs.
The silent light is beckoning,
Come, I'll take away his memory,
I'll set you free.

Capitulation is for Suckers

I am.

The words stand perfectly alone, yet spend most of their time being modified by others.

I am never sorry.
I am hungry.
I am the world that hides the universal secret of all time.
I am leaving.
I am coming.
I am bored.
I am running.
I am making an incision in your abdomen, that I might play with your entrails as you sleep.
I am laughing.
I am climbing Jacob's ladder.
I am in love with my own shadow.
I am having a hard time understanding why you find it necessary to moan so very much.
I am fallible.
I am riddled with disease, and penniless.
I am so drunk I piss in the dishwasher.
I am leaping to my death.
I am hemming up my pants.
I am donating 20% to the church because I know my money will be well-spent saving sinners.
I am watching a red-headed stripper bathe her acrylic platforms in tears.
I am taking you to the dentist.
I am heartily amused.
I am stalking the biggest elk I've ever seen while a cougar stalks me 200 yards back.
I am not sure they remember the day I dropped toxic waste in the high school hallway.
I am nervous around pretty people.
I am gone.

No.

I am. Nothing more is necessary.

birthright

we have a history that we didn't write
and from here on will not read,
morbid fear for the future to come
treachery, rage, petulance, greed.
locked in an orbit we can't overcome
we wail for the freedom to roam,
committing our feet to familiar worn paths
while hiding our lives in our cheap little homes.
we were born of the blood and the fire
with hearts that would not be confined
we opened our eyes with thunder and might
we had a birthright, to master the Light.
then we met the old lie and lay down as slaves
now our children are born without sight.
independence long gone, unaware of their song
vagabond orphans devoid of birthright.
so choose well your brothers
steel and hone one another
stand up and fight for your joy.
rip a hole in your soul and you finally will know
you can only create if your heart can destroy.

ragged

i suppose every class has them, the girls and boys who walk with supremacy from the day they cross the threshold, their clothes natty, their hair so very stylish, their parents' wealth attending to their burgeoning desires like a dutiful butler.

i had three, combed and conditioned for maximum effect, decked in the latest fixation of fashion, that garnered all the boys' attention. never mind that they were as dumb as posts, they looked good, they smelled good, they were all that i suppose most people think a girl is supposed to be.

i was not. i was smart and strange and had a june bug farm hidden in my desk. my closet never held new clothes. i was very much aware of fashion, i stitched together gowns for my dolls and whiled away hours drawing up clothing designs, but fashion held no positive sway on my fourth-grade popularity.

i remember being handed down a pair of Levis that i liked very much, they augmented my two pairs of cotton trousers into a reasonable enough wardrobe for a poor child. i wore those jeans proudly, at least twice a week.

one day those three girls cornered me in the bathroom and asked me to stand at the wall with my back facing them. unsure of their reasoning yet fully aware that something was amiss, i acquiesced. they giggled behind me for a full minute as my face exploded into flames. when they finally tired of their ribaldry and exited, i snagged the tallest and demanded to be clued in.

"you have holes in your pants," she said, with a miniscule measure of sympathy in her still sparkling eyes.

and indeed i did. my ass had worn straight through the sole garment that had offered my appearance a shred of normalcy. i was back to my two pairs of faded and unstylish cotton pants. i'd let some perverted semblance of pride lead me to become a laughingstock for those lucky little ladies who had no idea how it felt to be lowly and poor.

i made it back to the classroom and tied my jacket around my waist for the rest of the day. i told no one and upon arriving home i threw the exhausted jeans in the garbage.

years later on break from university, i found that my mother had taken a job babysitting one of those bitch's babies. i peeked into her crib as she slept, and from nowhere the far distant memory of her mother's wretched giggling seized me. i felt fermented rage shower me from tip to toe. i grabbed a pillow and contemplated the ease of ending that small life in a grossly imbalanced act of vengeance.

i refrained from that nefarious act, but i made a point to look my old enemy in the eye when she arrived to pick up her baby. i know by the way she dropped her gaze that she felt something black and seething brush against her brain.

years later i was in New York for business, still penniless, but many years removed from the shy little girl who thought she could play with pride and win. i strolled into Saks Fifth Avenue in my shabby coat and shoes, took in every floor, touched fine fabrics, looked straight into the eyes of every floor assistant. i took in the jewels at Cartier and Tiffany with my head high, i joked with the doormen and flashed the salesmen my best smile. i was treated respectfully, cordially even.

that day i cured that ugly pride-born blackness that had settled into my heart so many years prior. a beggar in outdated rags, i was still the finest creation on Fifth Avenue and i knew it. i would never again be ruled or defined by my lowly birth, i would never evaluate my worth by any standard but my own ever again.

sister has become the wind

hear her howling in the night
raging hard above the din
but she'll be still by daylight.
darkness is a constant friend
as she casts away her blight
beg her, baby, never end...
she's long gone by daylight.

Pretty Mamas

Giving your best
To the beast
Feeding the need
Not your nest
Venture a guess
What your greed
Forces your seed
To assess. 

Selling your soul
For a shag
Empty the bag
For a bowl
Fill up the hole
Filthy hag
Kids hear you gag
While he groans.

Pretty mamas
Hearts are like cesspools
Minds are so toxic
Playing the worst fools
The babies are watching.

Be Broken

Verse
An arcane cove
I seek to seize
A year I rove
On perilous seas.
Sanctum eludes
I’m lost, adrift
Besot by moods
Too torpid to lift.

Chorus
Breakers arising
All refuge behind
Can’t silence the sirens
Seducing my mind.
Be broken
Be broken
Begin at the end
Be broken again.

Verse
Calm, blue and slow 
A surface at peace
The ebb and the flow
Tension, release.
The riches beneath
Will never see light
A seeker too meek
The keeper will slight.

Chorus
Breakers arising
All refuge behind
Can’t silence the sirens
Seducing my mind. 
Be broken
Be broken
Begin at the end
Be broken again.

speed

some things are
*permissible*
for the mongrel,
others aren't.
i can be shaken
altered and augmented
by power greater than mine
by speed that laughs
at my feeble grasp.
i need not look
to men nor angels
to drug nor drink,
there's no answer within
but to get without
and slice the air
head down
heart still
hands ready
eyes sharp.
there's only me
and the road
and this thing
screaming and pulsing
between my legs
trying like the devil
to escape me,
unaware
that without my volition

there is no power
there is no peril
there is no purity

there's only mute potential.

Corinthians

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Now how about that. By this formula, I equal nothing. Works that have amounted to nil, insight that garners me nothing. Love...so hard.

forever

I do know deep down

I lack power to change

All the rampant unfairness,

All the hunger and pain.

I know I know fragments,

There are realms I can’t view

As a speck of dust floating

In the wake of a clue.

But I keep my mind boundless,

My culpability lean;

I divine the obscure

And the blatant I screen.

I cling hard to this view

From the vantage of dreams;

My soul is a vector

Set to burst this world’s seams.

I'll not cease to believe

I have magic inside,

My might is magnetic

And I move the tides.

I have answers for seekers

And mirth for the lame;

I'm replete with infinity:

Forever’s my name.