Been a while since we had a poem. I found this one in a written journal (yes, I still write on paper, it’s my favourite in some ways) from a year or so ago:

Free Will

Breathe your breath, reprieve your death
and choose your pathway through
the evidence of obstacle,
it’s time to find what’s true
You think you can, you know you can,
and then reality
it’s all about the way it seems
that’s not the truth you see

Perception calls the truth to live,
but filters out the same

to know what’s real, and still to feel
is such a painful game

Play your cards although it’s hard,
you’ll know it when it’s real

you’ll know it by the way it seems
and by the way it feels

Please listen to the tiny voice,
it will not comfort you

it tells the truth, it offers choice,
but won’t say what to do

the moment comes, you hear the drums,
they shape reality

but there’s no drummer, no disguise,
and no identity

“Congratulations, Ms. Wolf-Ray, it’s a brand-new baby song!”

I’ve finally decided that I need to stop taking the song lyrics I write so dang personally. It makes me invalidate and dismiss my material with ‘who do I think I am?’ type thoughts when they come through in this kind of a grandiose, messianic form.

It’s a mystery to me where the idea came from, but it came, and I wrote it, so there it is. I’m not in charge of how my kids turned out, either, but I worked damn hard to bring them forth.

Our Kingdom Come

you don’t have to lecture me
I know what I’m doing
There’s no need to rush me
I’ll get there one day

This ain’t no fairy tale,
and there ain’t no happy ending
no point pretending, everything to see
live for truth, and truth will set you free

I’m a late bloomer, I’m a baby boomer
yeah I heard a rumour we don’t have to die
it’s a hungry season, all for a reason
I don’t need to know, so I ain’t asking why

I’m asking how, I’m asking where,
I’m casting bones, I’m climbing stairs
I’ve been lying low, until the time has come,
it’s in the rhythm, the rhythm of the drum
you know our kingdom will not come
until we’re home

I come from the wilderness, I come from the root
I come bearing fruit, I come in peace
I’m coming home, and home is coming with me,

you don’t have to lecture me
I know what I’m doing
There’s no need to rush me
I’ll get there one day

I’ll show you how, I’ll tell you where,
I’ll be casting bones, I’ll be climbing stairs
I’ll be lying low until my day is due,
it’s in the flavour, the flavour of the stew
and our kingdom will not come
till we come home
oh our kingdom cannot come
until we’re home

I’m a late bloomer, I’m a baby boomer
I heard a rumour we don’t have to die

The Scorpio Moon gave me gifts of poetry and song. These are the lyrics; I’ll be playing it at the Pier next week… – ph

Lyrics updated May 23 (they do evolve!)

Everything That Is

Chorus: everything that is, is real
everything that’s real can feel
everything that is, is right
everything lives in the light

and only when we’re dead do we stop caring
only hearts of stone refuse to share their
abundance with the hungry, we are a single species
everyone belongs equally
chorus:
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Here’s a poem for this depth charge Moon, a time when everything we hide from tries to show its face… here’s my personal nemesis, perhaps you recognize it too:

Shyness

Shyness is no joke, it sneaks in and pins you
to the board like a butterfly on exhibit,
inhibits your moves and shrinks your will
stills the flame until you forget your name

Shyness is a virus, passed from observer to observed,
swerves through witness into victim
of merciless perceptions, we watch ourselves,
shelved, packaged and presented for serving

to dragons, the demons of everyone’s denials,
can’t-be’s and has-beens, all waiting for the bucks
to stop here, while we bury ourselves deeper in shed
skin cells, digging a mass grave, save us from ourselves!

Shyness is a virtue, like patience, like chastity,
it serves the agenda of some outside authority
self-designated and never elected, simply present
and accounted for, counting all my costs.

In lieu of rent due, I shall offer my seeds to the
mouths everybody forgot to feed. All those
needy babies are coming home, and they’d
better be fed the love they deserve this time

From the time before time when the big bang
expelled its stuff to fill some kind of void,
we have ever avoided responsibility for this
work, we shirk and shudder and seek to sunder

our bonds, fond though we are of each other,
we can not bear gravity, freedom at all costs,
freedom unto eternity itself, we cry, free me from
This love, this shove into safety from the pit
I moaned and complained to escape!

Free me from my place in the puzzle, my
verse in the song, free me from the tale
I am told in, by a voice not my own, a voice
that blows like the wind and sprinkles

beauty in my mind, free me to find the true self
I am, and become it, simply, simply
I am freed into my place in the puzzle, my verse
In the song, I am freed into the tale I am told in,

By a voice not my own, that blows like the wind
And spreads beauty in my mind, I am free now to find
The true self I am and I become it, simply
and if only, if only

Shyness is no joke, it sneaks in and pins me
to the board like a butterfly on exhibit,
inhibits my every move and shrinks my will
stills the flame until I forget my name

Mercury, that tricksy little messenger of the mind, has gone retrograde again. It’s not necessarily a cause for alarm, though there are things to be careful of during these stretches. Double check your communications, edit thoroughly. Not necessarily a good time to bring forward sensitive topics for discussion with others, not necessarily a bad time either, if you are very careful and as open hearted as possible.

Trust matters when Mercury is retrograde. This is a time we have to have faith in each others’ good intentions, because it is so very easy to misconstrue. When Mercury is retrograde, our mental functioning effectively turns inside out, so that the words we say and hear actually travel along different pathways in their swift journey toward our grasp than they normally do. Meanings can be missed that way.

A good way to learn to adapt to Mercury retrograde by using this time to be with yourself, take stock, turn your attention inward, where it naturally wants to go now anyway. Re-read old journals, old poetry, remember the ones who have gone before.
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Long live crazy poetry! It’s been a while since I wrote one, yay for me! – ph

witch came first

My eggs have all hatched and now the chickens
Are coming home to roost, let others take care of their world,
safety the only concern, best be behind locked doors,
shutter the blinds and blind the minds

Pay no attention to the one behind the curtain who
Seems so familiar. I see a mirror, no enemy,
I got no closed doors, it was a tough job but somebody had to do it,
I am the Queen of my life, director of my play, here and now
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I don’t have a fleshed out melody for this one yet, but I like the lyrics… I discovered this one in a journal entry from a few months ago.

It’s amazing how often that happens! I write things then forget about them until I read back, sometimes years later.

Here and Now

I am in my rightful home, I am queen of my domain
Sovereignty’s my birthright, my true throne is sight unseen
I am witness to the sacred, I am actor in my play,
the same one I am writing on this single blessed day
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This poem is a writing exercise for my online writer’s group. The exercise this month is to use a word and answer a question (each writer contributes a word and a question, which are randomly drawn and reassigned). My word for this one was ‘kickstart’; the question was, ‘How much is that going to cost us?’
- phee

Kickstart This Poem

Somebody kickstart me please

And where did I put my keys
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It’s a new year, astrologically speaking. Yesterday was the Vernal Equinox, also known as the first day of spring, also known as the day the Sun moves into the first sign of the zodiac (Aries).

Time to start new things, discard old ones. For every new thing, an old thing has to go away to make room for it. No, that’s not an argument for mandatory retirement, or for older folk to ‘know their place’ (quite the contrary). We’re all the gods of our own creations, and we’re not here to make way for others, but to maximize the potential of our own selves. There is room for everybody, even if we have to make room for ourselves by inventing new spaces into which to unfold.
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Ah, how soon I do abandon my commitments! Not abandoned quite; it’s just that I’m not sure how to go about this project. The photos exist, piling up on my flickr page, but the poem thing, hm. I’ll do a few more now, but at some point I’m going to have to figure out how to approach this properly.

I see you
I know what you
are thinking
My eyes flash white
at your secrets
I am at the window
of your dreams
nothing hides from me
wild things grow
in your cracks,
where I live
do you remember?
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