Question my abilities, I do

Walk to the other side, I will

Crush #2

Notice the chairs, discarded at street corners
usually the stuffed ones, the pillows
deformed from cradling bodies
and backside embraces,
keepers of stories, of moments and years
stained from love, boredom and tears
of life's endless short takes
of rest or confinement
The last appeal, on the street, to find new bodies to hold-
rare may be that this wish will be granted
 it is the bony, skinny-legged ones
 that might convince the squirreling re claimer to bring them home
and scrub, paint over, to make new relatives
like middle aged women who still hold their figures, hoping to catch the last train
They reach a hollow part in me,
a sorrow of repeating step,
a longing to find the way back,
redeem the lost and left behind

I miss you

Just once more,
but I know
I can't go there

Just one time
but it is
a lie

Just until the end
and when it comes
let it be hell

I loved you

Yesterday it became clear which wolf in my heart I was going to feed: the vengeful, angry one or the compassionate, loving one. In the old Native American story, the wise man replies to the supplicant's question,"which one will win"-  "the one you feed"..

Your appraisal of me was unjust, assigning responsibility for your "personal" loss. I am withdrawing from what never has been to begin with, emotional entanglement that I had no wish to participate in- friendship and intellectual stimulation was the sum of my intention.

In the past year, exactly give and take a month, I endeavored  consciously to heal, to resurrect love in my damaged heart and find joy again in whatever form the universe would send  my way. It took un-glamorous discipline and hard work, and as you know, I am pretty good at that.

 I have spent the last 13 years in agony, defeat, misery, crushing pain, abandoning the true me, my ebullience, creative energy and passion-filled identity, while watching my married life come apart piece by piece, my partner tearing up his soul and our family, and focusing on just holding on to that raft of survival. Survival is an  ugly battle, inherent of scarcity and unbalance, and now that I had survived, it was time for revision: one more go, hopefully this time with better equipment to weather the rapids of life. This is my truth and unfortunately, not your scenario. This is where I am coming from and not where we are heading. I do not have any energy left in me until I close my eyes for good, to spend one more iota of emotion that is restrictive, painful and "less than".

If this feels like the coward's way of a parting shot, take heart, it is not.
I clear my head and chest when I publicly state what you did not hear or were not able to last night.

I will feed the white wolf.

And one from my dearest cousin Χριστινα Γωβετα:
RIP  Andreas, 1950-2013

Kατερινη

Θα ενδιαφερθουν για τη ταφη
θα προσκαλεσουν συγγενεις
και φιλους απ' τα ξενα
Στους ενδιαφερομενους
θα πουν
ανεκαθεν υπηρξαμε
πολυ μυστηρια τραινα...
που με αποσκευες βαριες
γεμισαμε μεχρι σκασμου
τις αδειες σκευοφορους

Μα εμεις χωρις αποσκευες
παντοτε ταξιδευουμε
περιεργο
πως πληρωνουμε
του αιματος τους φορους...

(16. 08. 2013 )

Hurry up,
one more jog
before the light is snuffed
before the sun hides, your heart
in long winter's grip

Hurry up,
one more story to finish
before the pen dries
before the love is fogged
the road is gone from view

Hurry up,
the last dream beckons
 before the cold morn
before now dies
and last drop overflows

Another favorite from the master..



"Heaven"—is what I cannot reach!

The Apple on the Tree—
Provided it do hopeless—hang—
That—"He aven" is—to Me!

The Color, on the Cruising Cloud—
The interdicted Land—
Behind the Hill—the House behind—
There—Paradise—is found!

Her teasing Purples—Afternoons—
The credulous—decoy—
Enamored—of the Conjuror—
That spurned us—Yesterday! 

Emily Dickinson

Dog Days Of August

The new crisp cotton

 sheet rambled only on half side

embracing summer's languor

 chasing after love

that refuses to join the props

of a curated life

A canvas on my bed-boat

solo sailing at high noon-

strange how I pay the price of lonesome

Class of 2011

Some oldies for today..

Class of 2011

In June, in the tobacco fields of my youth,
the strongest one, my mom, would keep hoeing
the longest row
never upending the curved spine
till the edge of the line and back to the next one,
seeding in my young mind
the constancy of effort,
that rounding the circle
is the absolute endeavor of creation.

Breathless, I arrive yet again,
in the longest days of the year
and another school year comes to an end
and young ones have plowed new earth into their own circles of growth.

I inhale deep, the headiness of  graduation,
is like nicotine that fixes the arc of tobacco in my body
and my barren womb that held a child not
is cast again in the substitute mother role:
another class is delivered to the world.


Maria

NORTHERN LIGHT

I fled the whirlpool of loss
and spread weak wings against blue winds
homing to a nest
that I dreamed in vivid yellows and green
of my fields of sun.
And you became the northern gale
that carried me away
and the dreams iced over
in the igloo of our love.
You held me high, to puff my feathers
and I changed course
and left you behind
and watched you die
for the flight was always mine alone.
And I gathered your broken stone walls
and shattered branches
and fashioned myself a house
to shelter new love.
And the croaking of the frog
that feasted in your ashes,
remind me that
I had kissed my prince.

Maria Ling

Perseides #2


My sweet pea,
you pool shooting stars
in the sparkle of your eyes,
you deepen the black
with eyelashes dream-heavy

You hold hearts
in your tiny palm,
 a smile dawning in your
toothless mouth
secures the chain of my capture

You ask to save the daisy
you gave me for nursing
your heaving stomach, "to pretty up your house"
and I swell with waves
of  abundant love

Make a wish on a fire light,
 shine like it comes true

Turning

I first see
your form spilling out of the familiar frame,
now a heap of the giant that you were

I gaze
into your watering eyes, they have lost their sea luster
green and magnetic light

I resist
the hold of your embrace, pulling away
a few seconds too quickly

I miss
 the seal of your kiss, turning a corner
of my mouth too sharp

I inhale
your stale sweat, deeply hemming
the growing distance

I calm
my breath, my heartbeat
down to polite deference

I am stunned
 as my body translates decades of longing
into a code of severing

I destroy
the mold of attachment
with the detachment of an invader

It was never us,
the sorrow is even parsed

Perseid showers

Darkness parts,
knifed by ethereal wishes
burning their selves
to register time

Space flowers brilliant
measures of action,
fixing the arc of my eye
and the sky

I dissolve, sugar in water,
once a year
my age indifferent
to numbering

Suicide

Ache that knows no bounds,
to escort the gone and envelop the ones left

Void that swells and flows
poisoning new wells

Circle that strangulates as much
as it delivers complete the play

Suffocating, open that gate
fly to safe roost

Solitude, sometimes even to live
is an act of courage

Only consolation is holding the hand
of fellow wounded