Balustrade

May 24

 

 

Balustrade

 

 

Just because you appeared from the dark doesn’t make you a wizard.  Just because you make the world safe for mankind doesn’t make you Hercules, nor does your power and foresight make you his father. Your resourcefulness and guile doesn’t make you Ulysses.  And just because you spend so much time strapped upon that cross doesn’t make you, well, we all know the rest of that refrain.  Human is what you are whether I see that in you or not.  Human is a blessing even if it feels to me a curse.  I need the superhuman strength you seem to offer but I must live in the world of what is real. I want to be stolen away to the safety of your lair and not live on my feet and fight for my life.  I have to stop wishing to be your captive and work harder at simply being your friend.  If I can let you down off your pedestal perhaps I could then climb down off mine.

 

 

 

 

Inscribe your heart’s values on your mind

 

 

*

 

MYTHIC ADULT

My mythic adult is seen by the crowds around me

Never is the charade exposed

Close inspection has been suspended

So we can keep each other’s secrets.

Circulating through the crowd

These children are impoverished

From carrying this load of pretense

Dropping this burden is a risk far too great.

Exposure invites attack

Stand tall, act brave, unreasonable expectations,

Are the water which moves the wheel

The power that generates this ongoing play.

Hamlet is dead, yet I reprise the past daily,

Daily I watch my fellows do the same

I mimic a ghost I never knew in life

Did it ever live or is it only a mythic adult?

The Delano’s

May 23

 

 

The Delano’s

 

 

Indifference is the backbone of power.  It is a state of faithlessness, not infidelity, but rank apathy, saving every ounce of ardor for the prize you seek.  I thought I was the prize and I am; I’m just no longer yours.  Cast aside for the leviathan and the miscreants I wonder what I could have done to hold your attention, the answer is nothing. Nothing could be done.  Blinded by the ambition of heroism the struggle is the goal and no gem no matter its brilliance can check your drive toward a place in the epic narrative.  Tis the hero’s lament to save every life except your own.

 

 

 

 

Bend with the tracks or don’t take the train

 

*

 

 

SEASONAL EXPECTATIONS

If I am out of sync with the way the world turns

I can be nothing but disappointed

I arrive with ice skates on the hottest summer day

And grieve the loss of spring

I shiver in my sandals and ponder

The need for a windshield scrapper, the autumn so long past

I must orchestrate my moods and movements

With the evolution and revolution about me

I will learn to sing with the doves in the morning

And the coyotes come the moon

I can spin with the stars

And grow with the grass

I don’t need to counter-balance life

If I learn to bend with the tides

It all comes around again;

 

Inspection

May 22

 

 

 

 

Inspection

 

 

 

My disease paid a discourtesy call on my bourgeoning sobriety.  Peeked in to look for cracks in my foundation; weaknesses to exploit.  I recognized the patch job I had toyed with would have made the easiest of targets for this eroding thug.  I am ever so grateful that I cleaned off all the bricks and made new mortar.  Built on bedrock my re-laid block will withstand the indignity of the pounding, prodding sickness which use to inhabit this once dilapidated space. I can keep the villain at bay and live my cozy life thanks to a true level and the handsome turn of my trough.

 

 

 

 

 

Personal knowledge is not the same as group knowledge

 

*

 

SPACE

I stand behind the podium

And talk about the event horizon

Which brought me into these rooms.

My audience, other unwitting astronauts,

Whose lives, like mine were deconstructed

By the Black Hole of addiction

Though the time and place may be different

The physics of compulsion and allergy

Are precise and repetitive

Nodding heads affirm my calculations

To be accurate with the vectors

And trajectories of their own experience

I conclude, with the gratitude of a reassembled life

And pray, with gravity

For my feet to stay on the ground.

NaCl

May 21

 

 

 

NaCl

 

 

I work arithmetic instead of telling you to stop.  I make a light remark, never take a stand until I have worked the numbers and believe that the weight of suffering is on my side.  I store in the cellar the salt I found in my wounds and label it with, names, dates and corresponding critique, all waiting, hoping, I will never need to disclose them, but keeping them accounted for just in case things go badly.  I believe there is no chance for error with silence and no wrong when I have backup in the basement, but I need to table the salt and risk my reality.  You can’t hurt me worse than I do when I pour old salt and create new wounds.

 

 

 

 

Bang the drum, expect a sound

 

 

*

 

FROZEN STRAWBERRIES

I have them in the freezer, I tell my sponsor

I’m sure you do, when are you going to take them out

And reenact spring, she retorts.

I don’t want to take them out before I’m ready

I don’t want them to go to waste.

Oh the Excuse Maker, the Staller

Are you going to drag all the old chestnuts out of the closet?

I thought you were going to defrost the strawberries.

Fear, you’re saying, Fear of strawberries is not a sign of stability I ask her?

Eat the strawberries or not

But it seems to me you didn’t get sober

To avoid the sweeter things in life

Keeping all your goodness locked up

In the deep freeze

Destined for frost bite.

 

Martinizing

May 20

 

 

Martinizing

 

 

The price of upkeep scares me, it daunts me even.  I pay the initial cost, I have bitten that bullet of required outlay; the continued charges for maintenance push my face in the mud until my ears clog. Avoiding the need of perpetual responsibility to things, relationships, life, doesn’t change the reality; rather it embeds in my skin a slick denial and an indignant retort to the drycleaners and shoe-shiners of the world.   Waste and want play tag inside a misunderstanding of what is required of me; of what life requires in general.  I must make quietude, draw a map and find my way to this psychic change; unfortunately all the little voices scream “Yes, you paid the price to see the show, but you don’t make enough to stay!”

 

 

Check your mileage so you know how far you’ve come

 

*

 

POWER

When power arrives

It comes complete with a blindfold

Mask and lullaby

I am blinded to what effect I have

Others can not see me

Only the unchanging masquerade covering my face

All my fears and apprehensions are soothed

By the melody singing in my ear

I am possessed

The hard thump of the bottom reaching up to get me

Is my sole hope of release

I can’t reason my way back from a trip with power

The isolation is too far reaching

My senses numbed

My thinking biased

Salvation as a cold smack is the jolt required

Fire takes fire

Power takes the same

Who Rang?

May 19

 

 

Who Rang?

 

 

 

Examine the instillation of your buttons as a process of discovery for disabling them.  Pay attention to the wiring but also to the hardware.  Sometimes the advertising is the thing which keeps alive something better off put to rest.  Many things are rooted in other pots and have a lifeline from outside of the current host.  All the connections and housing should be explored as well as what work the mechanism does once pressed.  Is there a gong, tinkling bells?  Does it release the wolves from their den or tiger from his lair? Information is a tool which never fails to help me in disassembling the traps and their triggers I must not shy from the gathering.

 

 

 

If you reframe the past don’t crop reality

 

 

*

 

NETWORKS

Testing my sponsor when I’m hurt

Is like probing for gas with a lit cigar in my mouth

If I can’t find a way to douse the cheroot before posing my questions

It’s guaranteed I will get an explosive response

I need a network

They follow me with sand

Snatch from me my burning pacifier

And save me from sticking my smoldering end where it doesn’t belong

We all need a little excitement in our lives

But don’t have to become an incendiary device to fill the need

I forget that boring isn’t the same as death

It just feels that way

Some days distance prevents disaster

A good support system carries me away

To face it on another day.

 

Pearly Whites

May 18

 

 

 

Pearly Whites

 

Reaction is a separation, a polarization; it cuts you from me and God from we.  Response is a connection, an inclusion; threading a line from you to me and stitching G-d into our pockets.  I realize now that any positive connection is an instantaneous link to my Higher Power and can’t help but bring us closer.  Tiny feet carry beauty and kindness; tiny teeth tear the fabric of the world to bits.  I must let my footwork conduct my life’s work and seal my lips and reserve the dentistry.

 

 

 

 

 

If you take the cake don’t take it far

 

 

 

*

DRIVEWAY TIME

Layer after layer of blue stack the sky

The moon risen and the sun dipping away

I wait for the twin lights, the constellation of headlights

My ride to the meeting.

It will be the entry vehicle to a world of population

Leaving behind the galaxy of me, the single star

I stand silent and the feeling of fellowship carries the miles

Laughter flies the winds of memory

And all the old jokes of truth and tribute are fresh

And abide with me until the car arrives

And we make it all new again.