Friends of Bill W.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 16


FEEDING SQUIRRELS ON A ONE LANE BRIDGE

Cattle corn spread on the single Lane Bridge---the trap. Food or safety? There are plenty of other choices; my disease sees none of them. Gluttony and danger the perfect combination. How can I resist? Why would I resist? I have to have more. I cannot depend on my nature, the ability God gave me to survive in my environs. Help must come from outside, and must be wild and dramatic. Inward help is boring, subtle, tiresome. Where’s my image? My excitement?
How am I going to prove my God worthy without too much, without perilous risk and rescue? I can’t. I can’t prove my God, and my God doesn’t need to prove anything to me. I can find my way, off the beaten path, away from the prying eyes of rubberneckers. No cheers from the crowd are necessary. I have the equipment. It came standard. If I look at the controls and follow the twelve step tutorial, I should be able to manage just fine. No Mack truck in my face, as I stuff myself with ill-gotten grain.


Look deeply into a glass of water searching for mermaids.
*


Bon


Comfort or motivation
these are the two major reasons for building a fire.
Sometimes I set it before me
other times under me.

The warmth can be soothing
and the light dazzling,
but licking flames move me
off the spot like nothing else.

Fuel and surrounds contribute to the effect.
Mental state and personal company
provide dampening or air.

How high the flames rise or how long they burn
varies widely inspiring my passions,
my thoughts, my fears

The conflagration is an apt tool
as long as I don’t go up in smoke.



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 17


IN THE COMFORT OF MY ROOM

I sit and panic concerning the future. I have come through hell, built a safe and satisfying life, but it will all end soon. I can feel it. The tide rises in my soul, the blood red tide of self-doubt and degradation. I fail to see my strength, or intelligence. Hell, I can’t even remember the sheer willingness, which has carried me this far. All I see are shreds, tattered little bits of my hopes and dreams, scattered by the breeze of fate.
What is the point of me being in this sweet space if I’m going to intellectually turn it to a dungeon? Why set out fluffy pillows only to frighten myself daily with thoughts of their removal? How can I pray for safety and practice personal terrorism? With an open mind? No! My mind is closed to the double side of life. I know the destruction but forget the glory. I have washed ashore in the land of love and support. I need not drag my mind and spirit to the nether world of hopelessness. I’ve been to the dark places. My task is to warm in the sunlit today.


Make an anagram of your name, which empowers you.
*

Hades


There is strangeness to the dark.
A velvety comfort
when my paranoia is not alive
with ice crystals and contempt.

Cocoons of light create hives of life
in an otherwise isolating phenomena.
Pressing to my skin I can wear the night out
as a jewel, a talisman for the hope I dare not share.

Pixies and faeries inhabit dawn’s wee hours
but the black blank stretch of space
is home to things quite different.

Unspeakable in their face I allow them to pass.
Should I be carried off my return is eminent
for half the seeds remain.

Not wholly ransomed I live only part time in the sun.
When the shadows fall there is the oddness of home
I can neither embrace nor deny.




.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 18


THERE IS A TREE

There is a tree in the woods. I’ve seen it. It is cut off from any visible source of strength or sustenance. Carried aloft by the surrounding trees, the splintered trunk dangles in the air. It makes no connection to the forest floor. I know the feeling. I have been cut off too. Violently separated from my God, as it were. I probe the fractured stump at the bottom of my soul. I explore the crevices seeking tendrils of hope. My anxiety bonds to my frustration, but faith eludes me. I look down to the broken place, the view unrealized by me. I have a vista of unimagined beauty provided to me by the growth of others. I am eye to eye with my peers, held in their loving embrace. I bloom and flower with them. I endure the winters the same as they, and come spring am the stronger for it. I don’t know why I was damaged. I don’t know why I was saved. I am grateful it is done.
My sponsor says it’s for our sobriety and the pleasure of your company.



Think of three honorable people.
*


Between Two Chains


The curving movement half seen sweeps forward
and catches me squarely on the chin.
Realization glimmers that next time
it will strike me in the mouth
and I take a step back.

I estimate the returning arc, raise my arms,
push the board back from whence it came.
As it hurtles toward me once more, I reposition.

Force returns force;
fury comes vigorously my way
and I thrust with strength and enthusiasm.

And this is fine for what it is.
I have learned how not to get hit.
I can push when I get shoved.
How much better will it be
when I can get on and swing?




.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 19


ROCK BOTTOM PRICES


Marble topped dressers, dry sinks and wardrobes, standing in the auctioneer’s warehouse, show loving use and obvious value. The hungry consumers peruse the merchandise looking for the perfect piece to fit their need. Old men eating ice cream sandwiches pick their way through the rows of tidbits laid out on the lawn, bargains to fill in odd spaces and little desires. So like our meeting places, where people try to refurnish their lives. The cost to arrive may have been high, but once in the market is more than fair. We reclaim relics and we use them as road signs and warnings. There is always someone around to carry large truths home and no one has to go away empty handed. We bid on our own survival by buying someone else a break. Time passes easily, as the one at the podium recounts the rock bottom prices.


Curl up inside the nautilus of your mind and take a nap.
*



Tea or Sympathy


Tears pouring into the teacup
growing cold on the table
create a sea of emotions uncharted.

If I cannot offer sympathy to the contents,
the soulless heel that I am,
how then do I expect to have a future?

If I will tender only meager tolerance
toward the spindled thing
valiantly trying to beat within me
why do I even show my face to the mirror?

If shoulders are cold and turned inward
then I will collapse into the inexpressive,
dismal thing that has been misshapen
through misuse.

I might as well drink the chilly tea
for that is all the comfort I will get.
I must do better by myself
in order to brew a better world.



.

[cathexis]

Just checking in. Been watching the Government Shutdown. Think I need to turn it off, and turn on some Jazz or Blues to get mind off politics.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 20

BECAUSE



Because I am my father’s child, I make my attendance at meetings frequent and regular. Having looked deeply in the genetic mirror, I see so many bitter days. I’ve run from the implications and sheltered in the steps. The humility that saved my life is the understanding I am no different from my family. And, since this is a progressive disease we all have, I will just get there faster. Knowing who I can be helps me turn my will over and keeps me grasping my Higher Power’s belt loop. All I am turns in every direction and can pull or push, lift or fall. I know my assets and I know their power and their limitations. All my hope is placed on a plan to use these resources. I follow the only lead which has never promised more than it can deliver.


Be your own loving parent.
*



What Is A Sheep To Do?



Things are bad out there.
I see the trouble as I circle within the flock.
Many of us whisper to each other as we pass.
How can I create lasting change?

Is there something helpful
that will not separate me from my precious life,
something that will not make me prey
to the vultures before I even realize that I’m dead?

How can I live and strive
while the wolves hold the hilltops?
Is the choice merely, one death or the other?

Is there an as yet unseen path?
Can I find it
while maintaining my place in this congregation?
What is a sheep to do?




.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 21


THE FROG

Stretched in the water, still, the frog hangs. The pond is barely a teacup, sufficient for the communion of God and frog. I watch the frog, unblinking , savoring respiration. In a pond in Maine, I bore this posture, center stage. A quarter mile of water all around, I hold my head above the surface and feel I am in the eye of God’s creation, face to face with benevolence. Peace spars with uneasy smallness. I am a tiny speck, floating in the soup; I am one organism in a sea teaming with life; I am a part of, not privileged but equal to the rest. Can I bear this reality, the struggle of living on a web? Can I live a humble life, knowing I am favored no more than the rest? Can I set aside my need for preferential treatment, a God-given Band-Aid for my multitude of hurt?
“If you can’t, you will drink," says my sponsor.
“If I have to live this way, I will cry,” I respond.
“That is your God-given right.”


Take someone else’s Higher Power out for a test drive.
*


Saurian or Dalliance


I love to be mystical
but the only dragon in my life
is when I drag on and on.

Procrastination is the winged beast in my world.
I armor plate the thing, shiny and gleaming,
my loitering delay is mightily impressive.

You might think it would take flight
from the way it postures
but departure has been adjourned
in favor of misgiving and postponement.

I wander through the forest
attempting to appear brave and feeling it occasionally
while my tale grows longer.

I need the fierce face and sharp claws
I can beat the mythology
if I will just continue to take action.



.