Monthly Archives: August 2015

A Purposeful Work

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Ho!  You who are broken
in your maddening, modern conformity,
squeezing into the oh too tight tenny shoes
that pinch your toes and chirp at your soul!18302092788_3558d38c2e_oListen…take off your shoes and wander.
Aimlessly. Abandon agenda!
Give up your goals (just for a moment)
wander with no purpose on purpose.andrc3a9-de-dienes-nu-1949-via-liveauctioneersAfter all, there is so much to do
that you cannot afford to not wander
away from the overflow days
and the many demands on your time and attention!
Toss out your check list and check yourself instead
and spend time pursuing
the unplanned quick moment

right now…in some eating, and drinking,
and wandering…tumblr_ns1w85ECR51qas1mto3_1280…from paths and from business
and rest, and withdraw
and pray with your passage
from boardroom to garden.

See the fat flowers
frolicking violet
hear the bees rockin
in time to the wind
listen for stories
and look at the birds
and see the white lilies
give life and give strength
and thus rescue your being
delivered from doing!tumblr_nsccig7Euk1sooy9go1_1280Stop to notice
let your thoughts
prayers rise and fall
with your breath
and your step.

Wandering is
purposeful work
without purpose
done on purpose.
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My Bucket List

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The other day?

I heard some men yammerin and scratchin
an sniffin each other with words and noises
and hey hey ho ho how bout them Cowboys hearts!simp2They were talking about bucket lists.

They didn’t know I was there (I was in a dress so I was invisible).

Well…a bucket list.  I didn’t have one.
So I wondered, I wandered, and I decided to make one!
Yaay me!  See?  I can keep up with the boys!tumblr_n1h7bjMfIv1rcw6xko1_500So check this out!

Mrs. Reety-Doe has a great bucket!
It’s new, shiny, and oh wow does it sing
when her high pressure test water
shoots from that shiny raygun nozzle
and splashes its cymbalic sides and bass bottom
and then when the pressure of the water spilling in
gets so great it sings higher and higher and higher
and sounds decidedly like it hasta go poddy!!solbwqjke2bk8lq3civiMiss Fuzzy Gyrtle, now her bucket is wood
with metal bands and soldier staves all regular
but gentle curved and carved just so,
cradling the water gurgly and gentle inside
as its contralto hums and hugs the wet contents.tumblr_n4bm5qdPvL1spq83no1_1280Ms Tidy-Hand, tho…wtf is up with that bucket!??
It’s really nuffin more than an oversize porcelain diaper pail!
Remember that sorta crazed ivory shiny dull white sheen
with the thin blue Germanic stripe around the bottom
that just comforts with its defining authority?
Thick, heavy, awkward…but so solid that dirt
just sorta gives up and leaves and when it drinks
from the hose it sounds like lederhosen in alpine
and beer steins clinking contrapuntal
to clakking autumn clogs.Image 002But my favorite was old Granny Walker’s
worn out rusty bucket filled with holes
and memories and flowers planted in each.
Half-buried and cock-eyed and full
of Black-Eyed Susans and Pansies rioting
and ready to blow that chicken coop and run
for Tidy-Hand’s oh so ordered beds
and dig their toes into her perfect compost
like tourist ladies toes in Jamaica Brown Sugar sand
and stretch out ta rest…

Oh Granny…you know sumfin the rest of us
have forgotten we ever knew, don’t you?tumblr_n22860yx8C1s2z59jo1_1280

So yeah…I have my bucket list now, so I got that going for me!

But I think
I will just keep on hiding in my hobbit wonder
beneath the magic cloak of unnoticed and smile to myself

thinking about
those neighborhood buckets
and the containers they use
in their gardens.

Zizzzi Gloucester

Zizzzi Gloucester

Confronting Your Own Privilege

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“Is ‘heterosexual’ a slur? No. It describes an identity and experience. Because straight folks don’t typically experience their heterosexuality as an identity, many don’t identify as heterosexual — they don’t need to, because culture has already done that for them. Similarly, cisgender people don’t generally identify as cisgender because societal expectations already presume that they are. […]It’s an incredible and invisible power to not need to name yourself because the norms have already done that for you. You don’t need to come out as heterosexual or cisgender because it is already expected. Since it isn’t a derogatory term, those who take exception to it may be uncomfortable with trans issues, or perhaps they are unwilling to confront their own privilege.”
— K.J. Rawson, interview via the Advocate

One of the greatest acts of advocacy you can partake of…confronting your own privilege.
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My Other Hand

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My one hand?
It’s what you see here
on the page making funny marks
that become funny meanings
in your musing mind.Image 003But my other hand, well!
It reaches outside in the smoke on the wind.
It gropes in the night for a dear not-here friend.

it touches heaven
it waves at eagles
it feels the raindrops
and cries with seagulls
while the waves tumble in
and in…it is washed in them too

my other hand,
well it awakens you
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Check Out My Hair

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I lead face forward, my hair trails behind me,
smelling of all of the longings and seas
that evaporate in the hot sun of the rest
who think playing in shallows is safest and best.

My face is my sunscreen protecting my heart
in the winds and the rays of a place where it seems
that people don’t care and are not really there
and call daily connection dumb fairy-tale dreams.

It lets me go out and look normal and fine,
it lets me get by in a style called “all mine”
and it holds my eyes steady, they’re seeing and seen,
but my hair’s smell hides my secret “what I really mean”.

My hair holds my longing, it carries my ache,
my hair holds my grief over those who just take
and it doubts those who promise that they’re truly there
when it reaches to touch their face, but just gets air.

It’s perfumed with desire, and fear, and some hope.
It is curly and flies around, feels like a dope
because it tries to cross chasms on that taut tightrope
of belief in belief or some other dumb trope…

but that feeling of authentic being…that strength
of choosing a style that is me come what may,
when my hair is undone and is free in the wind
but still anchored to me, well my hair is my friend!

I am anchored to it! I think my hair is me!
It’s my soul’s silver banner unfurled by this sea
of humanity streaming and nose to the ground,
my hair pops in the wind and brings heaven around!

So be circumspect when I walk by you today.
If you wanna know anything about the way
I think or I feel…or I purpose to be?
Jus check out my hair…if you wanna know me.
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And in Honor of Amelia Earhart’s Birthday Last Week

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I simply haffa reblog this. I won’t blather about how incredible it is…that much is obvious even to turtles who haven’t peaked out of their shells in a month!!

writerspilecki's avatarbuildingapoem

 amelia

So I wrote this admittedly brilliant little poem in a white heat on the train in to my summer job many years ago. It is one of the few poems that I only sent out once before it got published. Sometimes the magic just happens. I originally wrote it as a prose poem and that is how it was originally published. In the coming book it will appear as free verse. I like it better this way. There is more nuance with real line breaks. It is rare that I get chills reading something I wrote, but this one is special.

.

Flying Lessons with Amelia

.

I met her the day of her first crash.

The stars in my eyes reflected the flash

of the cameras, the sun kissing her

silver pocket compact. The photos,

shades of grey, didn’t do her justice.

Storm clouds only capture spring

by…

View original post 895 more words

Singing To The Bones

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Speak to me gently…

I am listening with my bones,
instruments of hearing
my companions…

I listen by the fire.

Speak into my soul with touch and glance
while I walk to and fro and spread a feast
that’s fit for angels to consume and dance
under stars and with the silky moon.tumblr_nrwiwkeKcl1rcf4reo1_1280Bone-music vibrates
from my bone-core deep,
emanates from my sternum,
surrounds me in its sticky grasp
and to its gentle bosom I am clasped…
in drum, in harp, in whistle call and
in that dance on puffy clouds in fall.tumblr_nqgtlmEydT1u051b5o1_500Hear its cry in my heart’s every pulse
and I must answer or I will remain
bereft and longing, agitated, always

and seeking in snows aslant and serious
and in ocean floors murky mysterious
and in that desert deep and in the forest strong
and beneath the breath of emerald wind’s ever-song
tumblr_nsbugs8L3B1t5g5c1o1_540Finally, I simply rest
sitting in the shifting sands
and singing over long-dead bones,
my song arising, flying here and there

and hear the song of mountains and
the thrum of reefs against the waves
insistent, fresh and ancient
in the days, these days

that I am

Singing to the bonestumblr_nnz1apfjc11sqc6b1o1_1280

 

My Coffee Speaks To Trees

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it was a whisper soft, it was a song
at my neck’s nape i felt it trill along,
the answering conversation swirling by
my cheek in double time, so fleet, so spry,

and dancing round the rim of my red mug
and steaming coffee, rich and fragrant there
and laughing with the sounds come in the air.
i realized my coffee speaks to trees!

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it listens to the message in their leaves
and steams its answer back in song, relieves
the longing of the root, the trunk, the bees
just bumbling sleepily along with ease.

what did they say, i wondered, so i sipped
and into that community i slipped
and heard the leaves, the gossip of their tongues
and saw the wonder of those fronds so young

just wondering what were they meant to wear
when autumn came, what would the color be
that each would take upon their limber self?
what dress?  what blouse would scamper from Her shelf?

beautiful raiment, heaven sent and free
for each leaf to receive, to wear…and me?
I sat…and sipped…and marveled in the day
that I discovered this small secret way

of beans, hot water, roots and branch and bees
and leafy giggly gossipping ballet…
a secret language, dance, a brilliant play
and I now know my coffee speaks to trees.tumblr_nrklaeno7F1roirddo1_1280

 

Miracles of Modern Medicine

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This used to be me…it isn’t anymore.

HRT works.  My brain is soo much happier.

Constance, it is something so simple, and yet so profound.

I am glad I made it, and I am thankful to those who valued and recognized the essential me regardless of container/package.

And those of you who didn’t…wow.  I don’t know whether I should pity you more, or those in your life who are similarly falsely assessed.  That must really suck.

I am free…and oh God the flying!

 

The Twenty-Five Hour Yesterday

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**(See the note at the bottom of poem please)

I deferred entropy yesterday,
with jaundiced yellow summer thoughts
that lingered in mid-air above
my head…then rose on winds…

Seraphim speaking at heavens brass
and brazen, silent skies yet become
broken by my desperate thoughts
and yet to become wild throat-shatt’ring cries!tumblr_ns8f87gHlH1qllucco4_1280I was silent with them until they
were just not silent with me!  Nay!
They called out to Isaiah, Ancient
Mariner sailing seas of grief
and beauty in the winds of time
and loss…

“O that You would tear open the heavens
and come down, that the mountains
would quake at Your presence!”

And then time halted, entropy
deferred to my voice ignited in
screams for the speechless
in songs for the weary
in shrieks for the despairing

How FUCKING Long oh LORD!
WHEN Will You SHATTER Brass?
Tear OPEN Silent Faded Blue Skies
and COME DOWN AGAIN and
LAY WASTE TO INJUSTICE
and harsh LACK OF MERCY!!tumblr_nj8axqwRES1rx3qvso1_500

slavery still happening
right here in River City

sex-trafficking thriving
looking up in Kansas City

poverty and addiction
meet me in St Louis

racism and genocide
above the fruited plains

all ignored while we obsess
over Facebook Fights and Twitter twatfests,
both garbage and cheap gossip dished,
in equal measure slung and sung
to show tunes and to shanties and
to soft-shoe shuffles
on Broadway!

How long, O Lord!
When will our
Purple Mountains
quake in Your Majesty?

And yet how shall I voice my cry
so bloody and alone? With deeds
just like some pile o crap, some smelly
filthy rag? With prideful blood-hoard
boasting buried in a pirate’s chest
so goddam deep?tumblr_nmykoqcspH1qz9bu3o1_1280And my heart faded like a leaf
and blew away like dried up failure
in the scheming eyeless winds…

And my vain colors oh so bright
and oh so pretty, my heart faded
in the face of all

the unjust things we do,
the things we are,
our inconsistencies and
our postmodern so ironic
ways so petty and deliberate,
so destructive and so cruel!tumblr_n0caivXHen1to3s33o1_1280We stand before God today
even though entropy deferred yesterday
we stand before God as Their Potter’s clay

the urgency of the present moment,
shaped not by nostalgia for what once was,
but remembrance for who God was,
and is, and ever will be.

that fierce urgency of the now
within a world in need
not of more pointing fingers
and dividing speeches, but of
people willing to rise up
and work as if we now already
are God’s people willing
and surrendered.

 I deferred entropy yesterday

It was the least I could do.
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**Note to the reader:  italicized words are meant to be heard in your mind to the show-tune they are from…
Google is an ally if you don’t know your show tunes, as is You-Tube.
If this were read aloud, the reader would sing those phrases,
voice dripping sarcasm and anger.

Oh…and if you don’t like it?

Defer Entropy

The One Who Knows

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When we touch
The One Who Knows
we touch our own
pearlescent core
transparent and so brilliant.tumblr_ns0lfqW1Bd1t224ibo1_500We find That One Deep
in Elysian Fields of frolic,
upon the face of mountains,
and in the deep bone deserts,
we find The One Who Knows
in our fires of becoming.tumblr_ns7kdpZXJF1sicac5o4_1280It is the Valley of Dry Bones,
the charnal parched and bony strand
with bone-dust laying down for sand
that walking comes The One Who Knows
and singing re-creation songs
and the truths we tell make harmonies
to reach the very stars.11703225_10153476958486972_1918529818571726955_oThe One Who Knows is in the eyes
of dying children, hateful men
and weary women burdened, stripped
of womb and wonder, chained and whipped…

The One Who Knows is lurking deep
inside the secrets that we keep
and clings to every prideful steep
to conquer every peak and peek.MamaIn our insistent blood They Speak,
in our starved souls, in raven’s beak,
in padded paws and jungle roar
The One Who Knows waits on Their Shore

calling
singing
crying
sighing
knowing

showing the dead how to live backwards
into forever and before the day.Image 001

My Sisters N Me

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We stand at the shore in confidence.

Our feet rest on sands
but we walk on the waves
while everyone else thinks
that we are still slaves
of the old ways and means
of the city of dirt.

They have looked in my eyes
and seen me hopeful there,
and they called me out
singing that I walk on air
with them, light and free
even while being immovable
We are the fruitful vines
planted for new wine.

They hear my voice
and they touch my quick heart
and they lend me their beauty
and they stand apart from the
dull and the lumbering fools full of words
that just club and just crush…
they are for me and with me
and full of Kind Art.

We stand on shores, we wait for it,
the coming of justice and mercy
the liberty song

My sisters and me…

My sisters and me