Another new song, oh joy (and a drawing too):

The Chain of Pain

chorus:
I cry for you, you cry for her
she cry for someone else again
everybody hungry, is nobody whole
all links in the chain of pain

love is a killer, fate bound to fate
when true lover turn from his mate
he turn to another, who leave him in turn
making a chain of pain
chorus:

if love is the answer, this is the question
why do I go through this again
harden my heart, only hurt myself
forging a chain of pain
chorus:

pick up the pieces, bleeding bits of heart
pick them up and cry for you again
holding together, waiting forever
linked in the chain of pain
chorus:

When I was a child I drew, I sang
and when I was old enough
I read. I didn’t write.
I tried. I flailed, then failed
daunted by utter incapacity
to find words, any words that might
say something I meant

ever haunted, hungry,
possessed by an overwhelming, urgent
yet ultimately powerless rage to communicate

Every Christmas I asked for and received a
new blank diary for the year to come
Each time I gazed with love upon
its pristine pages, resolved afresh
to fill it with my thoughts

Then hit the wall immediately, and hard
I struggled, stared at the first bare page
as it blurred through a thickening film of tears
and then I finally surrendered, sighing,
to write after the date “Just routine today.”
By spring I abbreviated it to “JRT”
and filled month after month
with that acronym, scrawled large
with impotent frustration

Instead, I doodled, scribbled, drew, let the
lines flow without thought as the tip
of pencil, pen and crayon flew,
filled page after page with sketches

of body parts, eyes, hands, feet, faces
images of people and animals but
never landscapes, seldom things
I wasn’t interested in backgrounds
only players

I starved for acknowledgment, contact
effected disconnected pictures from my
alienated self, drawing on my innerworld
as substitute for actual reflections of the people
and animals that populated my surroundings

My powers of observation were turned inward,
and ’twas self I saw in the fey faces,
pointed ears and great glaring eyes
that stared from my pages.

They scared me, dared me to stop,
drew my pencil-point excitedly onward

I struggle, still, with that block in my brain
and sometimes must manifest some shock
profound enough to slice through the stuff
that separates my inner world from the
shared world of people and animals,
places and things

So I sing, I read, I want, I hunger,
I suck like a magnet with infant passion
upon the attention of those who notice
until they withdraw, depleted, to seek
attentions of less voracious and
more giving others

It makes me notice the way I still be
as a child, it makes me notice child self
filling my shelves with denied
soul’s shrieking

This insufferable pain is actually ecstasy denied
Such pleasure disallowed converts to agony
become a frenzy of demons wreaking havoc
upon the plains, rivers and seas of self

A constant, unnamed background pain
pressures my brain, colours me
with shame hues of purple and maroon
punctures my balloon before it inflates,
makes me wait for my fate to unfold,
places my life on hold

And it, the pressure, builds to crescendo
til the release valve blows, allows me
a song, a picture, a poem, a dance,
a chance for eternity’s freedom
until release relaxes me
back into my box

Into this paradox I live, makes me
crazy like a fox, freeing me with locks
and trapping me in bouts of freedom
I need more wisdom than I currently access
to pass this moebius test; it twists me
in and out of sane

Old Time is devil and saviour of my life
I age and grow at varying rates
racing against the pace chosen
by the majority and called consensus
though my vote hasn’t yet counted

I learn, slowly, that though I grow
and appear to age, I am becoming in truth
more youthful, more able, more fluid,
more stable, more magical and more alive.

When I was a child, this is what I did.
When I am a child, this is what I do.

Reckless Grace

She had a normal life, as a mother and a wife
through years of joy and strife, she kept the faith
she was happy in his shade, she lived for the love they made
she would have stayed forever, but he pulled out his tether
and he left her for another half her age

Now she’s got fire in her eyes, she’s lost her faith in lies
she’s come out of disguise, look at her face
She’s ready, and she’s set, she’ll take all that she can get
On life, she’s placing bets with reckless grace

Her heart was always true through the choices that she drew
through her changes, she knew love cannot die
now she’s angry and alive, through it all, she survived
now her heart will thrive, now her life force has revived
she is here, clear and live, free of the cage

She’s got fire in her eyes, she’s got no time for lies
she’s come out of disguise, just see her face
Through her joy and sorrow, she will love again tomorrow
Living to the marrow with reckless grace

She’s a woman on her own, see how strong she’s grown
all those seeds she’s sown have rooted deep
She’s a cougar on the prowl, in the nighttime hear her howl
here is where, and now is when, in this circle of her friends
it’s a beginning, not an end, turn the page

She’s got fire in her eyes, don’t try to give her lies
she’s got no disguise, look at her face
she’s a wise one, she’s a mother, she’s my friend, and she’s a lover
exploring her discoveries with reckless grace

She’s got fire in her eyes, don’t try to give her lies
She’s got no disguise, see her shine
she’s a wise one, she’s a mother, she’s my friend, and she’s a lover
so whoever discovers her, stand in line
Yeah, whoever discovers her… stand in line!

So it has come around again, yes

And hopeful heart springs reflexively

Spinning visions of what might yet be

If only this or that would change

So the perfect path to the perfect future

Could unfold perfectly

If he gets over her, if he

Remembers me, if we

Come together for long enough

In the right way, at the right time

Then, says hopeful heart,

Love might again find its way home.

Hope springs on skinny legs

While realism sees the space between

now and maybe, keeps my feet

On earth, eyes front

Time for another strange journey into the mind of me,
twists and convolutions to be expected.
My urge to protect the sensitive ears and minds
of my readers comes as much from my own self-judgments
as it does a shyness that sources from childhood in the woods,
nothing much to do and nobody much to do it with.
Encounters with strangers (relatives were ubiquitous,
too familiar to be real) were rare and intense with significance
and those times I engaged, enragingly dense
with a maddening mixture of implied meanings.

Dark shadows tugged at words that emerged from
the mouths of aliens called ‘Others’, who
each were linked by invisible cords to other Others,
felt but unseen. When these folk spoke,
I heard faint ringing echoes, strove diligently
to decipher their meaning and ultimately found
that in nearly all cases I guessed wrong.
I reacted with humiliated outrage,
swore off unnecessary interaction
and withdrew into my dark corner called ‘shy’
but was more properly ‘sullen’.

A certain simmering bitchiness lingers in me still,
if I would but admit it.

I saw a rainbow today
Went out of my way and behold!
Unexpected, brief and beautiful
It lit the sky, white birds flying
In its colours.

I wasn’t seeking beauty,
Merely something different from
What has become routine
I walked in a new direction
Lay my foot upon the path
less traveled

Was rewarded by
Bright beauty that seemed
Meant just for me
The only witness
As far as I could see.

Life is subjective
I cannot credit arguments
In favour of random chance,
Meaninglessness has no meaning
In my universe

It was going to be so good
I thought, only to be blindsided
By the pain of well-laid plans
Thwarted by the ferry’s
Slavish adherence to schedule

I saw it pull from the dock
At the tick of the clock,
And what a shock it is
Not to be doing the thing
I had so looked forward to

I’d anticipated, feared and prepared
For each eventuality save
The one which came to pass
“Let that be a wee lesson, lass,”

sez the voice, “For time matters
And when you don’t factor it in
To the equation, it passes
Faster than you might think.”

Next time, you may be sure,
I shall give Lord Time his due

This fresh sweaty feeling
Post-dance and pre-sleep
Is worth all the tales I tell myself
To see myself clearly I need
The mirroring of others, eyes clean
And ready for the moment
Within this skin, I am contained
I watch while immersed
In selfness, seeing patterns form and
Re-form, mesh and separate
My personal space merges with
This one, and that, all
Sisters and brothers
From other mothers
Not so unlike, our stories
not so distinct
It becomes difficult to tell
The difference between
when we dance to
the same music,
follow the same wave

It was a round room
Filled with five people, small
We turned animal, in a good way
Yowling, howling, with angels
Singing in the space between
When it came to me in the center,
I entered without expectation
Taken by surprise by the size
Of movement that emerged
The surging urges were
Held in the container, candlelit
I stopped, thinking to
Occupy less space and time
But the group urged me
And I found I was not finished
Dove back into the deep
To find my changes
And surfaced, a new self
to carry into this new year