Friends of Bill W.

[LeftWriteFemme]

June 15


Down to the Watership


The immoderate champions immoderation; the glutton recommends consumption, more often than not a drunk will pour you a drink It is part of the social norm to conform to the addiction of the day. If we are all high we laugh at each other’s jokes and there is less finger pointing about the mess. When we are all in this together we sink or we swim, but we mustn’t look around. Like the rabbits who cannot ask, “Where?” We try to look at ease with dying and contented with our lot. More must be better for we can’t survive on less than what we’ve got.








Design trees for your secret garden


*


WATER BABIES

Timeless babies bobble in their underwater positions
Voiceless cherubs bounce and wink
The river of their wisdom to my feeble mind.

The noise of silence wrinkles and tinkles
As the waves crash soundlessly above.
My head fills

I must surface but beg not to lose my connection
When I break the tension of top-side sobriety
I turn these angels to screened-off faithfulls

I must owe all I have to these aquatic infants
Every hope, all my fear is held to test in the face of,
Swimming heroines and their embryonic grave.

[LeftWriteFemme]

June 16


What I Heard Through the Snow

The commentator’s voice fades in and out as the reception is lost and found among the static of my drive home. In here is a pattern, a connect the dots matrix; I try to feel my way too as I weave past the slow and stubborn traffic. Like a call from the wilderness distorted through a storm, my frantic thoughts obscure, sometimes distort the content, the intent, the soul of a message I so desperately need. Broadcast warnings, safety suggestions, help and hope are torn to slivers and rewoven in my careworn brain. The distraction of the road allows the subliminal heart beat to tattoo in my ear then my chest, all the way to my toes, bodily acceptance overpowers my relentless mind and clarity is achieved, no matter the drifts.







Lay a hand on improbability


*


ALONE IN A NEW WAY

I am restored.
I have my sanity like a Spring coat
I am not sure I need it
But it’s nice to have nevertheless.

I prayed for this state of reason
Believing it would give me entree
To a world where I was a late arrival
To a party I am no longer sure
Will ever take place.

I stand in the entrance hall
And practice new dance steps.
I search the space for prospective partners
But rarely see anyone who is swaying
To the same beat.

I am grateful for my sanity
Even if I have to enjoy it alone.

[LeftWriteFemme]

June 17


Poe-etiquette


Cosmic questions cross the sky,
I wonder but don’t ask why
I pitch the tent, but don’t stay the night
I borrow money and don’t pay the rent
I sooth myself but can’t be content
I earn my keep though it is all been spent
The real true meanings are pushed away,
Has ready tragedy come to stay
Forever darkness, no more light of day
Cheerful greeting left to lay
All the poets bring their knives
For blood letting’s become their prize
Here I sit and tend the boat
Rocking dingy out to moor
I play the Raven, black and poor
I dare not speak it but in my mind sing “Never more”





Be wary of magical thinking



*

RECOGNIZABLE NONEXISTENCE

You will never take time to tell the truth
You will always take time to tell a joke,
As you run from your life
I see the familiar vapor trails of an unlived life.

When I flee my life through caretaking
I leave the same mist of unfulfilled desire behind me
I look at your potential
And the damage you do by not being here
I turn the magnifying glass on me
And search for the same trends.

I feel abandoned by you
The you, you never were
But always should have been
I pray for the key
Which will get me on the other side
Of the door you never opened.

I hope to live life
As it is
Rather than the comedy
It can never be.

[LeftWriteFemme]

June 18


Limen


Do you leave when it is time to go or are you the type who exits early? Does departure time find you lingering trying to squeeze out one more minute rooted in this spot? Are you the kind of person who loves the street, but avoids the parade? Can you bear to go, bear to stay, bear to think that the world exists beyond this door? Do you move with the other sheep when all the crowd says, “Baa.” Are you fleet with a sky full of clouds obeying the breeze, flaunting the tides? Do you change with the seasons or are you passed from hand to hand, living your life in the snow of a globe? My life is my life, but the most vital evidence of how I live it is what I do on thresholds.






Shake the trunk of certainty and see what falls to the ground



*

RECLAMATION ARTIST

I stand over the refuse can and peer in.
I drive slowly past the piles of curbside discards
I have so much trouble accepting
There is no reclaiming most of this growing mass.

There must be an alternate plan but I can’t see it yet.
I surround myself with hopeful stacks and wishful trinkets
I want to make a new world from old
Save past relationships and make them somehow fresh.

I don’t want to drown, I fear I can’t think fast enough
To keep the wave from breaking over us all
I will maintain an open mind
And be grateful my life was retrieved from the dust bin.

I’ll steal peeks at what has been put out for lost.
I was once lost too.

[LeftWriteFemme]

June 19



Tea Totaler


My alcoholism was anonymous even while I was active. My destruction was internal, outside evidence kept to a minimum. It is easy to understand why so many from my past as well as my present are shocked to see me a member in good standing for a club they never saw me pay the price to join. But cost doesn’t always advertise in the public square. I know the score, the numbers etched upon my soul. I need to be well even if you didn’t know I am sick. I take the medicine; offer a smile to those who think it prophylactic and keep upon my path. Just because you didn’t know the contents of my bottle doesn’t mean I didn’t earn the tag on my tea.




Attend the clues your body gives you



*


ONIONS

I heard people in meetings sharing about peeling onions
They say they peel layer after layer until it’s all gone!
What the hell is that all about?
I demand in the general direction of my sponsor.

Zealotry, it’s about zealotry
I peel my onions too,
I have many layers of dried-up, paper-thin rhetoric
Which I use to protect myself.

I have to slit this papery husk
And eject myself from the illusion
To get the living and vital usefulness underneath
Then what?

Then I try to let God decide where is the best place
To add flavor, stew is good but salad is a treat
I can go anywhere once the waste is stripped away.

What about the issues you haven’t worked out yet?
I bait my sponsor
Well those are other onions-
Is all she would say.

[LeftWriteFemme]

June 20



Who is Who



Remake the bed for the restless child in you who sleeps better if attention is paid to the small kindnesses. Placating her saves you the sound of her plaintive cry. If you teach yourself or allow yourself to grow fond of her, this child, you, these simple chores will seem light, refreshing, natural. If you fight her she will grow strong and you will grow weak. Don’t resist nature. Don’t resist your nature. Take a hug to share as you would take an apple divided on a walk in the woods with a companion. Share emotional embraces, let your thoughts surround her when you make plans and do deals. If you treat her as if she is the best of you, you will become the best of her.






Collaborate with your missed cues


*

SMOG

When I burnout the smoke affects everyone in the surrounding area
I forget to keep my wick trimmed and lamp full
I empty out and my light grows dim
I am responsible for maintenance and upkeep.

If I don’t protect my own radiance I will lose it
And the darkness will be felt throughout the neighborhood
I can’t risk the death of illumination or incur smoldering haze.

Fortification of my sobriety is a simple task
If I make proper use of resources.
When I turn energy to obligation I am distracted
And separated from my source
Then the source I am to others is extinguished.

I can only light the darkness where I am
I can’t illuminate someone else’s path
Nor should I pollute the way with smoke and vapor
Due to a lapse in my spiritual condition.

[LeftWriteFemme]

June 21



In the Beginning is the End



I wonder if the road would show the reflection of its end would I walk down it still. I always decide that I wouldn't want to miss anything, not even the most painful things, yet this may simply be a flaw in my upbringing. An over-valuing of survival. What of you? If the knowledge of beginning and end were within your grasp would you begin? Would you flee the end? This end or every end? Or is it the beginning that you fear? And why not, for doesn’t every beginning hold within it every end?





Enjoy the season you find yourself in


*


THE POODLE

Those pointed toes, slender legs
Carry her across my outstretched mid.
What a blessing to be sober long enough
To have never done any unseemly or frightful thing
Which might have caused apprehension in this firefly of a dog.

I read until she lays her neck over my mouth
For her kisses and ear rubs.
She is the center of the universe and I needn’t compete
I am content to serve as a resting place and nurse maid
I no longer look to be everyone’s pet.

I can pamper and indulge this little one
She has the whole stage to herself.
I can be her faithful audience
Having given up my farce.