All sleepers seem helpless, snuggled up or spread out limp snoring a little breathing slowly completely at ease maybe some twitches when they dream, but they are not helpless. They are whole. They are sturdy.
They are filled with joy.
Tag Archives: beauty
Sleepers
Filed under dreams, eternal, faith, forgiveness, hope, kindness, love, mortality, prose poetry, soul, spirit, transcendence, transitions
My Mother, My Mother
My Mother, My Mother
My mother, my mother, my mother.
Where to start?
She remembered the scandal about broadcasting Elvis‘s pelvis on national television. “Elvis the pelvis,” she’d laugh.
She wasn’t a huge Elvis fan. She liked Johnny Mathis, Ella Fitzgerald, Barbra Streisand, Maria Callas, Broadway show tunes, opera, folk, not so much rock ‘n’ roll.
My mother, she was soft. She was a soft girl, melting on the beach, into the waves, like the sea foam in her poem. Rolling on the beach with a magical someone, merging with the waves, and like seafoam, being swept away, swept away.
My mother wanted to be swept away from her feelings, from her deep, deep insecurity and shame, so much shame, my mother carried so much shame
First for leaving her mother behind at 14, and second for coming back divorced at 21, with a toddler and an ex-husband who was capable of paying exactly zero child support. The shame.
From the infinite promise to the dust of shame, my poor mother.
So sad all the time, she just wanted to blot it out.
Once in a while she’d be happy, once in a while.
That was the rare exception, for my mother to smile genuinely, and to laugh genuinely, and her eyes would clear, and they would look at mine and I could see her in there, not just a wall of shame and fear and alcohol.
A gypsy told me once that my mother was my soulmate, and that my heart broke the day I was born, because she was mine, but I wasn’t hers. That’s what the gypsy said, of course, then she wanted $10,000 to tell me more, which I did not pay, by the way
My mother, where to start?
Like one of the white flowers that smells like heaven, but you cannot touch because you will bruise it, my mother.
Even 40 years after losing her, 40 years later, the rusty sharp knife of it can still get you, right at the belly button. Right there. A kick in the solar plexus, 40 years later, it can still happen. It surprises you.
That’s how broken I was by losing her, broken by the whole thing, the whole sad episode, never on the track of my life again, always having to stay between the lines, for dear life.
Like that time I successfully hydroplaned in my car on the interstate, my child asleep in her carseat in the back, hydroplaned and lived to tell about it at the next rest stop, where I learned that a driver ahead of me hadn’t managed to hydroplane successfully, and their car skied up and over the concrete barrier into the oncoming traffic, and they were instantly killed.
I pulled into the next rest stop, which fortunately was not far, and I could not stop shaking, and my daughter was still peacefully asleep in her car seat. I shook and I shook, and eventually I recovered and drove another 150 miles to get back to my hometown, my dear little hometown.
My mother would be proud. She loved me.
Filed under acceptance, adult children of alcoholics, birth, compassion, courage, daughter, death, divorce, family, forgiveness, grief, hope, loss, love, mother, mourning
Between The Lines
Boy, did she know how to read between the lines! And upside down, and in a mirror, and in the dark. She knew how to read in Braille, in cuneiform, in emojis. She could read between the lines, and hear the unspoken secrets of many people. Not all, thanks be to god.
Goddess. There is only one woman, she heard in her head. There is only ONE WOMAN. One universal truth. Many fractured mirror truths. Everyone was cracked, somewhere.
Filed under acceptance, beauty, compassion, dreams, enlightenment, eternal, faith, fiction, tribute, Uncategorized
Words I Can Make Out of My Name, a poem
You were not built to carry the weight of this world, said God.
And yet. It is upon you; you feel it heavier each day.
Your prayers have been shouted & whispered, in communion
& all alone. There are four thousand languages in this world,
God said. Don’t you think I can speak every one? Never
be afraid to grieve; to cry; to pound the ground; to bang a drum
on a beach somewhere; to dance before the fire of your own soul.
And don’t be afraid to make your own mark, God said.
On the wall of a cave, on some paper, on a server, in a cloud.
Do you need a map? Some create their own — mandalas
with colored sand, swept away after three days.
There are so many ways to pray, and the most important way
is kindness, said God. You, my beautiful daughter, will begin
and end with a simple breath — and you, my well-loved child,
were not built to carry this weight, the weight of the world.
Filed under anthem, beauty, buddhist, christian, courage, death, dream, forgiveness, grief, jewish, love, mysterious, personal responsibility, spiritual, transcendence, zoroastrian
Priestess
Sometimes we must learn to live with uncertainty, the priestess said. Sometimes we must endure the unendurable. She smiled at me. Come take a walk, she said. Let’s walk over there, under those trees. That pine grove over yonder. Under those quiet pines, on the hush of the needles. Let’s make a basket out of them. Let’s walk to the spongy banks of the creek & watch the salamanders wiggle across the damp. Let’s phone home, and listen to your mama’s voice. Go ahead, let us surprise ourselves by crying.
(Illustration courtesy of Mike Willcox, https://mikewillcox.bigcartel.com/product/the-high-priestess)
Filed under animals, beauty, compassion, courage, earth, faith, Uncategorized
Prayer, a prose poem
Prayer
Oh! It happened with the first naked, helpless chicken in the oven I recognized… Mommy, get it out, let it out, I cried… chickens have their own heaven, my mother lied.
At six, I dressed as Saint Teresa of Avila for Halloween… that year, I felt sinful accepting candy. More than anything, I yearned to bless their dear hands moving with generosity toward my outstretched pillowcase.
Later, I tried bright blue skin, leading my perfumed cows to drink. I wore robe of scarlet and gold, a red galero atop my head. I wore fragrant saffron in my hair, eating nothing except fruit from the ground, sweeping the earth bare before my steps… with a broom I made myself.
I danced in green meadows, wrapped ribbons around a Maypole, reached high for a golden ring. I sank into plushy new grass. Once more, the earth herself said to me, you will be all right, you will always be all right, as I lay upon her — a small, breakable doll. I lay on my mother like that (like that) (like that) (like that) for hours, eyes shut, and felt her words eternal lift off the roof of my skull and cleanse me of my fear and shame like fast-running, silvery water.
Filed under beauty, born again, compassion, dream, eternal, faith, god, hope, human beings, humanity, love, mama, mother, mothers, mysterious, peace, poetry, prose poetry, soul, spirit, spiritual, spirituality, transcendence
Jasmine
The old lady didn’t know she sat under poet’s jasmine. She didn’t know the plant was native to Iran and of course, she didn’t know another name for it was common jasmine. The coffee was nice & hot and her sprinkle cookie was nice & sweet. Did you know every time a love song made you cry, an angel got its wings?
So she sat at her table, outdoors in the cool shade, writing & editing & surprised every so often by a whiff of some heavenly perfume. She kept writing & smelling heaven, writing & smelling heaven. Someone once said that every love song was really about god.
For a while, she thought this gift was courtesy of a young woman at the table in front of her, but she left and the puffs of light sweet perfume kept right on puffing. She nibbled what was left of her glorious cookie. Your soul is a mirror, my soul is a mirror, she thought.
She saw, reflected in a pane of glass, the image of vines. She lifted her head and saw dozens of jasmine blossoms swaying high above, each tiny, white star the universe’s own perfumery. Right there in a coffee shop, on Sixth Avenue.
Ruby Bridges, Civil Rights Icon
Filed under beauty, birth, black, born again, buddhist, Catholic, christian, civil rights, compassion, courage, dream, dreams, earth, enlightenment, eternal, eternity, everything, evolution, faith, family, federal judge, flowers, Uncategorized
Notes From The Unconscious, a poem
Notes From The Unconscious
Run me languid over a rusty road,
and you behind, laughing to pursue…
Take only my smooth love chain,
kiss me softly, without injury.
I am essential and lusty…
I will drive through it for her leg diamonds,
and use him at those bare places.
To sea and gone were the sweet peach thousand.
The blood goddess is frantic…
She knows how hard loving is.
All delicate language has arms of iron, so
sing elaborate love from your tongue.
How have I dreamed sordid roses?
Rob them of a tiny pink eternity….
As bees nuzzle, so shall I dive into you,
and sniff your scent like a mama bear.
A man I used to know lives less than anyone
under wool suits. He rips up rocks
as meat, then he must finger petals.
He has no idea this is happening.
For years, I floated bitter in a black lake…
I said, please, no beating,
leave out the ugly juice,
don’t make me drink any more.
No one listened. My eyes turned
red like woman vision…
I am still weaker & falling,
after death, beauty may ache raw & blue.
He let a void crush what we incubated….
Did it in my white bed.
One milk moan from an infants’
fresh red lips, haunting me forever.
Boil away the mist with lick power.
Heave away or use an apparatus….
Near the TV, these fiddles cry for feet
to dance and obliterate pain.
Our sad summer was like a repulsive
shadow of fluff. I floated like a dandelion seed.
But winter could recall a sweet day chant
with cool water, trips to the country like lazy sun…
Did the purple smear on the wall show size?
Why can the mad beautiful boy shake?
I watch a friend produce a luscious lie.
None trudge after me, but time will swim easy…
Blow your smoky symphony,
my green cloud angel,
and put the sacred blaze against a woman,
melting her like caramel.
Dirt will come and time bring ice,
so heal your broken voice, shed the marble
surrounding you like a deep bone prison,
while I bleed champagne.
Ask your heart to squirm, remember
the ship of spring, seek air blue kisses,
pierce the morning, know the color of liquid
magic, speak in a velvet stream, and love me.
Filed under beauty, birth, blood, buddhist, compassion, courage, development, dream, dreams, eternal, evolution, forgiveness, hope, human beings, humanity, identity, karma, kindness, life, logic, loss, love, manifesto, maturity, mitochondria, mortality, mother, mothers, mysterious, nature, passion, peace, poetry, relationships, science, soul, spirit, spiritual, spirituality, transcendence, transitions, travel, tribute, truth, universe, warmth, wish, world, youth
TRUMP is an informative guide on Donald Trump presented in a comics format by Ted Rall, published by Seven Stories Press. It is not a satire, nor is it a bombastic attack on Mr. Trump. In fact, if you were only to read a brief passage here or there, you might even warm up a […]
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Kimberly Townsend Palmer 