Friends of Bill W.

[LeftWriteFemme]

November 19



Human Sacrifice


How much does it have to cost me in order for you to feel better? Why is it that my suffering improves your mood? Does it confirm for you that you are not alone when you are feeling scared? Or does it give you the sense that at least you’re not as pitiful as me? Is it pleading that strikes a cord, is it the animal pain which stirs your compassion? What about this scenario completes the cycle for you to be able to move back to your comfort zone? And what happens if I don’t fall to pieces? If I hold my emotions to my chest, take them to my sponsor; in some way keep them from your hungry eyes? Will you move on and leave me behind? Will you climb over the hurdle which currently stands between us? Or will you store away this bitter thing like a rotten nut hidden by a Secret Squirrel?




List your objections and examine them for holes

*





SPRUCE

The gum that grows in trees and trickles down bark,
Is harvested and chewed, spit out and sticks to shoes,
Is the very stuff that mimics my life.

I race with vitality, burst my confines
Am ruminated and masticated by various onlookers
And then adhere myself to anyone I feel will carry me
To a more advantageous venue.

I needn’t apologize for my fluid nature or viscosity
I am just as I should be, always where and what I am
And at the same time on my way to somewhere and something else.

[LeftWriteFemme]

November 20


The Story as a Stowaway



I want to tell you a story, but I want to tell it to you quickly, so I can give it to you and then you can carry it on your way. For what good is my story to you if you must leave it where it lay? Your need to be elsewhere presses on us both and I wish to give you what you can take rather than to try to stall you here for an epic you might never lift and certainly not dream of dragging along. I want you to be on your way and take a part of me with you. I wish to sew myself in your mind; tether my tale to your soul. I believe in forward motion and the need to carry on. Where you’re going I can’t go on my own but I know that if I am funny, quick and lite, part of me goes even to the end of your world and my hope is to help you make it bright.





Apprentice yourself to collaboration

*

MIRACULOUS

Sometimes the blind lead the deaf.
The subtle signs are the bumping into trouble
And the inability to listen to reason.
It is an expedition into disaster.

Unfettered by common sense or boundaries
Tumbles and falls propel this pairing
To unknown destinations.
The attraction is baffling but undeniable.

These pairs can be seen through the ages.
In spite of this confounding coupling
Sometimes the blind find their way
And the deaf hear the call.

Even when they don’t life seems to roll along
But try to keep your eyes and ears open anyway.

[LeftWriteFemme]

November 21


Blanda


I know how good a quarterback you are on Monday, safely at home. What were you like on the field, gameday? You act as if seeing your mistakes in retrospect is the same as not having made them, but the game is lost and a rematch is not a do-over. The score is final, whether you accept the stats or not. Defeat does not deter my love of the game and doesn’t diminish my affection for you, but history has been made and I don’t wish to repeat it.





Step aside and let fury pass

*

PERSONAL DICTIONARY

Everyone keeps a dictionary in his or her head.
All the words lay on platters
Each with its own flavor and meaning

There are favorite menus and phrases
Which form warmly in the mouth
And hang sweetly for the ear.

Other vocabulary is exotic, pungent
Occasionally with strong after taste
Or off key ringing
Abundance brings a wealth of conversation
And keeps the cold of boredom at bay.

Free for the taking words grow out of life lived.
When we have lived separately
Even if only in our separate heads
Meaning vary and reference must be checked.

Blue sky is blue sky
But do you speak of azure, cerulean or peacock?
Life is so much show and tell.
Drink the sunshine with your eyes
And flow it out to me with your words.

[LeftWriteFemme]

November 22



Generational River


The history in my genes have cut a channel in the rock of existence; I pour through it everyday. I too change the face of life one grain at a time, though I rarely recognize my affect I am so busy running. Damns, ponding, acts of G-d leave their marks for future readings, but I keep moving. The water is never the same twice; it changes even more than the mineral face and yet its liquid life looks more than unchanged from a distance and is a world filled with variety up close. Circle the globe, the sun, the sands of time, the river of life flows from her to there and back again.



Bake pies to warm the crisp apples


*

CARGO LOST, CARGO FOUND

I fill the pallet of a New Years sobriety
And when it has been accomplished
Make a manifest and strap this pallet
With the others on the flatbed of my life.

The cargo is secure and weighty
And there is ample pressure
Where the rubber meets the road.
I maneuver my rig carefully.

I feel assured as I stream
With the traffic on the byways.
The power and magnitude of my transport
Prompts in me over confidence.

I fail to realize variation
In weather or road conditions
Can jeopardize my journey.
Eighteen wheels make for poor cantilever
When traction is lost and top heavy wins out.

In losing the battle of gravity,
Inertia and control, I realize the past
Is not a weight I need to haul.
All that is necessary is the inventory.

I slip the pages into my pocket
And walk the rest of the way.
I am my only freight.

[LeftWriteFemme]

November 23



Triumph


G-d and I are experience junkies; part of why I am here is so G-d can take me for a ride, but also for the treat of G-d tucking into the sidecar and letting me take us out for a spin. I am G-d’s audience and G-d is mine; though we are not peers we are comrades. Life is a serious business I am sure and profit and loss are always there to be considered, though I can barely describe to you how much being in love with my creator is a joy, but even better is being the apple of my creator’s eye.









Put resistance on the rack and stretch it


*

MOSAIC

I couldn’t prevent this plate from shattering
so I saved all the pieces, loosing none.
I laid them edge-to-edge and made a design
then secured it with thin-set.

Pieces of pattern framed with grout are seen
as they never could be when this dish was whole.
I am part of this construction
more than just handing china onto the table.

Integrity has been lost
but replaced with fractured openness
The plate has lost personal unity to become
an ingrained part of my personal archeology.

[LeftWriteFemme]

November 24




Jet Lagging


Baby’s feet kick in the isle and we are all cocooned in our seats. The movies play and earphones dangle in our ears. We are jetting across the country in our own little worlds. Landing can not happen soon enough for me, not that I want to foreshorten the flight. I just know I have a stack of lives waiting for me and I would like to get back to living them. I have been a week away, a vacation for sure and true but I have my keep to earn, my obligations are many. I hope to have done myself proud when I am through, but until then there is much to do.



Zip up to protect yourself from exposure

*

ORIGINS

Pain filled interactions with people
Better suited to be left alone
Changed me in the way of acceptance.

Retched relationships with people
Made it difficult for me to have a loving
Relationship with the world.

I had imprinted as a fledgling
On sarcasm and ridicule.
Bitter milk starved my expectations
Of kind response.

I could not greet the world eagerly.
Having never embraced the world
I failed to hang on as it turned
I slid on my face and hands.

Mud covered I try to keep an open mind
And attempt a connection
With this spinning orb.

[LeftWriteFemme]

November 25


One and One



The person who has nothing is vague. The person who has too much alludes. And these people may falsely mistake one another for kindred when what you draw your conclusions from are the poems, sweet words, which flow out of these divergent folk. A paper house is built, but the living is impossible. Tying strings to dreams doesn’t permit you to fly away to fairy-lands it just leaves you prone to lightening strikes and long wet wicks. What could be the truth unfolded; spread broadly for all to see? Where could the roads so very far apart lead to a home, a hearth, a life? Or is this just a field of fantasy flowers blooming in our minds? Mist is vapor pretending at a marriage to a world it will soon evaporate and leave. You and I are passing ships on a short sad night.







Tip the scales toward optimism

*

THE WAY I DO IT

Cooking by smell.
Parking by ear.
Recovering by touch.

The later has to be done this way
I cannot see into the black-box technology
Which keeps me sober.

Feel through resentments, pain, sadness, joy.
Find myself under a pile of rags
With a match in my hand.

The many times the steps have saved me
From becoming a human torch
Are balanced by the weight of the rope.

Woven from these same rags.
That together we use to drag
One another to safety.

The savory scent of a meal
Or the glee of front row parking
Can’t compare with the tender sense
Of a sober heart.