Body as Livewire

I sing in the morning,
so my throat will open
and blackbirds will soar
from my gaping maw.

I lay on my back,

waiting to be straightened

for my spine to be settled

with a lumbar knock.

When I'm meditating,

and my fingers unfold

I feel a sudden tenderness

engulf my soul.

I can't really follow

how frequently i blink

but as I stare ahead

a power radiates within.

Sometimes I desperately wish

to be cracked open - like a walnut

with a mallet

and lulled into mush.

Every time I hope,

I'm keeping myself open

Letting all the world's joy and pain

Into my arms

Until I'm truly broken.

Baby Steps

Eventually, when you emerge into the world
find your two feet firmly tentative, shuffling
muffledly, Unleash your desire into the world recklessly
"walk", you think. (did you just command me?)


Your body, inexorably, acquiesced to motion,
your shoulders still stiff, ready to slump.
Pinpricks - like needles, accompanying sweat beads,
accumulate, accessorizing your neck hair.

Two hundred and six goodish bones, so many
specialised muscle tissues (find out which, yourself)
Limbs, skin, face hanging in the periphery,
won't let on the secret workings of their machinery.


Yeah you can learn lessons of what lies within
collect stories of how we work, when you observe a
cadaver, getting the royal dug-out treatment.
Innards laid bare, a post-person's ultimate unwitting surrender.

Journal-schism

So I haven't made a journal-like entry on this blog for a long time. At some point I had decided to take off on a journey to 'live' my life and not chronicle it. I'm gonna refer to the entire intervening period as the Lost Weekend.

I used to journal before because it gave me a space to come into myself. To stretch within my skin and focus my vision through my eyes and breathe through my nostrils, etc etc, you get the picture. 

I clearly did not want to make the connection that I had lost a part of this peacemaking process w/ self during the Lost Weekend. One hell of a long lost weekend it was. Lost my mind, my money, my self, my way, started finding some things again. But I think I am finally ready to make that admission and that's why I'm here. 

Of course I revived this blog while I basked in all that internal turmoil (because, whichever way you slice it, fucking yourself up is the best way to stay right in the middle of the drama) and wrote poetry. Now, I am told by some people that this poetry is good. But of course, I have to remind myself that the people who reach out to tell me that it is good are the ones who liked it after reading. Not that I want or think it is even possible that *everybody* likes my work, but I would like that whoever likes it, has legit reasons for doing so, and identifies with it resoundingly. Just a few things I'd like, it's not too much to ask is it. 

So, while this will continue to be the place where I journal I want to move my poetry into a website. 

I don't want to stop, now that I have guided myself into this place where I can look at a revival of this space where I carry on my sometimes inane sometimes important, perhaps, profound dialog with self. 

But I only have myself to turn my head away from the distractions and look at the empty white space and cursor, and type. 

Here's to making your mind and body your friend. 

-xx-

Every House

Every house I ever entered

whether to live in or breathe of -

- awhile, I would keep trying

To find the cornermost corner,

At the angle furthest from

When you enter the door.

And then when I encountered

each such corner, I sat down

in the comfortable darkened edge

yet to see the light of knowledge

-That usually pervaded a house -

of who I was, when I entered it.

Yesterday was different.

I had set myself up to fail,

And found that my last corner

Had in turn, turned upon me.

I turned back from my corner

To face the rest of the room

And I was awash in light.

The Somersaulting Heart

I think of leaving all this behind

but the furthest that I’ve got

are peremptory boasts (a wish) that

my heart lies somewhere better.

Still, slow retreating steps’ll do;

hold me in better stead I guess

than going forth where I’m never true

a penny-counting half-witness.

A few days ago, a stab of jealousy -

like a poisoned dart - enveloped in me

a nice, deceiving warmth, you know

almost what they call ‘inner glow’.

It was at first, a fling with Art;

tho now I’d like to be committed.

The asylum’s not far, but my heart is flung

somersaulting away, all song and drama.

Spud Piece

You enter the room

there are two chairs

one has a potato

you sit next to that one

you don’t happen to know,

what it’s for, how it’s this

Phenomenon (but just before

you said that; I stopped you).

The potato is alive.

no boo - not in the realm

of the Possessed, you just know

the vibe a living thing has.

But the truth is, the potato,

it’s me. I wish I was only

aloo-ding to a piece of fried me.

But i’m just a spotty spud.

Roundabout Truths

If we can – freely –

admit to ourselves that the

Underprivileged automatically

lead more virtuous lives

and the righteous follow in file:

then we might suspend this

acting out we do in difficult ways;

misdirected (almost) always

on unsuspecting souls & elbows

[it’s a privilege to be unlovable]

Then we might even find ways

to answer the oldest question ever posed

How to pass the time? This time, with fewer scars;

who knows? We might even make ourselves

useful.

There’s virtue in being useful; mostly
it’s honest and has constructive results -

- usually. When I sit with my grandma a while

I feel I have been of some use.

And I pat my own deserving back for it.