Category: Poetry

poetry

  • I Won’t Let You Break Me

    You’re not the first narcissist I’ve dealt with.

    You won’t be the last.

    And like the song says, you probably think this is about you,

    But it’s not. It’s about me.

    I am strong enough to weather your storm.

    You are nothing more than the wind outside my tent.

    Sometimes hurricanes cause great damage and destruction,

    But they are not us. They are outside of us.

    As you are. As you remain. As it is.

    And so it is.

    I remind myself of my strength.

    I remind myself that my hurt parts who want to respond to you

    Are the lost children of my history that is long and filled with monsters.

    But history is not destiny, and I won’t let you break me;

    Just as she could not break me – and you are nothing near to her.

    You are a petulant child, like another petulant child flinging ketchup at the wall.

    I actually feel sorry for you, when I’m not in the storm of your abuse.

    Your life is hollow, and will remain so.

    The hole you seek to fill by destroying others will remain stubbornly empty.

    And that is Justice.

    I will not let you break me.

    I am not food for your maw.

    I am not fuel for your conflagration.

    I am not sustenance for your starvation.

    I am not yours.

    I claim my power, back from all times and places, from all timelines and commitments,

    Back from all soul contracts entered into consciously or unconsciously.

    I call myself back to myself,

    Into my body, my holy vessel with which I interact and experience this world.

    My body is not yours. My mind is not yours. My spirit is not yours.

    And my breaking is not for you to accomplish.

    Any breaking that will happen here will be me, breaking the bindings you have tried to forge over me.

    I release you. I forgive myself for believing your myth.

    I forgive myself for wanting connection with you who are incapable of it.

    I forgive myself for not somehow psychically knowing what you were about before you showed your hand.

    I forgive myself for wanting to be one of your in crowd.

    I forgive myself for wanting anything from you.

    I release myself from any bondage or commitment to you.

    I reclaim my own power and destiny from you.

    I call back the power I gave you and put it rightfully back into myself.

    For I am strong. I am resilient.

    And you will not break me.

  • E Is For Entrance, and Comings and Goings – and, a Poem for David Bridger

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    Welcome to the Bellevue Botanical Garden and today\’s letter for the A to Z Challenge, E Is For Entrance! Believe it or not, the Garden is host to a variety of majestic entrance points. In Asian garden philosophy, and in particular the ones with which I\’m most familiar, that of Japan and that of Guangzhou, China, doorways and entrance points are given much thought. So, too, are windows and other vantage points from which to view something the garden designer wishes you to see.

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    This is deceptive, as it\’s actually a view of the exit: I merely walked in and turned around, to show you the sunrise and the parking lot. The car entrance to the Garden is circuitous: first you arrive at the passenger drop-off, then you swing around to the left to the first row of parking places. Then around to the right, then again to the left, then up and around to get off the Garden\’s demesnes.

    Oh, come on. I just had to use demesnes in a sentence.

    Moving right along then…

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    I love water features: fountains, bird baths, fish and koi points, rivers, streams, waterfalls – you know, water featured in a water feature.

    And this, Dear Reader, is a water wall. It\’s sort of a fountain, with a little pond at the bottom, fed by a stream at the top that\’s in a channel created by an artist that, in turn, comes from a fountain.

    In short, this sucker pushes ALL my buttons.

    And it\’s a nice place at which to meet other people in order to tour the Garden, if you\’re an extrovert.

    Like me, say.

    But I digress.

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    Apparently, I\’m not the only one on a Friday morning before work who wants to gain entrance into the garden. All forward movement counts, my friends; all forward movement counts.

    To My Friend, David Bridger

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    I thought of you in the dawn
    My friend, like the sun setting
    Fire to the world.
    The burdens you carry are not
    Ones I can take from you
    And you are, like the sun,
    Untouchable. Your words warm
    Me, like that selfsame sun
    Because I know you long
    For Fenrir to catch you and
    Take you into the West.
    I grieve that day just as I
    Watch the dawn of this
    For I know the cycle turns
    Whether we will it or not.
    And so, like Orpheus, I stare
    Into the sun and let its
    radiance hide that my tears
    Are not due to its radiance, but yours.

  • Sound – A Poem

    Sound – A Poem

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    The sounds are still,

    Silent now in the wake of madness.

    The crowds came through like locusts,

    Digesting everything in their path as

    Huge earthmovers rearrange landscape.

    The air is frigid and wet, an arthritic\’s nightmare.

    Paper detritus blows in the breeze, a dance without music.

    The anniversary has passed, the revelers gone home,

    Their legacy filling the large garbage trucks

    That will prowl the predawn streets before traffic.

    But here, now, it\’s still night, and cold, and

    The sounds are still.

  • Tue Cent Twosday: Bird, a Poem

    Tue Cent Twosday: Bird, a Poem

    Image from Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons free license.

    Bird.
    I see you, bird. Black feathers. Shiny.
    Beak. Black beak like jet, hard and grooved along the length.
    It’s longer than I expected. Long and sharp.
    “Once there was food here.” Tatiana Tolstaya.
    The forest. Mass graves, running for miles, between trees.
    I like trees. I don’t feel death when I’m in the trees.
    Death is probably there, I mean, it has to be.
    Death is everywhere. That’s the whole point.
    But in trees, the sense of life overwhelms all that.
    I think that’s why I liked hiking so much.
    Outside the reach of her voice.
    Stay where you can hear me.
    God, that used to piss me off.
    I’d push at it, silently, in my stomach.
    The ulcers are a reaction to using magic, I think.
    Maybe it’s improper grounding. I wonder.
    But birds are hard to find in trees.
    My father said he’d piss off the other people in the Sierra Club.
    He’d find the birds faster than anyone else.
    He was smug about it, too, which I think is part of the problem.
    If not all of the problem.
    Meat hook on your face, bird. Weapon. Knife.
    Are you carnivorous? You’d have to be, with that beak.
    We didn’t have crows in that forest.
    Stellar jays. Nasty birds, steal other birds’ nests.
    But no crows. Maybe ravens, though I don’t remember them.
    I saw a crow at the zoo. He was enormous. Pretty, but huge.
    Not a wimpy bird.
    Birds in England sound different than birds here.
    How many different varieties of crows are there?
  • Lines of Lights – A Poem

    Lines of Lights – A Poem

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    Lines of Lights

    Moving at speed past the window, reverse parallax.

    Facing backward on the train, the lights receded.

    Facing backward on the train is a title.

    A good title for a memory, even.

    Metaphoric.

    Like Benjamin Button, living backwards to get forwards.

    When everyone is walking in the other direction, sit down and get still

    Follow the still, small voice insight and listen.

    What does it say?

    I don’t know, I’m still listening.

    What about now?

    Shh. You can hear it too.

    Listen.

    Rhythm.