I write poetry for a UU class now.  And when I write it I find that it annoys me...my tenacity, that is... I don't feel courageous right now.  I don't feel strong.  And my poems don't feel right until I hit that chord.  I feel angry.  I feel lost and scared and as close to hopeless as I have ever felt.  I know that I have over come and amazing amount of things.  I KNOW this.  I have been blessed to have found a therapist who has guided me to places where I can even comfortably banish some of the old bad thoughts that never let me believe before

Regardless.  I'm here.  I am sincerely broken.  John's illness and his death did end up robbing me of my teaching career.  I am not allowed to speak of it...I signed a paper.  Suffice it to say, I accepted the deal and  I don't like it.  I took it because it was the only one I didn't see leading to the hospital.

Why do I let myself feel stupid for reaching for love and for hoping?  I don't really think that is a dumb thing to do.  Not in the big picture, not in the real world...just for me.  Just me.  I'm not made for being loved and being allowed to love...not a man.  I feel like I snuck one past Fate and scored John by accident for a few years.  Now, like my mother and grandmother, I'm meant to be alone and relatively miserable about that.  This makes me think of Holes and Stanley Yelnats.  I family cursed.  I'd carry the pig up the mountain every day for a year.  I would.  And it doesn't matter.  The pigs keep running away or confusing me before I can even get passed a week or two.

Owls and bears and mythical momentary ideals of battles and friendship and things that go bump in the night.

I don't know what I'm doing.  The difference is, I am too old for this shit.  And it makes no difference that I believe in love.  That I will continue to do so.  Because my life does not allow me to connect with others that believe the same, in similar situations, who are happy to connect.  I had an asshole ask me once not to long ago if I had support.  I referred to the amazingly loving online friends who send me digital love.  He said no.  He meant people to come over, have wine, hang out, give me hugs.  Nope.  I don't have that very often at all.  I figure it must be my own fault.  Because if it isn't, I can't d anything to change that.  I'd prefer to have the power.  Even when I have no clue what I am doing right, wrong, or awkward.

That might count as courage, right?

words on silent wings I wish I turly believed (poem)

courage
closing around soft caresses
whispers of wind
and hope and healing
leading down paths
with no exit

just more entrances

owl wings
silent deadly
feathers silken shadows

it is as if I hear voices
that are not
human
and at the same time
are mine

I do not understand
yet should know
I should
in fact
be the creator

I am, however, the mouse

owls and bears and
honestly
there is not one watching

instead I'm perched
atop a losing
jenga game

and I think
of courage

I think of his anger
wondering if illness undeserved
triggered my kill switch

it did more

it installed the kill switch

how do you find hope
inside a trap?

How can you embrace a freedom
from a trap that never was
unwanted

and now I am

released

into the world
broken, able, angry, scared

and moment inside a secret garden
are just that

moments.

Peace
courage
love
loss
fear
grief

these are only words

and words wear only
the armor we link for them

what armor wears these words

and comes out strong?

I don't know
but it will
be
mine.

encircled (poem)

It's a blessing
to lay my head
in the circle of your love

but the circle
of serenity
lies broken
like a the thin sheath
protecting the brain
after the razor slips

I find myself rewandering
paths
I thought I'd passed

I can see, from here,
how we are all wandering
broken, in fire engulfed houses
while the only way out
is to see
that we
are all on fire

I see the flames

I am more alone
than any of those
that I see

and I have questions

is it because
I know that circle of love
where my head could lay
soft
or because
when the doors close
it's dark

and all I want
is to curl up
in that long
gone
lap.

jumbled mumblings (poem)

dry finger on dry lips
slowly back and forth
with eyes that stare
and skin
speckled gray

conversations
causes
blame
and metaphorical butcher's knives

reading
doing
teaching
losing
lusting
missing

small stones
the size of forever
and rivers
flooding mountain tops

close your eyes
to aim

it is as if
I see things, through grief
and all the mazes I've made
and been thrust into
differently

the nights are longer than
swirls through seashells
the pain is softer
finding a path to fuzz
into slipper spaces
and a varied version of
comfort
clouds that attempt
protection
while covering nothing

because all the while
the wolves surround
the bits that bite and slick wet claws
pull parts of flesh
of dreams
of night owls
poke holes in the eyelts
of night sky that used to
hide passion pressure tenderizers

till bones
crack holes into back bones
and stretchy things
begin to stiffen

my body
is not forfeit
nor my mind invaded

but my life
my hopes
the pin prick star songs
of some sort of future fog
has disappated

leaving a clear clean path
sparkling off to the horizon
with
nothing
much

in sight.

If only I dreamed (poem)

I had a life once
a different life
self contained, assuming every

bar I walked into I'd find
Him

and instead, He came to my school.
I had camping days with peacocks screams
replacing the cock call
ice water bikini dips in foreign shelf lakes

I had coral reef colors
swarming and filtering through
the complete mask and regulator
and an angry red octopus slammed, mouth down
on my upturned palm.
I had skydives and surf lessons,
midnight drives to a lover's house

I had a wedding dress
a golden dog
dry hands to hold
a ring side seat to fire dives
and street luge races

I had a life once
so different than I'd ever dreamed
far more
than I ever hoped

I got to watch
as it withered
hold hands with it
while the balance wandered off
the left arm began to hang
the liquid dried up from inside
and the lips began to stick together

Lifetimes and moments
flash inside seconds
while dancing with eternities
that spin you
much
too fast

I had a different life once
reaching
with my heart
into the future
holding hands and touching souls
lighting fires
connecting minds

I got to watch
as the microscopes
were pulled out, I winced as they were attached
I lay there
as they purveyors of pretend perspicuity
pulled back my skin
cracked my skull
unfurled the curls of brain
that held me all together

and then, with pieces of me pinned to the table
exposing my inside bits
corpse like
they deemed me unworthy
showing generosity
as they allowed me to attempt
to continue to try
from my supine state
sipping coffee, judging from the sidelines
as I failed
reminding me that others have had it hard
and this,
this was all
on
me

So now
I am a ghost
infiltrating a life that isn't yet
mine
I had a life once
a different life
a few different lives
and now
now I have serendipitous tendrils
spun from dying crying phalanxes of phantom moments of hope
spinning slowly, lacking thrusters
freezing and choking
in the massive, encompassing vastness of space
so quiet
so lonely
so far beyond anything
I feared possible

I have a life to build,
mouths to feed
and memories to live up to
an empty core
that breaks and spreads the hollow deeper,
it cracks and curls inward
waiting to be filled with gold
a new creation
far more broken
imperfect
and
if I'm lucky
more beautiful
than anything
I ever
dreamed
possible.

stepping stones on pencil rose petals (poem)

words on a screen like
strokes across a page
each a gentle rocking
back and forth,
slightly
unbroken
but for snip-its of blank empty moments
between charcoal black, pitted page white, and graphite gray

a different dance of the same passion, safely
typing torrents of hate
hope
hallowed grounds of hurtful safety
the black and white forest
that carries no tone

when the small slate circle
of the eyes of the others
can meet
face to face
is there not
more care taken
with words
chosen?
accusations
slung?

the owl's out stretched wings
envelope
something
that cannot be defined
while the bristle backed bear
searches
for something
to consume

yet the owl hunts, too
a silent, swooping, midnight monster
deadly in its stealth, hunger, need

tip toe toward what sings
to you,

there are no shadows
dark enough to hide
the notes of a guitar that
sing sweetly
shaping soothing moments

of basement level solitude

While you wander lost
in search of wanderlust which
winds you inward
twisting
convening
converging
like mountains and rivers
reach toward each other
a babble brook sound
amplified and twisting itself
softly
deeply
into your own soul
but, softly...to no more than
the whisper
of a night whispered into
so softly, a falling rain
dancing delicately
on almost a foot of snow

like toes
around a cotton ball
curl your rose petals into themselves,
and hold it all...
hold
what is there, imperfect and needy though it may be...
Small arms, chubby cheeks
reliance
dependence
love

Love

and take small steps
on every scape...land, paper, computer screen...
 take them
a dance upon a distant shore
unknown
unseen
a vastly different shore
than any
that has ever washed you
with its salty, imperfect waters
before

poetry inspired in church and my whispering winds class

I.
Lean into hope
and let it lift you
I do not
know how
to do that

or

That is all
I know
how to do

And in the leaning
the lifting
not everyone around you
moves
some things stay
static

and the screams of fear
are stolen, so swift,
from my trembling lips
it is as if
they never existed

or

they are all
that ever has.


II.
There is love in this world
for a while
and a while
dwindles
in its entirety to partial
places
full of flawed, finite
human beings
searching for the safety
of something simple

a lap
to lay your head upon

as if the resting legs
of one other
human being
can be
like a harbor enabling you
to skirt
the whipping winds
of words flung in judgement

or like the blessed blanket
you cower beneath
to hide from magical
imagined monsters

like the path your soul
dances upon when
a tune lifts it lightly

It's like these things
because it is
these things
All of them and more

for a while

At some point
where ever the reason originates
those knees must
unbend and
in standing
steal your soft safe place
becoming a momentary
moving reminder
that the love
in this world is perfect
in its imperfect
partiality.



III.
Wisdom Within our Own Hollow Heart

Moments
were stolen
from you heart

As bits of bread are torn
to use as a tool
to sweep the plate clean

Sips
of your soul drained
as empty as the last glass of wine

Stolen torn drained ignored

Yet welcome
as someone known deeply
by and into
your own hollowed heart

The heart you once wrote
love notes to,
enough to fill a bookshelf

And peeling your own image
back
with sorrow and forgiveness
gratitude and peace
are the steps that greet you here
at this new place, your own
front door.

So that
in broken pieces
the mirror comes together
once again enabling you to face
a visage
more perfect in its shattered parts
than you ever
would have
imagined.