February 4




What is “Offender” Number 2?

I’m not looking for trouble, really I’m not, it’s just that thanks to this program I’m no longer plagued by resentment, but I doubt that is the only stumbling block there is. Possibly the remaining list is as divergent as the alcoholics who make the lists. Though I am guessing we have more in common than that one thing. I stare at the various and sundry bric-a-brac measuring potential harm and formidability, so many candidates with razor edges. I take my combat pose as I lift the pen, wondering if giving things status also gives them power. I take comfort that acknowledgement is empowering for me. Tell me the weights you lift to strengthen your “Spiritual Muscle” the things that crowd behind resentment vying for their turn as perpetrator of downfall and misery.




Poetry in motion is like a marching band with words



*

THE FORGOTTEN

I am not Cleopatra.
I am not in denial.
I forgot.
"Sure" says my sponsor
"I've seen the headdress."

That's not fair
I've heard women say they forget the pain of child birth.
"They're kidding, you can't just forget pain,
It's there waiting in the wings,
Looking for it's fifteen minutes of fame."

"You will be the worse for it" she say with her smug way.
What if I can't drag it forward?
"Honey, Baby, Sweetie, you need to let those things come up,
Before they drag you back to a drink
Or whatever your new addiction of choice is."

"Just open your mind,
You might be surprised what is waiting to see the light of day."
What if it kills me?
"Darling, you're not that lucky,
You don't get to escape through death either."

"Lean into this and you will get through it faster
Hold onto the program and you will get through easier,
Fight it and it will tear you up."
Always the optimist my sponsor.

Hellooooo out there.

Anyone interested in having a meeting at the Planet's Reunion. ....Helloooooo

:welcome::ymca::harp::linus::wheelchair::deaf: :3femme: :waitinggirl::2butch::3butch:

February 5


More Than Less



There is a difference between doing G-d’s will and winning, though some times they look the same. Skin deep appearance or monetary prowess share no border with the will of G-d, but these can stack as transparencies seeming invisible to the uninitiated practitioner. The organs exist and blood flows in the living thing and the shell is hard, lifeless; though it glints. Success can be the mantel of right compliance or the shroud of something deadly. I mustn’t be pushed or pulled by the desire of accolades or acceptance, nor shall I flee into a trap for fear of ridicule or rejection. The lacerations of emotional infliction, unloving judgments and imprudent fallout cause me to flinch in the face of changing focus and relinquishing hope of control. I am powerless over everything and responsible to everything. Anything else is incidental and with loving help will work out if I do not panic. Ah, to love myself as G-d loves me.



Control is an illusion I perpetrate on myself

*

THE THRONG

The more people I meet, the more vehemently I do not believe in God.
The tidal wave of human ignorance hits me
And the sheer and repetitive force of it
Is more than my single souled craft can bear.

Cyclical, coincidental tragedy, coupled with purposeful meanness
Barbed with arrogance and misaligned fear
Hold my child's faith under a scalding bath of realism
What to do, I do not know.

The fragility and perniciousness of life war with each other,
Though loss wins out.
What can I use to keep myself from withdrawal
To despondent hibernation?

Looking for glimmers of goodness in the sea of overwhelming depravity
Is not cutting it with me.
Mystery as an explanation
Is not working either.

I am not a retarded five year old.
I am a despairing thirty-eight year old
And I am tired of game playing and coyness.
I want God to arrive, not with explanations, but solutions.

I am not looking for a punishing parent
To send errand persons to bed without supper.
I am looking for the equation of repair,
The dance steps to healing.

I am yearning for global twelve step,
A universal attunement
And galactic spiritual awakening
And by the way, I want it now

February 6



Two Powers



The river and the bridge; one force swift and roiling the other stolid and stoic, the first carries me away and the other carries me over. For the love of liquid, current and life I have slipped in to the water and washed; my life abandoned. For love of upright contact, terra bound movement and love I cross the bridge. Will I be deposited in the Ocean or wend to the City and back? Where is the greater power in Surrender or Choice?




Ignorance and greed are the same thing aren’t they?




*

THE SEAMLESS DOOR

Tongue and groove fit tight.
The pickled boards do not belie the passage.
Hinges buried deep
Secreted inside the place with no words.

The door remains shut, hidden.
The air, candy sweet.
The space, filled with the unbroken stream
Of surreal childhood.

What can I tell you of this living snapshot?
Nothing but haltings
Stops and shutters
Of a life encapsulated.

Proudly, I walk from this train wreck
Only to find the tether stitched
To my heart,
My soul, my mind.

Flashing through the room,
I weary and wonder.
I have often found myself outside this confusing destination
But never have I seen the door.

Always, I believe this time I am free of it.
When I find myself again within this realm
I know it is something
I cannot be parted from.

Then what of the door?
The undetected portal
Was spied by me one day
While it swung in the breeze.

I saw the simple barn
And the open loft door.
I never thought my incubus to be housed
In so plain a construction.

There the turmoil of my forward motion
Stored in the attic of the pony shed.
So may tragic contrivances
Are stored in such candid spots

Accessibility is the beginning of approach.
I take the stairs.

February 7

From Pen to Progress



“Leave those gaters in the paddock awhile longer,” said my sponsor.
I gave a little better than a cursory glance at the hulking forms though I did stay strictly on my side of the fence and grasped tighter the hand of my custodian. The once over worked fine as my first pass through the creatures of the swamp, I didn’t fully grasp what lay beyond the petting zoo, but given my newness this wasn’t entirely a bad thing.
On second run I was in a boat with a glass bottom and a guide, I had vision, clarity. Third time through was a charm, swim fins and a rope tied about my waist, it was all too real. I floundered and had to be hauled bodily by my home group, my sponsor stood anchor.
I have numbered and charted these murky waters now and I see the lure they have for my ailing, twisted mind; the intensity of the brutes awash and the dark calling to dark make that sick sense that only an alcoholic can parse. I have to take to those by ways with supplies and reinforcements. Never swim alone!





Hand in hand is the best way to get anywhere



*

CONSERVATION OF LOVE

Love does not diminish
It recycles like the rain
Ever in transition and transmission

Love is not salvation or redemption
Nor do I believe it to be the currency of Godliness.
Love is an element like cobalt or gold
It has weight and substance.

Love is the coinage of responsibility
Not a door out of consequences.
Love, true love, inspires right action
Never cowardice or disrespect.

In this strange amelioration
Standing in the wings of realism
Love is love no longer

Love is the standard I have to bear
Not the canopy I stand beneath
In the frozen center.

Love cannot endure the pressure of misinformation
And melts with friction,
Floods with irresponsibility.

Love, like money, admiration and sex, has its place
And must not have expectation of being more than it is,
With that said,
Love is peerless, to be treasured, protected and shared

Super Bowl
 

Well today is the day. tailgating parties around the country...When The Saints Come Rolling IN,,,,,DIANOPolis Lord I want to see in that Number, When Dreee Bees # 9 will shine..:note:.

Okay, not a good song, but an alcohlol free toast to the team I am rooting for because Pittsburgh and The Chargers are noi in it.

The olden golden days threre would have been beer kegs on the patio and drinking from last weekend to post bowl winning HIGH..or depressed Low..
So today, it is watching my buds, do the suds, and me getting hot on the best Salsa in So Cal.


I'll be back after football either smiling, of funky dunky wanting :chocolate::chocolate::chocolate::fastdraq:

February 8


Simultaneous Acceptance



Being typical is a difficult thing to live with, but I am typical. Being extraordinary is a challenging thing to live up to, but this is also mine to bear, you see I am a typical alcoholic after all. Walking with one foot in each camp is not enough. I must simultaneously accept both my common commonality and my lottery winner uniqueness if I am to travel hand in hand with my Higher Power. If I don’t integrate this double reality, allow it to imprint my thoughts the way it is tattooed in my DNA I can not possibly take the biggest step of all and drop my judgment of these things so that humility can dwell within. You see there is not enough room in the vortex of my humanness to accommodate the jags of verdict and the desire for the sublime smoothness of humility. I can’t chase humility I have had to face that, but I can remove the impediments to its residence.



Have some compassion for your wounds


*

READY

Ready or not here it comes.
Life on terms of its own.
Bracing for the onslaught of gravity
I grip too well the implements of past days.

Fearing the pressure, I lay in my shallow grave,
The ground having been scooped out by my own hand.
Withering from expectation, my blood runs slow and dark,
Reducing to coagulated futility, loosing my life in anticipation of death.

Attempts at being less, as means of protection,
Less is not a solution.
Fading does not make life more livable
It makes me unavailable.

Readiness is my responsibility, it is momentary, momentary is sufficient.
Sobriety is nothing more than lining myself up with the needs of this instant
I need go not further,
Whole solutions are not my department.
Showing up,
dressed and washed,
ball and bat in hand if possible,
Just making it to the lineup is my full-time job.
Even if I never swing
It is better than being buried on the field

February 9



Hospitality


What unites us, heals us, serves us, is the hospitality of the program. Fellowship encircles us and draws us close, in a word unites us, hospitality is our core. Hospital is the root of hospitality and recovery is the route to health, hospitality is the skeleton of recovery. Hospitable aid, the true gift of self is hospitality; hospitality the master of A.A.




Observe inaction and discover its root



*

FORGIVENESS

Forgiveness is not something to force on people
like unwanted coffee.
It is only appropriate to forgive people who ask
for forgiveness
And show with their behavior that they want it.

It is never appropriate to shove forgiveness on people
who haven't asked
And show no signs of wanting it
or demonstrate just the opposite.

It's been said, forgiving was to help you feel better.
It doesn't.
Letting go of resentments makes you feel better.
Making amends to the people you've hurt,
Cleaning up your side of the street makes you feel better.

Keeping an open mind and heart will make you ready
for the possibility of someone coming to make amends.
Forgiveness is a two way street.
Anything you have to throw over someone like a net
is usually a mistake.

February 10


Recognition

All I have are these two hands; I can not lift the world

All I have are these two legs; I can not flee the hoards

All I have is this one heart though need and want prevail

All that’s left is this one mind to try to tell this tale.

Everything in this bright orb is there for me to see

Everything laid out before me all that I can be

Everything that I perceive as wrong and know it in my heart

Everything I think to touch and change believing it’s my art

Once I take the giant reins acceptance escapes the scene

Once the fates are in my grasp chaos is the theme

Once the sight of my right place is lost from in my mind

Once I try to fill the great big shoes is the day that I go blind.



Prune expectation with open-mindedness




*

DON'T BE A FRAUD

Fake it till you make it is like saying,
Keep drinking till you get sober, complains my sponsor.
But what about the things I can't do yet?
You work on them, that's all, you work.

You adjust your attitude.
Practice the steps.
Carry your behind to meetings,
And talk to me and others in your network.

Yeah, that sounds like a breeze.
It's easier than staying sober while lying.
In this program we try to stay honest
And in the moment.

Pretending to feel differently than you do
Defeats your ability to be present
And makes it hard for people to trust you.
But it's so awkward, I grumble.

Which is why we of the alcoholic persuasion,
Try to find short cuts but don't get sucked into them.
Tell the truth and do the hard work of sobriety and
Stay away from people who try to sell you a Softer Way.

February 11


Rebellion Dogs

“Rebellion dogs our every step at first” AA’s 12 and 12

They won’t come to heal, won’t sit, won’t stay, these dogs circle waiting for signs of weakness or vulnerable skin, but there they are; they have been found out. The ones that worry me more are those that took show and place, the dogs that stand in the shadows and lurk in the wing. What are their names I wonder? Their distinctive smell? Must I identify these writhing mutts or simply call animal control? Though this never worked with rebellion dogs these lesser pups surely would run from would be dog catchers and leave me to my dreams. Alas, I name them and show them to my friends; we like they run in packs and are served well by honest disclosure.




Prune expectation with open-mindedness





*

THINGS THAT ARE THICKER THAN WATER

Pudding, mud, ice cream, cement, sauce, paint,
sap, drool, gravy, wood.
What is that?
A list of things that are thicker than water.

There are so many,
Why do people get so hung up on blood?
Survival, comfort, or maybe tradition?
There must be many reasons.

Why we strong-arm one another into relations
with family.
Families we drank with
Or families we drank to get away from,
But it's not the family is it, it's us.

We have to learn to do what we need to do.
We can't force ourselves into relationships
with anyone for any reason
Other then it is what is best for us.

Shoulds and aughts have no place in the family situation
So can I walk away from them all?
You can't do anything in the sweep of the wand,
In the same vein don't obligate yourself to people
due to viscosity.

That sounds like a promising start.

February 12

Whittle it Down


A famous sculptor mentioned that he doesn’t so much create the objects as remove the stone which doesn’t belong. I have had the same experience with willingness. Encased in the bedrock of my will willingness had no opportunity to open doors. Flaking away the extraneous the key shape appears, rugged, blockish, rudimental. As the tears stream down my face and wrong thinking flies from my brain the key is more finely formed. As I wheedle at misconception and haul bodily wrong action the teeth of this thing show sharp in this day’s sun. Many doors stand ajar, at first those with basic tumblers, but now even those with encrypted defense are no match for the willingness, which I wield with rapier wit. The obvious blocks to progress open to me as well as the subtle doors to untold destination, I am let out of danger, released into possibility.





Trace implication



*

NIGHT FLIGHT

The small log shape with wings
Passed the windshield of my moving car
Without collision.
Meticulous calculation and correction
In a night sky.

Silent passage
Swift and meaningful
The owl lives as it knows how.

I was not born to the night.
Darkness not my given realm.
I have inverted my senses and compensated
For the moonlight.

I pull my way through the air
And hunt for my survival
In a world of shadows.
The morsels caught on the wing.

Snatches of conversations
And lines from books sustain me.
Giving me strength to live
In spite of the nocturnal bondage.

I have made peace with the night.
I am changed by my living
And my living endures.

The grace required to abide here
Is bestowed on me nightly.
I wear it though it is not the prize I sought.

February 13

Progressive Fourth


All I can do is stand on the grass and count the shutters, the windows, the doors. At first I cannot approach to inspect any closer than that. Time passes and the other steps work me. I peer through the windows the next time and count the stuffs I can glimpse through the glass. I possess no periscopic vision, but what is in plain sight I reckon. Subsequently I wished to exteriorize and draw the inventory of the house out onto the lawn and tally there wishing to avoid that interior life, the poisoned vixen who haunted there. Time passed and she recovered as did I, into the house I went. I am now able not only to number my possessions; I can assess the flow and function, work patterns, interplay, reliability. I have now appraised not just the what, but the how of my life and progress into tomorrow.


Give cooperation a hand




*

TRAVELING PICTURES

I parked next to a beaten little import.
The well of the passengers side filled
With empty sports drink bottles and soda cans
The dash board was a shrine.

Three taped photographs.
One of a young man and young woman.
One of the young woman and an older woman.
One of the young woman and an enormous marble statue.

There were small carved objects
Affixed to the dash.
Jade and soapstone figures,
Beads and a feather.

The sanctuary in my head is decked out
In a similar manner.
Postcard pictures line my mind.
People I love, trips I took, pets long gone.

The road signs of my journey
Stand as exhibits of a tour of duty
Not always to my liking
But nothing I would trade.

I know clearly where I have been
And study the map to prepare
For the future escapades and loved ones.

Trinkets strung on my life line
Give texture, flavor and flash
To my pilgrimage.

February 14

ONE


One skin
One mind
One spirit
One day

If I live in more than my own skin, I am a body snatcher and ghoul. If I live in a duality of thought I am ejected, ostensively out of my mind. If I redouble my spirit the increase takes a dark cold turn and I am lost. If I try to live two days at a time the sand shifts in the glass and I am worse off in that hour than Dorothy.
This skin is all I can be in, as many times as I walk in someone else’s shoes it’s the skin I’m in. This mind is my only bequest, treasure enough to earn my keep. Free as this spirit is it is still tied at the heel and like my shadow it remains. And today is the only day where the magic works, witches melt and clicking my heels gets my attention even if it doesn’t always take me home.






Create competition-free zones in your life


*

COMING TO THE TABLE

For many years, decades even,
I stacked the table against myself and others.
I piles the sacred next to the trifles.
I deposited item after item and built towers to confusion.
After years of sobriety I sorted the piles in earnest.

I made a place for myself at the table.
It's amazing what I can accomplish with a seat and a surface.
Over months, tediously separating, the needed from the useless,
I made a place for others at the table.

There is a whole world of life I missed
While trying to keep myself safe from unrealistic expectations.
Expectations of who I am and what I can do,
What I should do and who I should do it for.

Having strong boundaries and a clean table is like a homecoming.
I am coming home to me.
The good games and happy meals had at this table
Are unexpected and surely welcome.

The wall I built held good times at bay.
Because I could not keep the flood of trash
From spilling in from every direction
I had to learn to hold my head up before I could look around.

February 15

Black and Blue Prints



Building hell from plans I found in the attic; furnishing it with what was left in the basement didn’t make a life but it did keep me occupied. Activity insulates me from living; camouflaging the windswept landscape I claw across turning my face from the oasis believing I have perfected a mirage. I have battered my hope and tied her in the corner the corner which I built from the blue prints I used to turn my life black


Turn up in the best places, turn up when needed, turn up the corners of your mouth

*

THE DEALS I'VE MADE

Because they are deals and not resentments or secrets
These circular schemes did not come out in my fourth step.
They didn't come out in the wash.
They come out whenever they are broken.

If the deal is-Don't eat pickled herring
And you won't remember X
The deal will be broken when pickled herring
Is served to me at some social gathering.

As I get healthier, the breaks connect evermore deeply.
What in early sobriety would have given me unexplained discomfort
Now gives me full-blown flashbacks
And I watch the deal unravel.

I wasn't supposed to eat this
Because this was on my plate-------When
But now that it's on the plate here----Now
I have to face this ugly roiling mess.

The deals saved my life
But unless they are handled with care and honesty
They can cost me the life I have now.

I must choose a safe person and place
To share these broken shards with.
Living alone with this will not work
And making it public fodder is a setup as well.

In every one of these deals
There is a back door to a drink
And therefore WE have to go out the front door together.

February 16



The Long Dark Ride


Are fear and ignorance one thing that looks like itself or terrifying twins who feed one another? Can they be separated and if they can will it kill them? And if they die what will spring from their remains? Will it be better or worse? Can I tell what better is? Should I tell if it turns out to be worse? Is there ever an end to either fear or ignorance? If there is, how deep is that well and will I survive a trip to the bottom? Do you know and do you care? Will you go with me if I find the way? Will you take me if you find it first?




Learn from ugliness


*

THE 24 HOUR GOD

Matching a loving God to the horrors of my past
has proved impossible for me.
Projecting a connection to an all powerful God
of the ever foreshortening future seems implausible.

In today, I see a nurturing God
not an all purpose God
Not a God who serves all.
In my life there is a God I trust today.

Each morning, when I wake
there is a pleasant surprise to find a God.
Not an expansive God, not a God to fit the continuum
But a nice neat God who fits right in this 24 hours.

All is well on the Florida vist..
The day ahead is filled with fun, frolic and ...lunch somewhere special..

Drinking Diet Coke with the Dad, and the Mom watching over the roost, my girl writing an into to a new book,...and the funny little squirrels jumping from tree to tree entertaining the watchers.

Life is great and I am glad to see it through sober eyes. :farmer:

February 17


Suzy Q’s Mother



Through process of elimination I have had to learn who G-d is and who G-d isn’t. When it comes down to my understanding everything incomprehensible is off the table and what is left is mine, all mine. I can’t fathom an all powerful G-d; therefore my G-d is not all powerful. I can not begin to comprehend a vengeful G-d, as you might have guessed; my G-d is not vengeful. Because of these constraints I have a non-omnipotent G-d, one with limitations and bounds. This doesn’t mean I love my G-d any less in fact it may be why I love my G-d so very much. And G-d loves me with a Mother love that trails me to the depths and heights of the path, but like any mother, she can’t do everything. My G-d is accomplished and wonderful, but there are days that I need things, which lay outside my Higher Power’s area of expertise and I must turn to help beyond our little circle of two. This is not easy at first. We both feel awkward in the attempt, but Suzy Q lives two houses down and her mother still has her hook shot from college and since my mom’s experience of basketball is that it’s the court you walk through to go play tennis, I ask Mrs. Q with help making the three point shots. I don’t have to understand Suzy Q’s mother, I leave that to Suzy. I just have to ask for help, learn the jump and go home when I’m done. It’s nice to be able to slam dunk, but there is no place like home.


Recommend earnestness



*

THIN ICE

The ice is brittle, transparent and breaking away.
I brace for destruction, turmoil and frigid descent.
I am stuck in my topside thinking
And cannot realize the chance for freedom the cracking expanse promises.

I am an oceanic creature.
I can escape my watery bonds with the splitting of the ice.
Trapped in a hole I keep open only through the friction of my unrest
I am kept from the community of life to which I belong.

My reflection mixes with my view of the sky
And I forget my place, forget my name,
Forget how I have come to be trapped here.

The pining after what is not mine to have
Has brought me to this thin edge.
I must break through to be who I am.
In doing so I shatter the illusion of who I thought I was.

Zeal to zenith
I must move away from the phantasm and mockery
And take refuge in what I am

February 18


Hiding


“Defeat is what you make of it,” says my sponsor. “Fighting a thousand secret battles when you claim that you want peace is not right. The agony of defeat is when you keep on fighting. There is no honor in waving the white flag, but never laying down your arms.”
“I can’t just give them up they have been in the family for years,” my whining retort.
“I’m sure they have, darling, I’m sure they have, and haven’t done any of you a lick of good either,” her smug reply.
“They are good for sabotage,” I begin my running start at her.
“Sabotage is something you only do to yourself, because who else can you really sabotage? Who do you really hate enough other than you?”
“My hobby is denying that you know.”
“Yes, and sweet lot of good it does you, the war rages within you and outside you say it’s harmony, no matter all the signs of discord.”
“And if I were to really give up. If, I were really tired enough, how can I insure my safety?” I asked with my hands nearly in the air.
“Tell the truth, even if it’s only to your self. Put space between you and weapons of mass destruction. Oh, and make sure you surrender to a friend.”



Loosen your grasp as often as you can


*

LIFE IS UNFAIR

Assuring myself I will not be permitted through the gate,
I walk the perimeter assessing the fence,
Looking for a place to exploit, a wire slightly high.
Trying to look graceful, I duck under the fence.

Telling myself I prefer life on the edge.
The water is less dangerous here on the fringe.
I wouldn't want to be swept away.

I stay clear of my peers.
I stand in the baby pool and feel confidant I won't drown.
Brushing from my conscience that I won't swim either.

Struggling to the top of the pile or scurrying underneath
Is a blatant lack of humility
Skirting the margin is the same.

Facing life and finding it unfair
I take to the world of exception
And hope to slip through the cracks to a life of safety.
In that act, I discount my talent and ability.
Worst of all, I disconnect from God.

February 19

Jenny


Though ignorance may be bliss, living in the shadow of someone else’s ignorance is sheer hell. The confusion is bad, but the lies are worse. Want to cripple a child for life give it to a well meaning fool who has the rule book to the wrong board game, that child will grow to need crutches they don’t make and medicine they can’t brew. Dependant on misguided insanity the child will require a miracle cure and may lack the ability to ingest it. Best case scenario the kid makes a brave escape into a world she can barely comprehend, worse case she turns the rule book upside down and reads it backwards to her own unfortunate brood. Ignorance is always a twilight proposition, half agreement the other half handcuffed nightmare. Full consent is by necessity impossible while blameless innocents is similarly unachievable. The only suggestion I can make from this side of the looking glass is to pick your poison and plan your getaway.



Rain encouragement down in your dreams


*

TIME IS HERE TO STAY

I have passed my days emptying them.
Like bread crumbs on a trail of rescue
Expecting them to facilitate redemption
And if not that at least retreat.

I release an audible sigh
As I let each evening slip to the path behind me
The future I view as a cliff I am nearing
I hope to be ransomed before the edge.

I plan carefully how to stay in sync with revision
Things must be resolved and revert
But this is not the way.
The past is there to be mined.

Inert gold as well as land mines linger beneath the surface
The days stream on.
I am not nearing the limit
I am shrinking from hope.

I turn my eyes from expectancy with a shutter
Deeply, I realize I must leave my fairytale life
And walk away with my days in my pocket
A treasure------mine to spend.

February 20

Katie’s Wish


Does G-d arrange for my parking spot, foil the Colts opponents, release the stains from my dry-cleaning? Can I ask for the petty and pedantic? All One G-d Faith, reads the side of the soap bottle, but really is there only one? Like Santa? The Tooth Fairy? OZ? Is my life better or worse for the whimsy? How would I know? Why would I care? As long as I live with what I get most times, it truly is okay to ask for what I want sometimes, I mean hell, the Superbowl is only once a year. I’m allowed to be unreasonable and happy.



Open your mind more often than seems necessary



*

FOREVER IS NOT AS LONG AS IT USED TO BE

What time gives in permanence it takes in fluctuation
The relationships I stand on to reach with tippy toed grasp
The light of heaven
Flutter by like flounder disturbed from their sandy bed.

My mind probes the past looking for the shroud lines
To hold up the sail of hope.
Togetherness the banner of life,
Bonds to strength, protection, from outside and within.

I yearn for a life of love, unbending and calm
I am met with a tug of war
Which ends in the mud.
Days stretch into years but years are no protection from terminus.

Forever rings in my head.
Promises I have made to myself
Promises I have made to others
Promises made to me are nothing in the face of the promise of tomorrow.

Time flows like air over a row of seedlings, fresh and challenging
Sustaining life and carrying away familiarity.
Forever is not as long as it used to be.
I can live with that, have to live with that.

I shake my fist at the sky
But it won't make love last.
It will not keep my heart from loving again.
Sails which have filled before will fill again.

February 21


Word Comprehension


There were scads and scores of words that I had at my command. I could command them that was a fact; comprehend them that was an illusion. My sponsor had every confidence in me and started my word comprehension lessons with the tough ones first: “No,” she would ask, “What don’t you understand the Nnnnnn part or the OHhhhhh part?” Took me sometime to catch on to words deep as that. Serenity that I learned through living Braille. Learned it like any hungry child, by taste. Learned it like learning the ocean as you swim in it. Serenity is my ballast and my bail, as for peace, all I can say is: No comprehension, no peace; Know comprehension, know peace.


Re-pattern fear



*

SEAM ALLOWANCES

The space, given and taken.
The space used to bind and sew us fast.
The permission for humanness
And the need for seams to make us whole.

The narrow margin is a shoulder on which I lean.
Slender strip, a place of refuge.
Darts are shaped to hug the curves,
I bend to fit to life.

Our nearness, being my own part and part of more,
Planning and a pattern, cut to order,
With allowances made for fraying and fragility,
Allow me to feel woven into a web of what is
And still hope for more

The unfinished garment taking shape
Easing and stretching
And before my eyes
Pins held between the teeth of God.

Nice writing* Nice time * Nice family* Nicest Nicest Y-O-U.

February 22


Ace

Like an ace in my pocket step one is the beginning and end of my step work. This step carries the high and low count; its rise is so near to the ground I didn’t have to lift my chin to clear it as I crawled my way in here, it is appeal so exalted that it is all I hear when I finish the twelfth and am on my way back around. The high and low of any hand plus the card I keep up my sleeve for emergencies. The greatest blessing is I don’t need four of a kind, not even a pair; as long as I have step one I am guaranteed a full house, full heart, full life and between you and me that’s just how I like it.


Lick your lips then smile



*

SHAME

I push shame around my plate like a chunk of spoiled meat.
The toxins leaching to every interface and cavity
With an inverse half-life, the lethal substance grows
Reinforcing and sending runners and tendrils
To worlds known and those yet undiscovered.
I wage my war on this shapehifting plaque.
Thrust and parry, I step back from the unsurmountable walls
And set my sights on tearing down the bunkers
In my personal city.
Like lead plumbing
The danger eludes the observation of my fellow citizens
I am labeled a lunatic
And no attention is paid to my evaluation of water quality.
I search for similarly crazed friends
Variants within a theme.
I depend on the poisoned sanity of my wounded compatriots.
We shovel the plate loads of spoiled meat and detritus.
The foreshortened mountain of shame
Allows tiny strands of light to glimmer across the surface
But the shamed devotees turn their heads.
We, the few, face the glowering mass.
I worry like a petulant child.
What if we cannot prevail?
Is shame stronger then recovery?
Have we traveled this far to miss the glaciers edge?
As it slides away from us
I console myself with the sure knowledge that,
This life of sobriety is better than any other offering
Healing the world, What a lovely thought.
Living free from shame today, What a necessity.

February 23

Over Troubled Water


Though G-d might be everything, for a long time G-d was a resident of an unknown country; a theoretical citizen of a theoretical land. It took some time for me to spy yon distant country and longer to realize what a miracle it was that I could see my neighbor, holding my optics turned around the way they were. Turning over the binoculars came long before introductions or interaction, but it was an important step in relationship building nonetheless.
Having seen the island my mind fled due to the trumped up stories about its resident. Open minded observation cleared up the fallacies of ogres and super heroes, but this only told me who G-d wasn’t and nothing of who G-d is. Direct knowledge was going to require direct contact.
I began throwing tethered balls of string across the channel that separates us and was shocked, delighted, horrified to find that the far end would get tied to the far shore. I threw twine next, then rope, after a few successful repetitions I was able to shinny across for the first time. Filled with fear and trepidation I arrived on the apposing bank and stood shivering more from nerves than cold. I saw no one and felt much. I didn’t stay long and swam back. The first plank bridge was simple and straight. Having this link somehow emboldened me to explore the land of my own country. With great regularity I found narrow margins. I crafted a new bridge for each slender passage. The more I learn about me the more regular my connection to that inner land.
Like something shy of my wrath, G-d made an illusive sight. The more I calmed the more often the sightings. We made acquaintance and then we made friends. I’ve widened some bridges and G-d has widened others. We stroll together often hand in hand. We talk and laugh, cry and joke. Occupancy is fluid, times I live on the island and others the surrounding continent sometimes we live together other times we are one another’s guests. All the days are not happy ones but we are always happy to be together and more than that I will not ask.

Quarantine reluctance


*

DOMINOES

What happens to the dominoes that do not fall?
The show cut short by my sobriety.
The tiles stand front to back
The foul respiration will send them to their preordained destination.
I hold my breath as I glance over the display of generations
The design is set
Painstaking patterns lain with meticulous, ingenious deft.
Skill for falling, laying waste.
Sad pictures told and retold in speedy drops
The rhythmic fall of dominoes turning eight blocks to a corner.
Direction shifts
But the descending continues.
I cannot occupy this ground.
I must not upset the arrangement.
I cannot clear it from this world.
I must walk away from the upright mosaic.
A flower waiting to bloom with destruction
I have to move, climb the steep slopes
Vertical life,
Leaving the tumbling destruction for Yet.
Grasping the sides of the cliffs
I haul myself off the tableland,
A place set for a show of laying down,
I build my strength and keep off the well known flats.
This is a life apart
The game is there if I return.
It is a game no one can win.

February 24

Cured

Ham is cured. Thank G-d, I’m not ham. Ham likes to be the center of attention. Thank G-d, I’m not ham. I can’t be the worker among workers if I believe I don’t need to work. I can’t be a friend among friends if I am an island or a precipice, above or away from the need or reach of others. Cured is a one way street that leads to a dried up lonely end. Just the same way that turning my cucumber into a pickle took me out of the garden, curing takes me away from the only home I know, recovery. Though I am often raw and sometimes fresh, these I can survive, finished due to the drying out process that would be a living death. Thank G-d I’m not cured.


Side step pitfalls


*



BECAUSE

Because I am my fathers child,
I make my attendance at meetings frequent and regular.
Having looked deeply in the genetic mirror
I see so many bitter days.

I've run from implications and sheltered in the steps.
The humility that saved my life,
Is understanding I am no different from my family
And since this is a progressive disease we all have
I will just get there faster.

Knowing who I can be helps me turn my will over
And keeps me grasping my Higher Powers belt loop.
All I am turns in every direction
And can pull or push, lift or fall.

I know my assets.
I know their power and their limitations.
All my hope is placed on a plan to use these resources.
I follow the only lead
Which has never promised more than it can deliver.

February 25

Exceptance


“I want G-d’s will for me,” I sigh to my sponsor.
“Except for this and except for that,” is her trig response. She knows me, knows I have exceptance. “You have a list of exclusions, a list that dams up the works.”
“Well, trust is hard,” I splutter.
“Trust is not the issue here,” says she. “You don’t feel acceptable and exceptance is what follows.”
“Whatever could you mean?” my broken bluster leaving only this plaintive whine.
“You believe you’re not good enough for G-d or anyone and cross everything off the list in an attempt to duck blame or shame or some other nasty thing. You are good enough kiddo, get that and everything else is good enough, too. At least good enough for now and now is all we have. Accept that.”




Include water in your life



*

TOP

The chipped paint of the red stripe
Gives the illusion of fading to rose as it spins
The edge, painted thalo green, in it's intensity
Reflects the windows of the room.

The bead, purple and gleaming
Affixed to the stem holds the cuff
With it's two opposed openings
The cord recoiled inside.

Underneath, protected from easy observation
Resides the point, lathed and faultless
The turning weight is carried and balanced
Perfectly on this nib.

The hum, spiraling and melodic
Comes from the table as well as the top
The aptness of form and function
Grace and harmony

In spite of it all
The only thing
Which truly matters
Is who pulls the string.

February 26

The Resentment of an Acorn


Because no one believed that I was a giant oak inside, I had to prove it and drop my little cap and leave my shell behind. Now I stand big and tall, alone, board feet to the sky. I have lost my portability in my quest for the recognition of my potential. My amazing growth painful due to its cause; poor mental health is a bitter road to achievement. As I stand head and shoulders above the undulating canopy reflection comes on a sweet breeze. Am I sorry I’m here, it could have been worse, could have been eaten by a squirrel or glued endlessly to a third-grade art project “my walk through the woods” bugs could have gotten me, though that looms even now. I could have disintegrated, lost my power and integrity. Whatever the driver I am appreciative of the destination, there were many darker roads on that map. It’s good to be here. It’s good to be anywhere sober.



Shade your honest attempts



*

BELIEVE

Listening to what people say
Is a half waste of time.
Believing it is a full waste of time.
Truth wills out in behavior.

No matter what is said
What is done is the real deal.
What is done over time
Is the final test.

The things that are repeated
Resounding from one generation to the next
Are to be counted on.

Believing in told truths
Is a snare and a delusion
The trap of all traps.

If your sponsor has a sponsor
You may sleep at night.
If your sponsor works with that sponsor
You can sleep soundly.

Doing the right things.
Doing them over and over again
Doing them with others,
Your group, your friends, your sponsees

That will make you believable
I can think of nothing else that will.

Nice way to start my day...Thank you for all the wonderful, inspirational words.

You are so very welcome!

February 27

Adjustment


The chase is on, round and round it goes and where it stops no one knows. I run after control and change as I grasp, but can never quite get my fingers wrapped around the thing. An open fist is an adjustment; no fist at all would be a feat. The fool’s errand I send myself on brings suffering; there would be suffering anyhow, I feel I am the cause due to my attempt to avoid it; another backhanded attempt at the illusion, the goal, control. Adjusting to reality is at first freefall; rarely do I get to second. The shape taken by the shift in my gears to no gears at all dilates my pupils and the rest is white. If the colors come back I don’t know when. If the ground beneath me returns I don’t know how. I am blinded by the light and can only follow the sound.





Stall your reticence



*

ONE IN A THOUSAND

"Did they tell you the odds when you came in?"
Asked my sponsor
Yes, One in thirty make it to the rooms
One in thirty of those stay for five years.

One in a thousand get truly sober
And are catapulted to another dimension
I responded.
"What was your response to that?"

Well, I showed the proper amount of surprise
"Yes but what did you think inside?"
I thought, Climb with me or I'll climb over you.
Not very spiritual is it?

"It worked, you're still sober.
A lot of folks aren't.
The company you keep is sober.
There is nothing less spiritual than a drunk."

Is that why it's called a selfish program?
"I don't know."
It seems to me sobriety is a gift you give the world
But I give it to myself.

"Yes, but you can't give a gift
You don't have in your possession."
Point taken.

February 28





Pucker Up


The gifts I never expected, never knew I needed, never imagined wanting, arrive wrapped in fretful apprehension more often than not. “Who knew?” I ask myself standing swathed in a skin I never realized I owned. My identity has been handed to me an article at a time, each item less likely than the last. Do they fit, yes of course, fit as if they were made for me, fit because they are me. My inability to recognize myself is a stumbling block; my willingness to try is my salvation. Though there are times when a kiss is just a kiss, there are other times when a kiss can change the whole world.


Quarter your difficulties, dice your recriminations



*

YARD BOAT

Early in my life, I lived in a gated yacht club,
The canal passing in front of my home.
I had no boat
I didn't know how to sail
I had not a thought of learning.
In later years, I learned to sail.
I covered the water in choppy tacks
And prayed for safe returns to shore.
Those were the years with a yard boat.
Covered in a tarp, the blue sided craft sat dry
The sun and wind taking their toll
The vessel stayed on the trailer
Waiting to be towed.
At the reservoir it would fill
Water leaking in from every joint.
I would bail and sail with all my heart.
Timing has never been my strong suit.
Rare are the times when all the ingredients
Come together in my life.
I have used this as an excuse
To feel like a failure.
I have used it to blame and dismiss God.
I have used it to avoid pursuit of opportunities.
I have averted my attention from the satisfactions in my life.
Living on the water is a pleasure
And stolen moments tacking in the basin of Round Valley
An equal joy.
Happy with what I have makes MORE a surprise
Not a necessity.

February 29




Leap Day

When winter is almost at an end it becomes beautiful; a theoretical thing, which though it may hurt you, can not hurt you for long, therefore is safely appreciated by mere mortals. You don't have to beg for G-d's own protection, time has become a friend and winter only a show. I will soon wake from this chilling fright, will in fact thaw from it in short order and needn’t fret though chilblains still catch out me now and then. I can stand at the window admiring frost and ice formed lace; intricate patterns whose beauty will soon be lost to me, put away in favor of crocus and daffodil. The terrible loveliness of soon to pass trauma is not lost on my hyper-vigilance I grasp it I just can’t seem to let it rest.



Unseat disreputable ideas


*

WANTING

Wanting to be alive is not as important
As wanting to do right. Said my sponsor.

I don't want to be here, I half blurted, half sobbed.
I know came the reply.

Many of us come in not wanting to live
But sobriety is about living
And you want to be sober said my sponsor
Yes but I don't want to live.

This moment, this moment you don't want to live
But you still want to be sober
And you still want to do right
Yes

And that is what you will do.
You will pick up the tools
As you have done so often
And you will try everything suggested.

Then you'll see how you feel tomorrow.
What if it doesn't go away?
You'll keep it up
And see how you feel the next day.

What if I never feel better?
Ah well-----
When have you ever had anything
That dependable

March 1

Reality and Desire



“I know the difference between desire and reality,” I whisper to my new found friend. Who I am and what I am, are a reality unto themselves, your recognition of that and how you handle said recognition are for you and G-d. The vastness of the true you; I hope to spend a lifetime surveying; but not sampling. What you want and your reality are not mine to mind or mend. If you are driving that train this is on you and if HP is the driver all the more incentive for me to be still, enjoy the ride and await the outcome. For in the end the question is never, will you be mine, but what will I be to you.



Explore beyond the bend in your mind



*

IF I HAD A SCREWDRIVER

If I had anything other than this hammer
Possibly, I would discontinue pounding
This helix into the side of my universe.

The slot is unused
The flat heat of my sledge slams.
A wide void is punched into my abyss
As the threads are pummeled, not turned.

If I had picked up the right tools.
If they had been displayed within my reach.
If my granny had wheels
She might yet be a wagon.

I have picked up new tools
But having never seen them used, I bang with them
Watching others twisting the wrist and angling the elbow
I try to wrap my mind around the posture.

Muscles I have never used
Laminated to mental configurations unthought of
Improvements in workmanship is slow.
May a fine toolbox has remained full and untouched.

The mind lacking the dexterity to grasp the in-workings
The body ill equipped for the outer
If I had a screwdriver, I pray I could bring to it
The flexibility of sinew and the nimbleness of wit

March 2


Stepping up


I look along the list of names, look upon the sea of faces. Are there any whose eyes I avoid? I gaze across the landscape are there any craters, any pock marks, any divots. I tick through my actions those I’ve recently taken checking for stubbles, glitches, snafus. These combined facts and figures create a portrait of my day; I appraise the eyes, the hair, the teeth. If I can smile at what I see all is well if not I begin the repair.


Plan for your contentment at least as much as you plan your escape



*

SWEAT

I turn the desk lamp into the eyes of God.
I put question after question
To the construct of my childhood concept.

Would you please explain?
Or exactly why did You do this,
That, or the other thing?

Are You now or have You ever been a member of?
I put the pressure on.
The beads of perspiration join and then trickle.

I have God in the box, I will not relent.
I don't understand You, I say disappointedly
As if speaking to a troubling adolescent.

You have so much potential, if only You would apply Yourself
The icon shakes It's head slowly and deliberately,
I shake my head too.

So much time has passed
And I am no closer to embrace.
You don't understand Me, says God to me.

Dawn breaks, I uncuff this mythic creature.
You are not the One I am looking for,
You are free to go

March 3


The Horse of a Different Stripe



When I arrived at the horse and pony show, I saw all there was to see; there were Morgans, Walkers, and Paints. Yet I couldn’t help, but return to this particular zebra, the spark of my imagination, the inspiration of my dreams. There was no help for me, I want what I want and need what I need. It was all about spirit, all about soul; the fire in its eyes matched the burning of my heart, ignition at the point of recognition. Then I stumble, then I fall, bad behavior and wrong thinking, the selfishness of the self-involved takes hold and runs my mouth, “Nice mount, great steed, But can nothing be done about these stripes?” The flash in those eyes, the knowing knickers, said it all. I was trying to stay in my small place and that would never work with her, if I wanted the Zebra, I had to be willing to go to Africa.






Respect randomness


*

DICHOTOMY'S' EMBRACE

Contentment and security
Bleed in through the doors and windows of my heart.
Peace blows its fine wind across my mind.

I fear for my identity
I raise my hand to beat the drum
Is my pulse still here if the beat of discontent is not?

The warmth seeps in
My fingers uncurl
I resist the urge to tilt my face to the sun.

How can I be I
If my countenance is not bleak?
Mirth escapes my lips, Am I a creature of laughter?

My brain feels through levels of sheltered memory
I am old and age hangs from my brow
I am young and exposure stings my flesh.

In all this----Joy?
Where can I enfold this antithesis
Shadows play across shade.

A child of extremes, Yes
Brooding and rage, howling and silence
How have sprinkles and starlight added to the mix?

Purring, musing and sweet kisses
What am I in this embrace?

March 4


A Duck Trying to Teach a Fish to Swim



Just because you’ve been in the water doesn’t mean you know how to swim. Just because you swim in the water doesn’t mean you can teach me how. Floating on top and plunging your head under the surface occasionally, doesn’t qualify you to safe guard me. Poaching is unpleasant to those of us caught, we that were foolish enough to believe that birds of a feather can teach school are picked off and swallowed by the benevolence of so much quack.



Stand up to extend your reach



*

AND I BELIEVE YOU

"This will be easy." Says my sponsor.
"Oh yes, simplicity itself I'm sure." I respond
"I've participated in these plans before."
"We get good results." She retorts

I love how you pick goals.
They seem like intellectual straight lines
And turn into roller coasters.
You do it with an open face, not a modicum of guilt.

Why should I feel guilty?
You keep getting better.
I keep staying sober.
What is there to feel bad about?

The guileless look on your face,
I fall for it every time but no more,
I know you're cunning.
You know this will be hard.

I remember when we worked on Honesty.
What could be simpler?
Or Hope, how sweet a concept.
Or the thirty rounds on the floor with Setting Limits.

I've begun to realize you're like,
The bean seller that Jack met.
You say they are magic beans
And I believe you.

You say they'll grow to the sky
I know they will
And I will climb them
Just don't tell me it will be easy

March 5


What and When, When and How……and Why


Arriving at the place where I have nothing to prove, afforded me the luxury of not having to proclaim the amount of time I have, when I share in a meeting. Taking the score keeping out of the equation I was then able to think of what it was that motivated me to speak in a meeting. Self-Possession, a great gift to inhabit, a greater gift to demonstrate; quiet dignity is a real favorite of mine. If I am calm yet in control, if there is time, if there is a lull, I can share parts of my experience. If I have chaos, an agenda, a theory, a grudge it is all better left unsaid in the meeting and saved for the less vulnerable ear of my sponsor. For if I am wrong I might persuade in error and if I am right I might convert in righteousness.
Why is it that what I never say rings louder than anything I do?




Leave gossip where you find it




*

MOTE

I dug the mote, the alligators came on their own.
The rain fell, I did not bid it.
I've burned all the bridges
I've sold the farm.

I wonder at the company I keep
The birds fly in and stay for a season
Friends used to wave as they passed
Now my island is overgrown.

I stand to my chin in the tall grass
I guess it's a matter of maintenance
What I don't keep pruned grows back
The connections I don't secure weaken and fail.

I am subject to all that falls, if I don't keep my roof on.
The wind chaps me without the walls of my home
No clothes and I burn
No joy and all I do is cry.

It takes more than a continuous ditch
To protect my heart.
More than water and reptiles
To safeguard my soul.

It's been a bad week...a sad week, and I feel weak.

It has been a journey. I have found the mountains, and loved to climb them. When little creatures and kids fall down, I know I can pick them up and cradle them until they heal, or pass into the valley of death.

"Steel on the outside , velvet on the inside", she says, in the special way she sounds when she knows, and I know, I am filled with the awe with the power of clarity, in those few words.

Ice water has been my drink of choice today. How about you?