The Forgetting

Monster

We wrestle with the monster
which we perceive as sometimes you
sometimes me
why we do, say the things 
that come out wrong in a war against each other
when it is the Monster who fucks with our heads

Monster robs you of your cognizance 
makes rationality impossible
coupled with loss of short term memory
extreme frustration and irritability
over the struggle with everyday tasks
that now seem insurmountable

as you lose your patience
I invoke composure, compassion
all the while I am frightened
tense in our world that is upside down
where you who have always been supreme
now must take the backseat to me

I must make the decisions
not just what's for dinner but financial
selling the house, buying another
preparing for the questionable future
I don't feel up to the tasks while I wrestle
with the Monster

Leader

 Am Not A Leader

I am a leader in absentia
I demur but then I strike
with suggestions
ideas of how things might go
how it could be better

I never want the podium
never the limelight, I just
see a way and I suggest
often to resistance
falling on deaf ears

I am not a leader
prefer to abdicate
let those with vision
take charge while I am happy
to ride on their coattails

I prefer equality
yet leaders are necessary
someone to take charge
make decisions
for the benefit of all

I am a wise woman
perhaps I should
step into my shoes

Prayer

Prayer

Oh Lady so many to pray for

but you are life without control

the original cell

every bit of you mitosis

it is you growing into each of us

physical mutations 

psychological mutations

we are all happenstance

many weaving a Magic Carpet

that I believe we can fly away on

in prayer 

chanting heats up atoms

gets them shaking

sometimes a miracle

if we believe

I pray

I chant

Falling

Falling

I jerk awake

just before I hit bottom

my heart feels as though

it will explode out of my chest

I gasp for air

it is always dark

I am not one 

prone to falling

in love or for a gag

I protect myself

rarely physically fall

I'm great at correction

Sometimes I go down hard

just laugh and never cry

until recently I seem

to have lost all control

stumble flayed
go down in tears

From the War Zone

Little Acts of Sedition

Little acts of sedition

are my sanity

or spawned perhaps

by my insanity

Little acts go unnoticed

I flush with excitement

a way to be about danger

not the one waiting

I need the warmth 

running through my veins

from playing little games

harmless I promise

Little acts of sedition

living in a war zone

no chance of escape

no way out

Blue Martini

Support Group

Today we 

at Blue Martini

met to be

together

I startled didn't fit here

they had moved beyond

Maybe Tomorrow

Maybe Tomorrow

The reel will reverse
no ocean deep earthquake
no tsunami in Japan
no radiation threat
twenty-five thousand people alive
no families searching, no families
grieving, no families displaced

The reel will reverse 
no 9/11, two thousand seven hundred fifty one dead
no war on Afghanistan, or Iraq, 919,967 dead so far
soldiers sent to attack countries who did not attack us
innocents in both countries dying and we're not talking
about all the maimed, about lives destroyed, torn apart
and there is Egypt and Libya, and yet another war

The reel will reverse
no earthquake in Haiti, no hurricane in New Orleans
no ozone layer depletion, no financial meltdown
no Vietnam, they're still counting casualties forty years later
no Korea, no Third Reich, no genocide, no camps, no ovens
no more atrocities the reel must spin madly ahead to find
a peaceful world that respects all needs, no wars

Maybe tomorrow we will stop warring in our own government
between the haves and the have nots, and the parties who
pretend to represent each all the while they are representing
their own interests and it has nothing to do with the people
it is their own posturing, their own agendas, whoever is lining
their pockets and we are the dupes, once upon a time there
was dignity and honesty and best interests for the people

now the parties have people fighting people over the things
that will help the people, but everything is cloaked in innuendo
and no one without a law degree understands what is real as
they take up the cudgel to smash that which benefits them 
because they are too easily led to the slaughter of big business
self interests with politicians in their pockets and so nothing
happens on The Hill because morality is dead

The reel reverses all the way to the beginning of homo sapiens 
and not a thing changes, we look after our basic needs, clan together
to protect ourselves from the enemy, our brothers and sisters in the
rest of the world, create our weapons of destruction to defend or attack
just chimps chewing on ligaments, meat eaters, when we should eat
leaves, and we wale away on each other with drones and stealths
and it will only end in war or cataclysmic events we are unprepared to face