Diminishing Returns

Will this be my path without you?

I have whittled down my life

Into ever smaller pieces ~

I have carved away the bits

That are easily spared and still ~

I find unnecessary parts to rid

Myself of ~ things that I will never

Miss ~ and then there’s you ~

I don’t know what to do with you ~

Do you end up in the discard pile

Where things that disappoint me go ~

Or will I make excuses for you

As I have always done before ~

Give you one more chance to be

The man we both need you to be ~

Perhaps it’s just that you have

Come to the end of my rope ~

And perhaps you won’t be able

To hold on ~ I hope you can ~

Save us ~ make me feel your love

Make my love for you live again ~

When A Flame Dies

 

I am become invisible
As I walk among the crowds ~
They do not see me ~

Tell me, if no one sees me
Do I exist ~ am I really here ~
If I fell in the forest
Or on a city street ~
Would anyone see or hear
Or even know ~
I am lost ~ I am a face
In a crowd that knows me not
At all ~ and when my light
Has flickered and died away ~
Will this world be one iota darker ~

These thoughts plague me
Late at night ~ when I am weary
And my strength is
At its lowest ebb ~

Then I rouse myself ~
Blow on the cooling ember
Of my fondest dream ~
And make myself
Believe in me again ~

Spring Forecast – Sunny And Warm With Lots Of Occupy

Occupy Movement On The Brooklyn Bridge

I wrote and lost track of this story during the holidays, but its message is still relevant. In honor of the Occupy Movement, which will enjoy a resurgence in the Spring of 2012, I share it with you now. I hope you enjoy the brilliant YouTube video created during the OWS Bridge March in New York last Fall.

Last November I was having a conversation with a friend, who was complaining loudly about the Occupy Portland protestors’ having made him late that day. He said he thought what they were doing was a totally ineffectual way to accomplish their goals, so I got him to watch MSNBC with me. We saw “The Ed Show”, “The Rachel Maddow Show” and “The Last Word” with Lawrence O’Donnell.

We listened to the commentators and their guests while we watched the scene unfold in New York, interspersed with film from other cities around the country where protests continued today with more fervor than before. We saw a series of peaceful demonstrations by very large numbers of people. The crowd in NY was estimated to be close to 30,000. The protestors were determined to keep things peaceful, though there was some verbal heat. The violence and aggression came from the heavily-garbed and helmeted police, who looked like storm-troopers from a “Star Wars” movie. It was police who were pushing and shoving and macing the faces of helpless protestors. Check out the video of the march: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_L_7Htvsw-g

What the strong-arm mentality doesn’t get is that every time one of those scenes is replayed, every time the police attempt to break up the demonstrations using force, to intimidate people who are trying to make their voices and their very legitimate concerns heard, even more people are angered, and more sympathizers with OWS are created. The police drove the protesters out of Zucotti Park, and they came back many thousand times’ stronger!

There is the film of the young man with the blood-drenched face in NYC, the picture of the 84-year-old lady in Seattle, viciously maced and in danger of being trampled, who was rescued by the handsome young returning vet. She said that later, as she rode her usual bus home, the other riders asked what had happened to her and she shared her story. They were all angry at the treatment she received. Perhaps when the next march sets out some of them will join the ranks.

Politicians and conservative talk show hosts have tried to characterize protestors as mobs, but when you see Labor Union officials, a NYC Council member and other neighborhood and religious leaders committing civil disobedience and being marched off in handcuffs, it’s hard to maintain that lie. Sometimes I’m so proud of my fellow humans I want to hug them all.

Just before I switched off the news that night, there was a story about a group of 200 Patriotic Millionaires who got together and told Grover Norquist that they wanted to pay more in taxes. They spoke of feeling fortunate and wanting to pay something closer to their fair share so that no new burdens would be heaped on the backs of the poor and the middle class. Surely this is a hopeful sign that the Occupy Movement is having a positive impact on our world!

A Piece of Heaven

The Music Says It All. (Daehyun Park via Flickr)

I am longing for beauty and warmth ~

For color and sunlight on this dreary

White-skied day nine weeks from Spring ~

After the glory of multi-hued holiday

Decorations ~ this season of the year seems

Like a penance or a punishment ~

With no time off for good behavior ~

I have already braved the icy winds

Once ~ fighting to keep my umbrella

Turned right-side-out and my hat on ~

And now I watch with jaundiced eye

As icy rain smears itself across the panes ~

Ravel’s “Bolero” pours from the speakers ~

Impassioned notes that labor to dispel

The chill of this winter-dark afternoon ~

I sit up taller and unconsciously my body

Turns and yearns toward the source of

All that liquid beauty, those singing

Strings, the spear-like bursts of sound ~

From the bright gleaming brass, with

The underbeat of the drums throbbing

And urging me toward an end I do not

Comprehend but am quite unable to resist ~

And while the chords rush toward the final

Crescendo, my soul is ravished and on fire ~

In a consummation of beauty and music

And the words that cannot describe it

This side of heaven ~

Moments

Crescent Moon

The surface of the

Water dances ~

As the wind

Passes by ~

The sky is a

Brilliant blue ~

With tiny wisps

Of cloud ~

Palm trees rustle

In the slight

Cool breeze ~

A bright white

Contrail ~

More than the jet

That precedes it ~

Draws my eye

Upward ~

And in its wake

To my surprise ~

The merest hint

Of an infant

Crescent moon

Appears ~

How lovely ~

I sit in my chair

And gaze up to

The heavens ~

So still I feel, as

I contemplate

My part in this

Cosmic journey

Undertaken by

Us all ~

Filled with a peace

I have never

Felt before ~

At one with

The Universe ~

As I have never

Been before ~

But the moment

Passes and I am

Myself once more ~

Waiting for the

Next moment

Out of time ~

Charlotte (Snooki) Brontë Scandal Ends in Court

Charlotte (Snooki) Brontë

Wednesday, December 16, 1840. Here are the latest developments in the adventures of Snooki Bronte as she charts her willful course through the salons and ballrooms of polite society, head held high. The ladies put their heads together behind their fans, to whisper of rumors and sightings, while the gentlemen greet her with compliments, toasts and languishing glances.

This Reporter was in court to witness Miss Brontë’s appearance before the normally austere Judge Clarence Anthony Roberts, whose collar wilted as visibly as did his usually stern visage, as Snooki worked her feminine wiles upon him. Clad in a sober dark blue gown which nonetheless managed to cling to her form just a tad too faithfully, the Defendant appeared young, demure and fragile. Her abundant brown hair, caught up in a becoming style with wispy curls escaping, caught, too, the light and the avid eyes of the spectators gathered to watch the drama unfold. The crowd was warned by the Judge that excessive emotion would not be allowed!

Snooki, as she prefers to be addressed by friends, presented a picture of repentance as the numerous charges were read out. She expressed herself to be desirous of making reparation and of leading, in future, a life of sobriety and good works. She accepted Judge Roberts’s sentence to ‘acts of charity on behalf of the indigent’, with grace and a becoming humility, and thanked him prettily for the Court’s forbearance.

As part of the plea bargain arranged by her shrewd and obviously smitten attorney, Snooki will be accompanied on her outings for the next three months by a matron trained by the Bow Street Runners and currently in the employ of the Metropolitan Police. If this stipulation frets the suspiciously quiet Snooki, it does not show. One could almost be forgiven for thinking that some outrageous scheme lurks behind those limpid eyes, that enigmatic smile. I doubt she will leave us in suspense for long, and this Reporter will be the first to bring you word!

Following is a link to this Reporter’s earlier story: 

http://pacificmelody.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/charlotte-snooki-bronte-ditches-rehab-again/

For The Children In My Life

Christmas Tree

Christmas lights drape every window

Though there’s not a hint of snow

I could hear the church bells ringing

As I hung the mistletoe

Familiar songs play everywhere

And signs count down the shopping days

Santa’s enthroned in his big red chair

At the mall while elves fill up his sleigh

Even Ebenezer Scrooge would smile

To see the happy children’s faces

The reindeer will fly for many a mile

As through the night dear Santa races

Bringing stockings, gifts and Christmas joy

To fill the hearts of each girl and boy!

Because I Must

It Blooms Because It Must

I am opening myself, body, mind and heart, for the first time in days, no weeks, edging towards months, that the words have not flowed, and I have felt so cut off and so alone, away from the fire that has warmed my frozen bones ere now. Come back, I know you’re out there. I know you’re waiting for me, and the key which seems to be mislaid, to unlock the floodgates and let it all come swarming in again. I have been bereft without the passion that warms my blood and keeps my senses alive and questing. Ah, here it comes, I can feel the movement, feel the slumberous spell sloughing off in waves as it all begins to flow again, to move within my brain and heart and nudge the words loose, make space for all the new growth, the new ideas, the new moods and needs and desires and the total unwillingness to give in, to let what is be enough, when I know it never can be ~ not for me with all the questions racing still through my brain and my life, and I know the answers are out there. It’s just a matter of connecting the two and finding the perfect ones as the light burns ever brighter and closer and I race, I race, to keep up as the tempo surges and I must catch up, there are words I must hear, carried in the wind moving ever and always away from me. I must be very quick to hear them, with all their nuances and meanings, just for me. And the music pours over me like honey, this is right, this is perfect and meant to be from the time before time was measured in the tiny increments of hours, minutes, days, this is from a time when it was all beginning and a time that will never end and I will search and search for the elusive answers as I travel down this road which owns me and my tired feet. I will send you word when I am able . . .

City of Roses

Roses for my City of Roses

My apartment perches

Atop its tier of four

Where I look out into the

Treetops that surround me.

In winter when the branches

Are bare and sere and twin

In color to the leaden sky,

They still are beautiful to see.

The longest and the coldest

Of the three autumns I have

Passed here, the rainiest and

Grayest I have yet endured,

Will in the end be only water

For my City of Roses

Patterns

Me on my way out of town. Photo by Anastasia Koros

Tonight as I gazed into

My mirrored eyes

I saw in my reflection

The shape of my skull

Beneath the flesh, and

I saw the pattern

Of my life, and

Perceived the rhythm

Underlying the flow

Of my days.

Perhaps I have gained

A newer perspective

As the years have passed by

Or perhaps I have simply

Learned to recognize

The threads of the patterns,

But whichever way the truth lies

I will follow to the very end.

Deep in the night

The church bell tolls and

Someday it will toll for me