hanging my tomorrows on the bones of yesterday

The world is a question you can pour and pour yourself into and never answer.
Sometimes a different story -question, world- will arise and ask of you a new thing.
It is a respite.

My tongue tells a story that spins a new world up out of nothing.
You hear, and respond to that nothing-something with yourself.
It is an answer.

The taste of my own mouth is comfortable and familiar, until I question it.
To question is to become a world, to demand an answer.
Have you earned worldhood?

We are each made anxious in questions,
But can be lionized in having answers.
We cling to our answers.

My tongue clings to the roof of my mouth in fear of the wrong word.
I answer the world with other worlds, pouring and pouring.
From out the deeps come no words to save me but your answers.

Where is my policy wonk, resident
Forward, dyed-in-the-wool die-hard try-hard?
We don't need this bully as president;
The job is rough enough. There's no reward
For circling around the world with lies.
His tactics aren't enough to fix his mess;
Aggression always fails where hard work thrives.
A steady hand can steer through most distress
And her hands at the wheel would guide us straight
Instead of into walls and slippery slopes.
She has proved every chance to validate
While he's imploded and deposed all hopes.
Madam President - she would understand
Every rock you throw must somewhere land.
-Feb 2017

 You've grown old, but in one way I'm older. 
When I talk of being dead your shoulders
Don't move down from there like it got colder.
Take comfort: it's not too hot or cold;
It's not at all like being sick or old,
Just darkness, peace, like nothing we've been told.
My deaths have been commas, odd ... pauses
In a winding sentence full of clauses.
Pardon me my claudicated causes,
They were not like what ends your sentence now.
The closing curtain falls and we must bow.
If you'd like to let go, I'll show you how. 

- May 2009

I say a thing.
It is ridiculous,
but you pretend to consider it.
You say a thing.
I roll my eyes so hard I fall over on you.
It is the perfect opportunity for a
sneak attack.
Belly pokes.
I squish my fingers into your sides
but I’m laughing before you are.
Mutually assured destruction:
Friendship.

I have weather veins.
They are especially sensitive
to dust storms and hurricanes.
When I am nervous my teeth chatter
like a wheelbarrow collecting rain.
I am rusty when I talk.
It’s the storm in me.
- - Andrea Gibson - -

* I used to be so afraid to talk, so afraid that I would say the wrong thing, and try to fix it by saying another wrong thing, say all of the wrong things inside me, dams against the words I meant never to say all bursting across the silences that I cultivated between me and everyone who absolutely was not allowed to know how broken and horrible I was. Words breaking in and giving meaning to the silences I walled in around my ability to care about my inability to see myself. Eventually the humidity would get too high, and there was a slow condensation that dripped bits of my truth out to me safely, but I knew that disaster was never far from the first word. I feared the power of words, because its hard for me to lie, and because the act of speaking calls up the truth in me. Erica Jong says, "How can I know what I think until I see what I say?" I feel truthsome tonight; I'd better start talking and ( let my words out before they backlog. )

There's a fandom meme going around, and like a sheep I am going with my fleecy, adorable herd. In no particular order except when I came up with them:

1. Kaylee and Inara from Firefly respect and support each other, and do not try to enforce social norms that would imply a lack of approval. They're okay with having wildly different backgrounds, personalities, prospects and social status. They just admire each other for their different talents and offer support and encouragement. I like how simple they are together.
2. Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy from the Batman animated series. They fight commit crime! Shenanigans ensue!
3. Sophie and Stacia from Promethea are snarky, catty, they have conflicting goals, and they STILL support each others rights to bang ancient hippies and talk to imaginary people and fight demons.
4. Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax from The Discworld books. Have you ever read The Sea And Little Fishes? Our true friends are the ones we rely on to keep us the kind of crazy that doesn't involve pitchforks and angry villagers.
5. Francine and Katchoo from Strangers In Paradise are complicated and simple, and they are the best friends In the whole of my Top Ten. I've always wished I had a friendship with any girl that was that enduring. Maybe I will, someday.
6. Deety and Sharpie from The Number of The Beast by Robert Heinlein are strong, independent women who don't let being step-mother-and-daughter interfere with being good friends, good captains and having the kind of solidarity you could bounce a quarter off of.
7. Sally and Gillian (yes I had to look up the spelling, stfu) from the movie Practical Magic. Now some people might be purists who say that sisters don't count toward a list of friends and to those people I say LA LA LA FINGERS IN MY EARS I CAN'T HEAR YOU. :P
8. Bonnie and her cousin Sylvia from The Wolves of Willoughby Chase because they were my first adventurous-girl-duo. Pushy, headstrong Bonnie and cautious, thoughtful Sylvia were my early pattern for what female friendships were supposed to look like.
9. Sara and Ermengarde from A Little Princess were like two sides to the same coin: one had all the cleverness and the other had all the luck. But they weren't jealous of each other, they just shared fortune and misfortune as though it never occurred to them not to pool their resources. I always thought that was how friendship should be.
10. Susan and Sally from the BBC TV show Coupling are not perfect people. Susan is sometimes suspicious and irrational; Sally is jealous, neurotic and vain. They understand and accept each other without recourse to self-deception about the other's faults. They love each other and rely on each other and while they have men in their lives they are more honest and trusting and solid together than with any man. Their characters are much more strongly defined by their friendship than by any of the romantic entanglements onscreen.


And to finish off, a poem for those of you who haven't seen it:
A Monstrous Manifesto by Catherynne Valente

( If you are a monster, stand up. )

Buddha's Dogs

I'm at a day-long meditation retreat, eight hours of watching
my mind with my mind,
and I already fell asleep twice and nearly fell out of my chair,
and it's not even noon yet.

In the morning session, I learned to count my thoughts, ten in
one minute, and the longest
was to leave and go to San Anselmo and shop, then find an outdoor cafe and order a glass

of Sancerre, smoked trout with roasted potatoes and baby
carrots and a bowl of gazpacho.
But I stayed and learned to name my thoughts, so far they are:
wanting, wanting, wanting,

wanting, wanting, wanting, wanting, wanting, judgment,
sadness. Don't identify with your
thoughts, the teacher says, you are not your personality, not your
ego-identification,

then he bangs the gong for lunch. Whoever, whatever I am is
given instruction
in the walking meditation and the eating meditation and walks
outside with the other

meditators, and we wobble across the lake like The Night of the
Living Dead.
I meditate slowly, falling over a few times because I kept my
foot in the air too long,

towards a bench, sit slowly down, and slowly eat my sandwich,
noticing the bread,
(sourdough), noticing the taste, (tuna, sourdough), noticing
the smell, (sourdough, tuna),

thanking the sourdough, the tuna, the ocean, the boat, the
fisherman, the field, the grain,
the farmer, the Saran Wrap that kept this food fresh for this
body made of food and desire

and the hope of getting through the rest of this day without
dying of boredom.
Sun then cloud then sun. I notice a maple leaf on my sandwich.
It seems awfully large.

Slowly brushing it away, I feel so sad I can hardly stand it, so I
name my thoughts; they are:
sadness about my mother, judgment about my father, wanting
the child I never had.

I notice I've been chasing the same thoughts like dogs around
the same park most of my life,
notice the leaf tumbling gold to the grass. The gong sounds,
and back in the hall.

I decide to try lying down meditation, and let myself sleep. The
Buddha in my dream is me,
surrounded by dogs wagging their tails, licking my hands.
I wake up

for the forgiveness meditation, the teacher saying, never put
anyone out of your heart,
and the heart opens and knows it won't last and will have to
open again and again,

chasing those dogs around and around in the sun then cloud
then sun.

~ Susan Browne ~

Do anything to keep each other safe:
We'll sing better; we'll make sound hum like light.
And if you get lost in the lonely dark
Then I'll sing you a starry, starry night.

Happy Friday the 13th.

My week has been a winding road of lies
That I tell to myself when I'm asleep
So my mind, fining nothing to do, tries
To occupy itself while minutes creep.
But lately my sweet dreams don't stand a chance
Against my nightmare spirit, foul and mean,
And having no recourse but somnolence,
Must witness things horrific and obscene.
I've used insomnia for fun in past-
Done sleep dep like a drug to keep me wired.
If my good dreams are where I find true rest
I'd sleep a century to wake still tired.
Exhausted now, I'll turn the corner soon,
And leave caring behind to pass on through.
My unconcern will swallow up the moon,
And any light to guide my way to you
Will fade like the world's last dying ember.
How does slumber work? I can't remember.