Ourselves but to sling it swift
At each other, shame
-a.r.
Shame by Osobandido
Haiku & Me
•April 17, 2014 • Leave a CommentWading Through (again)
•April 17, 2014 • 4 CommentsI will not censor part of me,
Which begs to be expressed,
Because it shatters the illusion,
And reveals the human mess.
There is no way around it,
Only the wading through,
Up to my neck in all of it,
Is all I know to do.
Perhaps I’ll sit a moment,
Just be with the stink and then,
Investigate bacteria,
‘Till I get up and move again.
I see all of you around me,
Also trying to make sense,
I can’t look away and decorate,
Or try to cover up the stench.
I do not mind the stopping still,
To have a look around,
Being with the shit that bubbles up,
Is the only way I’ve found.
To engage this life and all of it,
As it presents itself to me,
I’ll just use it as fertilizer,
Composting crap creatively.
–A.R.
Woman at Mud Volcano 2 by Natasha Prosenc
Because sometimes people wonder why I write about “certain things” that perhaps they think should stay private. My answer, because it happened, because it comes up, because it is part of life, because staying silent about any of it simply causes isolation. Isolation for myself and for others who have a similar experience. I have been silent at the wrong times, about the wrong things, for too long. Silence for me will stay “on the cushion” and that is it.
This is Where
•April 16, 2014 • 2 CommentsIn the Louisiana night
Playing on a splintered gate
Another predator by my side
A heavy paw he placed
This is where
The cricket song and heavy air
Rallied the chirp and weight
In my gut
This is where
I found my voice
Carried over the chorus
Of evening bugs
This is where
The “no” that was not heard
Years before left me loud
Enough
This is where
The little me got bigger
Echoed “not again” and found me
Tough
This is where
I looked away from ponies
And willful stared into a monster’s face
Called his bluff
This is where
I put my childhood out to pasture
Beneath a southern summer sky
Grew up
Pushing off that splintered gate
My feet firm on Cajun ground
I walked away with my own brave
Too young, “I am a fighter now.”
-A.R.
Broken Gate by Dave Sandt
Inspired by the #ThisIsWhere project mentioned on NPR. This is the place, picture, memory, that came to me and would not leave. So I wrote it down.
Divine Comedy
•April 14, 2014 • 3 CommentsWhen I first speak in the morning
Catching, croaking, from my throat
When I swallow water wrongly
Invading sting, straight out my nose
When I walk blind into a memory
A sliding door I did not see
Surprising smacks by slapstick life
Humbling delight, this comedy
–a.r.
Painting by Jonathan Case
Dear Word Lover (corrected)
•April 12, 2014 • 3 CommentsIt is I who must
Apologize
For my tardy
Non-replies
I never know
Quite what to say
Or how to take
Sometimes no words
That I can make
I might not follow
As you lead
Except on pages
Where we read
In truth it may stay
In my head
A foolish fiction
Falling dead
So dumb and blind
Like poets, I
Create connections
‘Cross the sky
Where many waves
Of sound and light
From dreamers weave
Both left and right
No way to tell
Beginning, end
Or lie from truth
Or fierce from friend
Perhaps it’s all
Or both
Or none
In instant same
And still no one
So what to make
Create from this
I do not know
I will not wish
Except I give
A writing hand
That alone
Is all I can
And when all falls
Is what must stand
–a.r.
Young Woman Writing by Pierre Bonnard
Originally a series of micropoems, a conversation with myself, the reader, the writer. Perhaps I will post to Twitter as such.
Re-posted because in the last instant before publishing, the form suddenly seemed to rearrange itself in an intolerable way.
Nature Nurture
•April 11, 2014 • 4 CommentsNature is not noble
It is raucous wrenching life
And calls me to my core
Not for its peace but feral drive
Nature is not noble
It is a raucous wrenching drive
And calls out from my core
Panting pulsing wild alive
–a.r.
Nature vs Nurture I by Daniel Marck
Suspended Self
•April 10, 2014 • 2 CommentsHere appears a pause
About me
Positioning itself
With closing in proximity
Circling enough to slow
My shuffling ambition
This disruption demanding
Attention to be grasped
Grabbed, held still
Against my itchy flesh
To spite my restless chest
I am afraid
I have no choice
But to let this recess pass
And embrace it as it will
Provide some respite, perhaps
Or, it just might lull me peaceful
To the gallows
-A.R.
Painting by John Waguespack
Poetic Self
•April 10, 2014 • 2 CommentsOne fleeting point of poetry
Is feigning immortality
We pour it out by pen, pretend
Perpetual existence then
-a.r.
The Dream of the Poet by Paul Cezanne
Superstition
•April 8, 2014 • 2 CommentsA broken mirror has no meaning
But what imagination makes
Simply reflects a scattered image
Of an ever changing space
— a.r.
Hotel Intercontinental Panel 2
Fear
•April 1, 2014 • 1 CommentBecause I am flying to Italy today, and I can do nothing but feel the fear that rises and descends, and get on the airplane anyway.
It is real
Anxieties gather in my gut
I feel them churning
I hear their chatter
Making plans out of my fears
They worm their way in all directions
Northbound
They burrow in my brain
Whisper failure in my ears
They drip warmly from my nose and eyes
Then prickle, bead, and bubble from my pits
Some of them bolt and make a beeline
Straight up my esophagus
With an unexpected urgency
The rest of them hunker down and turn
Southbound
With parasitic precision
They compel me
To run towards relief
But I stay seated and feel the battle
Rage inside my body and mind
Soon with surprise I find
Reinforcements shoring up my spine
My wormy nerves are calmed
And I am brave again
Until next time
— April Resnick
Raw Nerve 2, by Julie Lawless
So apparently “new stuff” happens, just like fear, to spite my best laid plans.
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