Friends of Bill W.

[LeftWriteFemme]

May 31



Black & Dedication



The brand of equipment endorsed by my Higher Power is built so that my hand is clasped inside lest I feel alone or unaided. A closed mouth and an open mind work very well when I can manage either of them and Step 10 works when I can’t. I am usually the problem in my life but I am always the solution. Others may change and contribute; I am the one and only one, responsible for my happiness. Dropping blame from my vocabulary and adding responsibility, learning to differentiate between what is mine and what is yours; these tools are keys and they open worlds of possibility to me. Also they shut out the demons of wrong thinking, wrong acting and desperation, which used to plague me. There are still greater tools I yearn for but like everything I must be patient and build my muscles to handle the heavier machinery.







Dine with hope


*

GULPING

The plug that lodges in my throat
From too much, too fast
Causes the anxiety to rise in me.

The panic fills my contracting muscles
Into rock solid revolt.
I can’t live, is the predictable result

Gulping attention, acclaim, excitement, sex,
Does the same thing
My heart clots and my personality stops in mid-flow

Everything in carefully chosen, well chewed bites
Makes the process proceed
My life works along workable paths

If I stay away from oversized freight
I can never swallow myself whole
Why would I keep trying to imbibe giants like desire?

[LeftWriteFemme]

June 1




I’m not Brian


I thought life was based on a system of ‘I will suffer and that will exempt you’. Then I would be horrified when you suffered, after I had already done so ahead of you. In an attempt to ease my dismay I would look to see who had broken the pact, you or me. Had I not endured sufficiently to protect you? Had you left the safety of the umbrella of sanctuary? Panic gives birth to blame and blame of course births nasty biting things that run loose and bury in all the tender spots. Now, the goals I tend are to end the breeding of those sharp and painful beasties, stop laying my neck upon the alter and start telling better jokes.






Scramble cracked perceptions




*


DANCE OF DEATH

Honeyed words pour from lips
Shades of doubt color my mind
Stained glass eyes look to blank walls
And picture the gallery of imagination
Attempting to sell it for hard currency

Sirens sing from the throats of mute men
The screams which rise in me fall on deaf ears
Paradox feeds controversy but it needn’t

Evolution from a cesspool is repugnant
Though process is steady made
Inertia is violent if that is from whence it came

Afterbirth is always bloody and humans not always nice
I must live and heal as others climb up and slide down
I must keep the beat and forget the dance of death.

[LeftWriteFemme]

June 2



The Attention Tax


Paying attention is the price exacted for living in this society. A taxation which is like a leach; it takes the life force, diverts my brain waves, claims the water rights to my river of thought. What is left I use to wash off what I can, never quite managing to feel clean or clear. I sit in the mud puddle still unsure if I understand what just happened; harboring a dark fear of the wave to come.





Cultivate creative ambition


*

BOTTLE THE ACID

My sponsor said “bottle the acid” and I did
I sat back in smug reflection until the plumbing backed up
I grabbed the fast solution and poured it down the drain.

My sponsor smiled as I learned ----
The baser things will eat my life away too.
I can never just decant power and expect it to clean sweep
The clogged pathways in my recovery.

Sloshing caustic medicine into open orifices brought me here
I long for the ease of a liquid resolution
In the end, I must clean the pipes myself.

The traps are simpler to cleanse the less I’ve lied
Telling myself I don’t have to get my hands
Or heart dirty is the biggest lie of all.

[LeftWriteFemme]

June 3



Soul Chiggers


If you can seed apprehension deeply in a generation, you can reap disillusionment for a hundred years. Bent foresight twists hindsight. Admiring ignorance, signs death’s warrant. Evil splintered to a thousand slivers burrows under the skin without killing their host. Death delayed spreads destruction along with melancholy; a septic contagion if ever there was one. And how do we fight this systemic blight? It is embedded in the water, the air, the mind, and try what I might; I can’t seem to live without any of these. Chiggers of the soul feed and breed no matter how I scratch and chew. I am raw, but still infested. How do I kill what is in me without killing the me?




Step up to indecision



*

THE WORM

Because there is never enough punishment
For those who inflict pain, I punish myself
Only I can tell if the depth of the pain is a match
Only I can judge when enough is enough.

This is the turn of the drunken worm--
Who lives in my brain
The belief that what began in pain
Must end there too.

Even now in recovery I persist in hurting myself
In a thousand tiny ways, setting trap after trap,
To catch the perpetrators, making my heart a mine field
A place unfit for me to live

I must sober the worm
And let myself off the hook.

[LeftWriteFemme]

June 4




Head Wringing



I have my say, though my fear is that I constantly repeat myself; very much the way a crow calls the same thing endlessly, but it all has different meanings to the crow. I would offer code keys to my readers if I could lay my hands on one. My mind whispers that the soothing people get from my work is like the calm induced by chanting monks. Possibly it is more the actor’s trick of reading repetitive lines each time putting the emphasis on a different word; a way of squeezing all the juice from nonsense. I jot ideas swearing these lines are to be found somewhere in my previous work, perhaps whole pages are redundant. Finally I stop this fight reminding myself I have but one voice and what I accuse myself of as similarity might merely be my style.







Find satisfaction in the middle, too


*

OPEN WINDOWS

I roll down the window in the rain
Hoping reality will soak in with the droplets
I tilt my face as I leave the car
And let the water shower my features.

The downpour is the jolt to living for which I have prayed
I stand on my lawn and rinse the day out of my hair
I clear my brain in the fresh rainwater.

The driving rain pounds the house and trees
But I feel massaged and cared for
My skin reflexive, teaches my mind to absorb and hydrate
I turn my thoughts to Greater Powers.

Even if the doors have been closed
I can open the windows
And let the rain come in.

[LeftWriteFemme]

June 5



The Hope Diamond


My guess is the same god that wants me stupid also wants me to suffer. I ask myself what could be all powerful about that? I wonder is G-d like a friend or a lover? I carefully chose my friends whereas my lover found me against my greatest plans and well thought rules. And if this is to be like marriage, may I file for divorce if things go astray? Or am I stuck with this match, like I am stuck with my deformed ear there underneath hat or fringe of hair? I never thought of my relationship with G-d like a necklace I could take on and off at will, though the more I study it seems this beautiful thing enhances my beauty if all is right and will strangle me if it gets hung up.







Sort genius from fortune


*

RED ROSES

From tight green buds come beautiful roses.
From small verdant places I blossom too.
I open to richness unexpected and fullness unbelieved.

I look at crumpled laundry
Never anticipating the look of clean sheets blowing on the line
Doors I perceive as blocked by vast boulders
Are thrown open by willingness.

Who I am today is no one I recognize
I didn’t see myself coming.
I write though I can’t spell
I love though my heart is broken.

I think though my mind is warped
And I trust though the amulet is long shattered.
Promise is not a laid out plan but the continuum of change
I can fight it or let it carry me where it goes.

[LeftWriteFemme]

June 6


Eggshells and Bethlehem

A stable is a place to keep a horse and in fairytales a place to birth a baby, but stable is the story I told myself about you. Solid, a model of strength and here you are a tripod, upright only if the pressure is evenly applied. I blame myself for lopsided need and try to find a way to keep this coupling standing. Stripped down to minor contact I wonder if you actually remember me and then I wonder if I remember myself. This is what is at stake, this is the trophy I lose when I fall for you and you fall down. Where is the girl I worked so hard to create? Broken eggshells litter the nest and I look for the chick I used to be. I fear losing you, I cry at the thought of losing us, I die at the loss of me.








Graft beauty to stability


*

IN THE MEADOW

Being the only tree in the meadow often leaves me feeling lonely
I tell myself of the camaraderie I imagine in the forest
These images are more poetic than real.

I believe in community and support
I think of the woods as a place apart
From the complications of my exposed life.

I shrug off the very real competition and struggle
From sharing every inch of root space
And the search for each square of sunlight.

There is much joy in being an individual
An eco-system of diversity allows me to fully develop
I can spread my branches and my roots.

I can offer shelter to those in need of my reaching and my shadow
Tender flowers and tired birds find me a haven
I have unique abilities in this field

Space can feel lonely
But it is full of possibilities.