Friends of Bill W.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 2


The Inside Half

I have drunk deeply from the glass set before me. I’m not entirely sure that I am half way through, but I am into it a goodly bit. I would be happy to have another 31 years; thirty-one more hours would be a gift, too. That glass might be half empty but I am at least half full and I am amazed! I am regularly stunned by the prodigies this half trek has born to term; equally dazzled by how quickly the generations compound in this painstaking construction. Development both internal and assembled surpasses my wildest imaginings. Amazement is my most constant companion, more than gratitude and as of late even outstripping willingness my most trusted ally. Shock has been replaced by wonder, bewilderment with surprise, I am fortified with these feeling realities and look happily to finishing the rest of what is in that glass.


Turn left into your right mind

*

DUCK TONGUE

Trying to get out of myself, I travel to an Asian fish market and grocery
I had heard has very fresh fish.
Greeted at the door by thirty large and lively tilapia
Swimming in their tank,
I felt my mood lift.

The captured beauty gave me pause.
Shiny and silvery, the faces banged at the glass
As they tried to get a better look at my entrance.
Like passengers packed on a subway car,
The fish jockeyed for position near the glass.

Further inside, I see the wonders we have extracted from the sea,
Cuttlefish, conch, squid, mussels, clams,
Whole fish of every stripe.
My belief in a power of diversity strengthens
And I smile.

Leaving the seafood section, I head forward,
To the refrigerated cases of other types of meat.
Frozen pigs tail, fowl with feet on, the novel variety pleasing.
When I approach the trays neatly filled with rows of chicken feet
I break out in a grin.

Thoughts of soup and days gone by flutter through my mind.
Finding formed foam piled with layer after layer
Of duck’s tongues was my limit
Spinning in my mind,
Who? Why? Oh no!

But in the end I came to care
About how these minuscule flaps of leather
Were placed.
The person whose job is done well
And to the fact people are just people.

We do what we do.
For reasons unimagined to the rest
And we do it,
With full faith
And hopeful breath.



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[LeftWriteFemme]

February 13

Progressive Fourth


All I can do is stand on the grass and count the shutters, the windows, the doors. At first I cannot approach to inspect any closer than that. Time passes and the other steps work me. I peer through the windows the next time and count the stuffs I can glimpse through the glass. I possess no periscopic vision, but what is in plain sight I reckon. Subsequently I wished to exteriorize and draw the inventory of the house out onto the lawn and tally there wishing to avoid that interior life, the poisoned vixen who haunted there. Time passed and she recovered as did I, into the house I went. I am now able not only to number my possessions; I can assess the flow and function, work patterns, interplay, reliability. I have now appraised not just the what, but the how of my life and progress into tomorrow.


Give cooperation a hand

*

TRAVELING PICTURES

I parked next to a beaten little import.
The well of the passengers side filled
With empty sports drink bottles and soda cans
The dash board was a shrine.

Three taped photographs.
One of a young man and young woman.
One of the young woman and an older woman.
One of the young woman and an enormous marble statue.

There were small carved objects
Affixed to the dash.
Jade and soapstone figures,
Beads and a feather.

The sanctuary in my head is decked out
In a similar manner.
Postcard pictures line my mind.
People I love, trips I took, pets long gone.

The road signs of my journey
Stand as exhibits of a tour of duty
Not always to my liking
But nothing I would trade.

I know clearly where I have been
And study the map to prepare
For the future escapades and loved ones.

Trinkets strung on my life line
Give texture, flavor and flash
To my pilgrimage.


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[LeftWriteFemme]

September 2


Here Kitty Kitty

Litter training the lynx seems like a good idea until it is accomplished and all concerned are less for the accomplishment. Domesticity is a transparent cage, which has a presence felt by all whether loved or hated. The air is changed and the cat stifles, everyone is safer, so it is said, but what are we safer from? And what is a broken lynx, certainly not a house cat?


Peer under obstacles then climb over


*
ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE

Just because the crows fly away when I arrive
doesn’t mean they are afraid
but they might be.

The obvious answers are usually the correct ones
but I must leave room for the unlikely answers too.
Sometimes a spade is a shovel
and a gofer is occasionally a retriever.

The world is a wonderful and fearful place
where possibilities are endless
if I am willing to allow the light
to strike these sheltered doubts.

Any day---any where --an alcoholic can stay drunk
or get sober



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[LeftWriteFemme]

September 3


Where’s Your Chair?

Is the ring more unnatural for the tamer or the lion? One the trapped, the other the trapper. Who is the more in danger; the one with loss of freedom or the one with possible loss of life? And while this question is still in play the next question is begged. Why is there a ring? What is worth the price paid by the whip holder or the whipped? Spectacle is a thing whose cost reaches from the forest to the trees; can take you from the highest rung down to your knees. All this lost for some Owwe’s and Ah’s from people needing diversion from the ring they turn tricks in.


Refuse delivery of bad acts
*

HOW EVER YOU CAN

I heard --Let go with love.
You know how to do that? Asked my sponsor.
No that’s why I’m here to see you,
But it sure sounds like something I should do.

Well in a perfect world maybe we can all do it that way.
But for now let go with a mean look in your eye.
Let go with rage in your heart.
Let go with words boiling on you tongue.

Let go with the butter knife up to its hilt in the jelly jar.
Let go standing at the sink wishing for some other life.
Let go as a reflex
Let go as an anthem, as a prayer, as a declaration.

Let go even when you don’t feel you are holding on anymore.
At the same time-hold on to what’s important---
Your recovery---Your Higher Power, and your sense of humor.




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[LeftWriteFemme]

September 5


No Reason

Reason falls through, where it lands is a place of unknown seascape and unrelenting tides. The roar in my ears furthers the disorienting effect of relocation. At first it seems easier to let go of reason but when I descend into madness I scramble for purchase; looking for sanity like a cleft in a cliff. Loss of skin and blood is nothing to compare to the loss of my mind. I believe I could be more easily separated from a limb or two than to lose rein on my brain. Reason falls through; I must follow even though the terrain is arduous and my heart is sometimes faint, for without reason there is no reason and without reason there is no life.



Write songs to the dead, sing them to the living

*
HATCHLING

When the shell gets too tight
It’s time to hatch.
I can’t tell you it’s safe out there
Just that it’s time to go.

The leaving is not easy.
Exodus fulfilled by the use of one small tooth
This experience may or may not prepare you
For the rest of your life.

So much still depends on predestination
And your attitude.
I mean are you a chicken or a hawk?
A peacock or a dove?
Or is there something of which I am unaware.

Did someone sit on your nest
Or cover it with sand?
Are you a turtle, lizard or snake?
See so much is out of your hands
But still your actions are your choice.


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[LeftWriteFemme]

September 8


Helping Hands?

Why would you go to a rattler for a snakebite remedy? It feels so much like the hair of the dog that bit me. The truth is I must, must stay away from the quick answers. I am a slow healer, but I do heal if I allow myself to do so unencumbered by poison or untruth. When I am returning to the vomit of my past it is incumbent upon me to search for the old lies and/or the new ones, either or both will get me drunk; do I even need the help of a prescription pad?


Never cage harbingers

*

SELF-SEEKING IS A DEBIT

Trying to get credit for everything I do
Has run me into debt in my anonymity account
Which draws directly from my humility bank.

I cannot expend my resources seeking acknowledgement
And expect to retain much dignity or class.
How can I build within, while constantly grasping,
For nods and smiles from scenery and landscaping?

I want approval so much that I have lost my center.
In an attempt to top the charts I forgot my song.
My ego writes checks that my soul can’t cover.

I run my potential into the red
Looking to get my name in black and white.
If I keep my name out of lights
I have a chance of building up my dignity.


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[LeftWriteFemme]

September 17


Ovoid

I can pretend at this normal life for a period of time then the plaster starts to crack on this white picket fence and it’s all down hill from there. I am better than I was; I am happier and more well adjusted, yet I am still far from fitting with the standard fittings, I am an off size, my threads run counter to the average fixture, I spent too much time on the rack to resemble anything from off the rack. It’s not that I am so special; it is just that I am Special Ed. Performance anxiety and paranoia regularly take me out of round though even with these kept at bay I am not your normal nut. I assure you that you can dress me up and take me out, just don’t try to take me home.



Remind yourself of your friends

*

WEE HOURS



In the wee hours I hear the high pitched wail
the tiny pest whining in my ear
the onset of my thin stretched nerves reaching their end.

A few more hours are required of me tonight
I rally my spirit and lift the edges of my willing resolve.
Long slow nights carry me to far corners of my mind.

I am more average than I had imagined or hoped for.
The commonness of four AM brings base to disclosure
the charmed exposure of predawn wakefulness.

The fuzzy vibrations in my brain make me feel deep and real
Vulnerable to all the normal limitations of nature and caprice.
The sun will rise, ending this night.
My sentry over I will fall to earth, and rest, and bed.






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[LeftWriteFemme]

September 21


Mercy

The rearview holds the vision, the sad figure on the corner as I drive away, all that is left to me are memories of G-d, the rest I ejected and sped from as fast as I could. I cannot face what is left when I make G-d homeless and unloved. Though living together was tough sometimes, living alone is unbearable. Nothing cooks right, cleans right, tastes right or smells right, even the moon won’t rise right when I am strictly on my own. And G-d wasn’t built for the streets, that corner is not someplace my Higher Power fits in. We are meant to be together and apart the world spins off its measure. Pitiful is what I am, so I swing around the block, fling open the door and take pity on G-d and go home.


Make time for lullabies
*


BELLS

The bells are ringing but no one sings
There are no peals of laughter and that’s just fine
For pleasure is not the only response to sound.
Shock and distain are other options, too.

I have what I want in relationship to the buzz in my ear
Equal opportunity attitude, pro and con.
Some songs bring joy when they end.

I have to lower my expectation of pleasure
And value my distaste for tinkling sounds
Or any other preordained sweetness.






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