Friends of Bill W.

[LeftWriteFemme]

November 25


One and One



The person who has nothing is vague. The person who has too much alludes. And these people may falsely mistake one another for kindred when what you draw your conclusions from are the poems, sweet words, which flow out of these divergent folk. A paper house is built, but the living is impossible. Tying strings to dreams doesn’t permit you to fly away to fairy-lands it just leaves you prone to lightening strikes and long wet wicks. What could be the truth unfolded; spread broadly for all to see? Where could the roads so very far apart lead to a home, a hearth, a life? Or is this just a field of fantasy flowers blooming in our minds? Mist is vapor pretending at a marriage to a world it will soon evaporate and leave. You and I are passing ships on a short sad night.







Tip the scales toward optimism

*

THE WAY I DO IT

Cooking by smell.
Parking by ear.
Recovering by touch.

The later has to be done this way
I cannot see into the black-box technology
Which keeps me sober.

Feel through resentments, pain, sadness, joy.
Find myself under a pile of rags
With a match in my hand.

The many times the steps have saved me
From becoming a human torch
Are balanced by the weight of the rope.

Woven from these same rags.
That together we use to drag
One another to safety.

The savory scent of a meal
Or the glee of front row parking
Can’t compare with the tender sense
Of a sober heart.

[LeftWriteFemme]

November 26


No Mickey Mouse


The Wonderful World of Disney belonged to normal children; kids with Sunday nights and not the tear filled screaming which punctuated my weekends. I had no time for the creative melodrama built to add interest into the dull little lives of safe little ones. There is no Disney for me; no clean pasteled figures frolicking. I know only the freshened wit of the wizened rabbit and the frenetic slamming of that distorted duck; these are there for me. Teaching me the dark humor of the life I lead; preparing me to laugh at M*A*S*H, yet still never cluing me to the fact that Carroll O’Connor was only teasing, so still I cried to hear his rants, but the dry irony of Hawkeye, war and blood, those I got. I was carefully led there by the Merry Melodies.



Check your mental attic for spiders


*

CLIMBING ON THE ARC

If time swings and the seasons swirl
And I pulse out my existence
Why does the birds wing flap
And rain fall down?

If the song comes from my Mothers lips
And my Father tells his tales
And I dance my heritage with each step I take
Why does the flower open to the bee
And the swan trumpet her way home?

If everything pulls from the ground
And reaches for the light
Then how can I duck my head, hide my heart
And pass this all off as a coincidence.

Am I less than the rain or greater than the swan?
Why can’t I just climb on the arc
And let the continuum spin its web around me
Well, you see I can but will I?

[LeftWriteFemme]

November 27

FIVE FINGERS THAT GOBBLE




It only takes five crayons to turn a tracing of my hand into a turkey and it only takes a few things to change my drunken life into my sober life. Looking back I am amazed how little it has actually taken to transform my life. My drunkenness looks about as much like my sobriety as my hand looks like a turkey but the transformation has taken place. The red, the yellow, the brown, the meetings, the steps, the sponsor, these basics are the bulk. Sometimes it’s the small extras that help push this work of art into the realm of believability. Accents of green, up and down the fingers, or a few bonus phone calls to women outside my network. Anything can be the thing that kicks it over into a plausible and convincing reality. I can never be more than I am, a drunk is always a drunk and a hand is still just a hand, but within each of these things are unimagined possibilities waiting to be explored. Michelangelo believed that sculptures lurked in chunks of stone. I have come to see that a sober woman prowled inside this drunk and every Thanksgiving my hand yearns to put on feathers once again.




Read your own palm


*

ELECTRIC CONNECTIONS

I step into a room and take its currency.
Is the flow good, steady, the pulse even and strong?
Where are the power brokers
And are they sharing the time
Or using their magnetic personalities
To draw the current off others.

I check the complement of resisters.
Examine their stripes and access the possibilities.
I pump energy when I can and take when it is available.
I keep in mind we are all transformers
And change is possible for everyone
As long as we make the connections.

[LeftWriteFemme]

November 28


How I’ve come upon the World.



My first exposure to Bogart was as the man who was after Bugs Bunny, and Lauren Bacall was only referred to as Baby. I only ever heard Kaw Liga because Stephen King referenced it too often and I had to go have a listen. I come through the back door on so much of the world and it has served me rather well. Yes, I often feel ignorant, but at least the knowledge never sees me coming and I get the drop on it. There is a quality to not having been spoon-fed, that keeps me sharp and allows for depth. The universe sends me clues and I go investigate. It cuts down on the agendaed learning of the social norms and cuts me a wide swath beyond the common path. There are times when conformity is key; then again it’s a sweet thing to have a choice.





Level inequity

*

TAPERS

I wax poetic and burn the candle at both ends.
I borrow from the beginning, I steal from the end
And come up short; feeling deeply cheated.

I pass myself off as the time-keeper but am the time-pleaser
Arch-traitor selling short the days and hours
For approval not fulfillment.

I put away my true identity, mammal, human, the love of.
I have exchanged it for the mask and cape of the Do-do-doer.
A tragic figure of myth and legend who breaks the spirit
Of everyone who attempts the portrayal.

In spite of this the roads teem with actors
Becoming caricatures of a life less lived.
The world is more than a stage
And I must free powers greater than to be more than an audience.

[LeftWriteFemme]

November 29


John Grisham


My time hovering low over the ocean has filled me until I am ready to drop. The weight of what is inside me bears down; I know with the slightest cooperation I will become a rainmaker. I am mostly fine with this; I know from whence the rain was derived and I can let it fall in peace. What I don’t know how to handle is the acknowledgement. The difference between what I know and what you might think is vast and if I try to dissuade you I sound disingenuous or fraudulent. I have to get my head around the part I play and accept the roses when they come. I don’t understand how this looks from offstage or what it means to those who watch. I hope they will enjoy the work but never mistake me for the playwright.








Greet the day with open eyes


*

BLEATING FORMALITY

Stupidity stalks me when I’m tired
Hi-jacking my mouth and my mind
I can put this off to pilot error or interruption
Of service on my neurologic pipeline
But truly I have been captured
By senseless irrational mutinous.

I would love to say it was pig headedness
But alas I am not self-determined, I am a sheep
I open my lips and out pours the same
Plaintive cry as the surrounding herd.

In addition, once begun the wail is unending.
It’s as if the bellows works on its own
Carrying a tune which blends
With the entire wool coated world.

I shift and run with my position
According to the movements at large.
I am following the reactionary breed
Dropping the specifics of my personality
As one of the crowd, my brain switched off
And a quick veneer grows over my eyes

I can’t see, think or speak for myself
And yet it doesn’t occur to me to hit the hay.
When as a petulant three year old
I fall asleep in my tract, I awake as myself,
With many bleating apologies to be made.

[LeftWriteFemme]

November 30


Precious Cargo


Do I carry myself as well as I could? Do I understand the value of what is contained within me? This journey matters, it requires my attention and comprehension, if only I am able. When I fall short the road changes. The distance I go has much to do with how well and whether I acknowledge the nature of the cargo with which I am imbedded.







If you have to put your foot down; open your fist



*

WHAT IS MINE

The cloud of snow slept in the tree overnight
And poured from the branches with the morning breezes.
Showers of crystal, drop from a clear daylight sky
As a telltale of intentions delayed.

What was meant for moon time
Has been kept till sunshine
A treat for bright eyes and young hearts.
How can I weep over altered destinations?

Arrivals and departures are truly the province
Of poetry and postcards
Not a thing for worry or fretting.

Putty is for forming into an image of my desire not the worlds.
Time is a liquid substance I cannot decant at will.
Shoulds and aughts are parlor games for the bored and senseless.

If I waste my life playing a game I can’t win
I will fail to see what I can’t lose.

[LeftWriteFemme]

December 1

Poorly Chirping

She writes poetry like fusion jazz, more fun to make than to listen to. She stands at the podium serving as a bad example. I pray as she reads, “Lord, please don’t let me get sucked into the self-importance of bad poetry for the sake of peering peers, and forgetting to write what is there for the world, the readers, the things which bring the word pictures and sets them before me. Lord, remind me that the writing is not done for me, but done as Billy Collins quotes, for the love of strangers.”


Tops spin, do you?
*

DO WE SEE

The old man walked down the road to see the end,
I followed to glimpse the fruit of his pursuit.
Does the highway come to rest
Or like the river just feed a greater sea?

And time, will the clock stop him?
Can he win the treasure hunt
As the seconds tick away on the metronome?

Will the slowing of his steps
And the advancing of his age
Create a curve which will prevent his accomplishment?

Does this tag-along I am doing
Make me a part of his project?
The road is long and its end may never come, only ours.

When we take the road the road takes us.
More and less is what we are and so too the road.
I follow the contour of the ground
Which curves around the world
Spinning in our sky so we can all see the stars.