Make The Best of Bad

Release yourselves from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our mind.~Bob Marley

We’ve been raised in captivity…for generations.~Eileen McKusick

Around my lanai I grow a scented
hedge of jasmine. This tiny place rented
in a rush while captive under the eyes
of a state tyrannical, my demise

swift and brutal yet I rise, bolstered by
my quest for beauty. Nature’s solace: sky
and sea and all these ancient trees. I reach
but you’re entranced in cabarets–beseech

and plea, but my appeals a waste. Your pain
creates disdain. Our different grounds sustain
deep gulfs if we believe the other needs
to change, become the same. Here we are seeds.

We meet, we fall in love, we breed. Offspring
resentful and suspicious feel the strings
but never guess just how far back these rings
of our immurement stretch through everything.

We are empowered when we truly see
the strictures of our own captivity.
For then and only then can we break free
and write the new inspired narrative.

Inspired by: Lanai, Hedge, Charade and Bolster.

Sounds of the Night

There is an incredibly subtle and powerful calculating industry of modern dislocation, where that which is deep and lives in the silence within ourselves is completely ignored. The surfaces of our minds continue to be seduced by the power of images. With the continued netting of everything, chosen images can immediately attain universality.~John O’Donohue

Instead of hectoring, I try patience,
a prodigious reveal of common sense.
Taciturn as my solitude reveals
miracles thundering these boxcar wheels

revolve on tracks I’d thought abandoned, dark
and echoing across the night, they spark
the revolutionary thoughts, inspire
the will to revivify my fire.

Inspired by: Taciturn, the Extraordinary in the Ordinary–listening to a train thundering through last night, Hectoring, Prodigious and the Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt “rev“. And the book Anam Cara by John O’Donohue.

Go Hug A Tree

The lies you participate in today become the future you live in tomorrow.~Kelly Brogan

He says the metaverse revolution
is the human species evolution,
charts where to buy in and when, appealing
to greed–I heed the interstice, reeling

as I realize the peril of leaps
the fear of missing out impels us, keeps
our brains entrained to embrace big business
casual destruction ubiquitous

and our souls shrink in the glare computer
the simulated archontic future
lullabies our grandchildren riff
images in deep-color TIFF

I drive to the park and pay to enter
find a grove of trees and sit to center
invest wisely, unprejudiced by games
played by the bored immersed in unfelt pain

My focused funding rooted in deep earth
this present I preserve expecting birth
of consciousness when plugs are pulled and light
dawns in our hearts, transmutes nightmarish fright.

Inspired by: Tiff, Ubiquitous, Prejudice and Interstice.

Hey, Frost This

Incredibly smart and focused, they don’t tolerate nonsense.  If you are working with Blue Jays, you may have to call out what you see—even if doing so upsets or annoys others—making sure your voice is heard.~Bernadette King

Alone at home, I frost neck, fingers, steal
glances in the mirror, flaunt facets, feel
the layers of these heirloom stones easing
the ancient weight of grief. Woman-pleasing

now focused on me. The prototype
malfunctioned; I begin again, touch-type
the story where I star–a super
hero breaking through accultured stupor

choosing the qualities I embody
shedding snake-like lies shoddy and gaudy
instilled into my crystal bones. I see
I’m malleable light. I create me.

Inspired by: Flaunt, Malfunction, Prototype and Frost. (Yes, spellcheck, I made up a word. Poets can do that.)

Featured images: a gorgeous bluejay came calling.

Title from that scene in How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days.

The Integration Process

The earth, the air, the fire, the water, return, return, return, return.~Libana

In my new space, a place for everything
and everything in its place, so don’t bring
me anything. Avarice in its pride
must subside. I have enough. Glorified

gold-digging doesn’t interest me. Pity
the hollow-eyed cadaverous zombies
who reach for what’s outside themselves. I see
when hardened pieces of my heart, unfree

emerge to snark and complain bitterly,
a sign to welcome what’s been prisoned, free
I wake from my past trance, within I dance
nothing out there can heal this hurt. Perchance

the wellsprings of my soul, which freely flow
can bring a fiery stream and set aglow
into the furnace of my focus’ fire
for deep healing is what I most desire

And all the desiccated places burst to flames
when aired and watered, grounded, claimed and named.

Inspired by: Hollow, Furnace, Avarice, Pity and the aftermath of a powerful exercise from John O’Donohue’s Anam Cara.

Awakening

Tell no one else, only the wise/For the crowd will sneer at one/I wish to praise what is fully alive,/What longs to flame toward death.~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (translation by John O’Donohue)

Reading the morning propaganda, sigh
and come alert. Everything’s veiled, denied
the truth perverted, misaligned, weighted
by whoppers. Vérité infiltrated

so the skate on flimsy premises yields
distractions, causes inaction. Minefields
of lies drive bickering, the trickery
cast like a spell. I know it well. Sickly

the population submits. Dissonance
imprisons us. Sing now in innocence
and joy. Grounded in earth, rediscover
mirth. Life’s close companion death uncover.

Inspired by: Everything, Veiled and the inspiring book Anam Cara.

Featured image: a gorgeous sycamore tree which sadly only exists now in this photo and my memory.

Give and Take

The beings I live with tell me with droops
and drops their needs. Outside I bring scoops
of seeds for shy titmice and chickadees
who grab and go past sparrow-crowds to trees.

I live alone free from conspiracy.
My urge to nurture focused finally
on loving me. The giver now receives
and balance is my byword. I believe

and so I question everything. The guys
have gone, the wreck death wrought capsized. Our ties
are strong. I will it so. Hypnotic daze
and outbursts typic of narcotic waste

forgiven as the tides of love sweep clean
assiduously. With the birds and green
gloriously alive I start anew
passion ignited, singing my breakthrough.

Inspired by: Guys, Conspiracy, Narcotic and Wreck.

Gives Us Those Nice Bright Colors

…And brought them all together for the night, I know they’d never match my sweet imagination. Everything looks worse in black and white.~Paul Simon

The third riverbank I perceive in dreams
before my mind ossifies how life seems
into a prison fear recommends. Black
and white and shades of gray, a fascist’s lack

of imagination: color sputters
fizzles, false premises clutter.
Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, so agile heart’s
aflame as false narratives fall apart.

Inspired by: Recommend, Clutter, Agile, Ossify and written for the Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt black, gray and white.

Kodachrome was recorded in Muscle Shoals Studios, Alabama with the amazing musicians The Swampers.

This Joyful Being

As the trance escalates, I find I crave
palisades, recall climbing high to brave
the ancient fear of falling. On the ledge
imbibe the crystal clarity. The edge

an opening that breaks the spell. Step wise
and carefully among the stones, for eyes
deceive. It is imperative to breathe
and feel with senses that are commonly

asleep. My memories catch, hold. I’m deep
and break the spell. Distractions cannot keep
me with their straw man fallacies. I’m free
changing perspective, joyful sovereignty.

Inspired by: Imbibe, Palisade, Crave, Escalate and vivid memories of hikes in New Jersey.

Featured image: Palisades Interstate Park in New Jersey (Flickr/AugieRay.)

Must Be A Sign

My star-studded skies, celestial guides
and deep-rooted loves from the afterlife
send sweet feathered beings. Swift flight shadows
flicker and I stare into sun, transpose–

all these fluttering winged celebrations
demand I shift: my new elevation,
the cornucopia seed-laden, glare
upon the window–I am blinded there.

The workmen yesterday left dust in drifts
like unexpected unintended gifts
the sun reveals. Smears left so cavalier
their mess coalesced at sunrise appears

Inspired by: Cavalier, Afterlife, Cornucopia and Coalesce.

Featured photo by Chris. (I will need to clean my windows before I can take a shot like this!)