Without- Existing Inside Extinction

There is a smoke
That quietly kills and fills
The hollow places of what is carved
Inside my skull and makes it hard
To see

I am
Without
And I see them
Coming for me
The things that crawl and scream

I want to run and am rooted
Instead
In a quagmire of my own making
And the stench here makes it hard
To breathe

I am
Without
And I hear them
Wailing at me
The things that slash and cut

Feel the blood pulsing
Throbbing in my throat
Whispering curses to drain even my skin
Till every part and pore
Is dried and caked with itching scabs

Five decades of effort have made my
Skeleton
Thick
My heart holey, dripping with congealing
Plasma chunks and my tricks
To thin it out are failing

I am without
Air and am blacking out
So I grab desperately at flowers
And weeds, leaves and dirt and rocks
Stuffing them into my mouth
In a passionate pathetic hope to
Find oxygenation

Can anyone even see me
Here?
Can anyone even hear me
Here?

There are no maps
To Without
Where I'm forced to make my
Home
My skeletal fingers dig deep
Into the soil
Building planting creating

But not fast enough
To combat the Unmaker
His winds pull everyone away
Suck at the seeds and bend the saplings
Till they break
Again and again

I am not fast enough to build it
Alone
And that is
What I am

Alone
Without
Wilting
Breaking

A thousand hands touching
Do nothing when, withdrawing
They do not hold
Any part of me.
I am

Without

Within

Inevitable beauty
Inevitable connection
Inevitable pain

Mists of word and sweat
Saliva, blood, fear, and hope
Wet paws that place themselves in dry
Hot palms

We rumble with deeper layers
Of connection than one to two.
Our ties are built of
Ashes
Amber encased bugs
Crackling aa lava like black thick glass
That talks beneath your feet

We are the pond side reed and
Dragonfly exuvia
Your fingers search for notes
Upon vibrating animal intestines wound
In silk that sings to the Morrigan's call

For honor. Honor that lives in truth deep dirt songs
Melodies that sing in mysterious curiosity
Searching above and below

And so deeply
Within

Even The Universe Wishes

Even The Universe Wishes

The blind blind universe
Her kisses are canyon deep
And burn like star fire
Miles down inside your abdomen.
There are echoes there
The growing growls of your prowling panther

She sees your rotting flower corpses
And raises you a skunk vertebrae
To string beside snowflake obsidian
And wear on weak days to give you
Borrowed strength

She sings with distant train songs
And laughs at your tiny human laments
Or
Hums those tunes as lullabies
Comforted by the far away feelings
That she once wore as fairy crowns

"Take off your socks," she whispers to you
in cricket songs, " and dig your too-clean toes
Deep in my mud.
You're dying, my child.  Your life blood is mine
While it thrums inside you
And please
Let me hear it
Scream."

My Own Saviour

I won't leave, he said. And it was true. And
he also wasn't there.
Standing before her, more invisible than fog Sharper than a thousand swords more toxic than monkshood. She, too, tried to stay.

I found her, this frail small part
of me. Her hair hanging long over
her face covering her eyes.
she wears no clothes, for she is feral and
her ribs show through sallow skin.

She has cried out all her tears. I hear the breath raw and hot in her heaving ragged throat.
"I am larger than you. I am larger than tears," I say to her softly.

"I am a swollen sponge stronger than the moon's pull. My eyes are love crumbs searching for ways to soothe every part of you."
She sees me, finally, and sighs.

I scoop her up and hold her close.
I see the places where her skin is torn and rip my shirt
to stop her bleeding.
I wrap her in my arms, and lift her,
Hold her tightly to my naked chest, my small far from innocent babe

she can sleep now. It's my turn to walk.
A mountain giant I stride across the universes inside me.
There is not much that can pierce my thickened skin.
So I will take the wheel for a while. I will walk while you cannot
I will fight while you hide
heal
I will protect you while you dissolve to rebuild.
I am strong enough for
Every part of me

At Least

At Least

“No. Let me have this dust,

These pale clouds dourly lingering, these words”

-Adrienne Rich

Pain and grief are such strangely strong

Bedfellows

The seeds are planted and watered with salt

Dug down deep in rich soil, made of things quite dead

The stories stay swirling

Although you try to drop them

Skip them across the swollen stream

They find their way, boomeranging back to your bedside

When you thought you were alone

Thirsting for the sound of something less sour, perhaps

Your own heart’s song

But she trembles, you

tremble

You, whose professed super power is love

Have a voice that trembles as she sings for you

It’s true

I have read that the work we do

Is empty

Unless there is love

And I have read of the perils

of attachment. So

How is there love

Without attaching?

I’m learning that the letting go isn’t

A release of love

Is not a release of Hope

Or of carefully defined ties

But of

Expectations

It is a release of ever thinking

Our growth

With grow another along side us

The bravest of dreamers crumble

At the thought of this

This release of hoping we can

Heal

Someone special

We watch them cauterize their hearts

To prevent that familiar pain

From coming back again

And also prevent the gifts

We must welcome most

The unwelcomed guest

I see things

Know them

FEEL them

And fail to live them

Just as you do. All things

Die

End

Leave

And still I see

The power

In seeing, trying, touching

I see the power of hope.  Let me have that, at least.

At least there is that.

Dissolving Into Light

In order to find the strength

To make deep connections

We need to dissolve

Our own story

Like salt swirling through warm water

We sink into our screaming souls

And leave the tales behind

Until

With careful

Quiet footsteps

 Kimon Maritz

We can sneak up softly on

who we all are

in the darkest parts of the shadows

and pause

slow down long enough

to look closely.

Pause

A safe distance from that which calls to us

So we can listen           

Listen through the tips of our ears

Listen to the balls of our feet

Listen with fibers and follicles

Until, with only a script dissolved

Our essences vaporize fog-like

Evaporating river water till it curls

Snakelike and writhing as

Words written on paper boat prayers

Float on, hoping to survive the passage home

We are wishes made on stardust

A moment, an eon, of brilliance

More than 4.3 light-years away

And simultaneously, that stardust

Is us.

93% of each of us

We have, in a way, already survived then

For long, long ago,

Days when the world was young

Someone looked up

The sky blurred with tears

Because they felt all the feelings you now feel

And wished upon a star

That now, you

Are made of-

You, all cracked and smelly

Angry and scared

Scarred and broken

Imperfect and whole

Are the most perfect offering that

Has always been

When a cave is cracked in the smallest fragment of an arc

It takes only a tiny sliver of silver glimmer dissolved

To light

It

Up.

As We All Are

"To realize that everything in the universe is connected is to both accept our insignificance and understand our importance in it." ~Jeffrey Fry

I

Shrinking the anxiety HOUSE
till it is small enough to hold...no...
To pinch
between forefinger and thumb
And hold before your
Squinted peering eyes So interesting, to view it from here
"David", turned somehow to "Goliath"
The power now available
To *you* From victim, to wanderer, to student, to
Poet,
To adventurer, to teacher to
MOTHER
To wife, too soon to widow. To
WARRIOR until
you listen to your skin
As well as pay attention to
Your heart, let the spirit
Pulse
Into you
Into you and through you

II

Life will lead in a dance
swirling you
tiptoes-beyond-tango fast
So fast high heels snap
and bare feet fall slapping
To the dance floor
Below The conundrum, heavy and awkward,
Loudly clunks,
Clanging as the warrior
Attempts to glide
across the dance floor It crashes against her chainmail...if
Armor

is what
That really was meant
To be...
For really, how do you define "warrior"?
That question is the conundrum, after all

III

I had a dream once
Of a mostly naked woman
Barefoot and oh, so strong
Forging a necklace
Of iron, stone, silver and bone But the buyer never came
So she forged on
Facing the fire over and
over
With iron, hammer, and anvil
stones and sandpaper,
Silver and bezel pusher
Bones and a dremel with a diamond bit
Creating She is a well armed WARRIOR
Yes. Perhaps. Yet...
Tilt
the
perspective
To see a different side: No need for warrior words, for
She is WOMAN.
In all her majesty
Not armored
But decorated, adorned
Of her own doing
And oh! Armor would be so redundant
Anyway...
For ultimately She IS the divine power
The very force
That drives the waves... As we all are

Each in our own right.