Category: aging

Educational Lapse

Confess, I am a proponent
of life as education, and would love
to expand on the lesson at hand,
but haven’t made the morning class yet
as consciousness and I have no early rising
agreement, and higher learning
involves climbing, and
staircases are out
at the moment

so even if the term
is in progress, I lack essential
energy to aspire to enlightenment
and I appreciate that you have prayed
for me, and Mary and her Son
may have inspired motivation,
but without working memory
directions are lost –
I could guess

at a destination,
would likely discover that
my aim has been off base,
could pretend I am gleaning
reams of information from the process,
just to appease higher-ups, but healing
is what I really need, not learning,
and help finding those elements
of self that others

have come to depend on
and now grieve, and if life is
education, then my time is fading
and as day gives over to darkness,
I’ve found my bed beside
the ocean of consciousness
calling me to another cause.

Eccentricity Counts

Professors may make strange bedfellows,
but originality does engage young minds;
ideology while exciting, repels intuition;
and doing well is not about belonging,
it is acknowledgment and reward received.

Listen to me, I am lost, begging for do-overs.
Superiority is a goal for some, while I retreat
into leisure, begin losing awareness, am an odd
gatherer, keeper of underdeveloped knowledge,
gushing creativity, and injecting limitations.

If I could meld empathy, follow unbeaten
paths, inform myself afresh, I’d be bloated
with enthusiasm, pregnant with progress,
but my outlook, like moss, is humble: I am
outcast, marginalized, insignificant…

Projecting discomfort into materialism,
may once have been healthy, now initiating
death by unconscious eating: a human sponge.
Instructing once fueled me –  my passion
eclectic, as all good teacher should be.

What remedies will persuade those who have
forgotten the way, are numbed.
What new dawn will force feed us out of this
resignation, instill pursuit of higher knowing,
ignite a quest for empowerment?

(Image from pinterest.com)

Enrolment

If life was an English class
I’d enroll again for high school,
concentrate on the editing,
hope to gain something
the second time through

I’d excel at the assignments –
experience adds so much maturity
to the written word – and teachers
would deliberate and decide
that I don’t belong, and where

would that leave me?
Both the rigidity of self-judgment
and my softer, creative side
lecture me on the futility
of repeating past success or failure,

but; what else is there in life
to desire; what options lie ahead
for this diseased self: imposed
rest feeds my reflective side,
my mind regresses unwittingly.

I could study psychology, finish
a program once started, then
abandoned (a pattern I loathe),
but what merit lies there –
another backwards movement.

And what is this damnable urge
to perfect what has been, rewrite
the past, excel in the literature
of my own story?  I am destined
play a secondary role, foibles

contributing to the charm of
my character – maybe I should
enroll in a course on acceptance
learn to embrace the folly of
my youth, point myself forward.

(Image: www.bbc.co.uk)

 

Lights and Shadows

City lights used to draw her,
unafraid of seedy corners,
she’d dress her sexuality
in understated costumes,
a long-legged confidence.

Strutted with the best, cat
eyes – a tigress prowling,
stalking a prey she could
not define, no man could
tame her, no women grasp

the coldness of her heart.
Travelled with an entourage,
first on the dance floor, last
to leave, she was desirable,
a temptress, her vibrancy

an unwavering beacon for
the dispossessed, wore her
independence like a medal,
vowed never to be trapped,
a promise she’d never keep –

Her spark is only legend now,
crowds having all dispersed,
she dwells in shadows, a bent
figure whose glow has faded,
movement stilted, she creeps

avoids bright lights and city’s
core, dislikes gatherings of
three of more, finds strength
on the arm of another, frailty
condemning her as a burden.

Dismissed now, she is society’s
disposable, unremarkable to
behold, the trail of her history
all but lost, save for the occasional
flash of wildness in clouded eyes.

(Image: grammywritesblog.wordpress.com)

Passion Exposed

Seduced –
the virility of youth
irresistible even for an old
duck like me –  so unexpected,
relentless, I ignore exhaustion
lean into the fantasy, allow
desire to embrace me,
cross a boundary,
surrender…

step up
to the stage,
bare-chested,
shameless, speak
into the mic, reveal
my words: those
childlike bits
of myself;
hope

my passion
does not offend,
the blatant sexuality
of my tongue, my voice,
raw desire, peaked arousal,
does not mar my reputation,
pathetic, really, that one so past
her prime should dare to grace the
boards – surely a younger woman’s game.

(Image: www.aspersstratford.co.uk)

 

 

Aging Relationships

Some say I’m away – spun
out of control: the dissolution
of so many years of denial.

With restlessness I circle
male species, perspective
skewed by parental fray;

have sweetness to offer,
ripeness – opposition’s grip
extinguishing marketability

we are all crazy, our seasons
passed, preferring the nests
we’ve built to new family ties

fear we will be forgotten, solo,
too self-centered to recognize
independence as exclusivity.

Clearing Corners

No more out-on-the-town bustles –
the late afternoon light fading in
my corner – focus now turned to
higher issues; try to keep company

with mindfulness – a worthy educator,
facilitating release – but my inventory
is too spun. Achieving a semblance
of completion, something to reflect

my life’s toil, would be welcome, yet
I fear my story is cooked. Guidance
might suggest I’m not alone, but
without my professional footing

I’m at a loss for identity, prodding
to find answers – a woman without
substance, grasping at what is mine.
Seems silly to think that breathing

might offer consolation for this no-
return-on-investment outcome; have
hit a wall, would rage if not numb, so
many parts of self lost in passage…

Midnight approaches and I am tapped
out – a social passenger hitching a ride
on hopelessness – flat broke, empty
(tried to dial up creativity – wrong#)

Contemplate sorrow, luck, temporary
breakdown’s, orchestrated scenes,
a lifelong inability to keep quiet (sorry
kids), a callous bitch – could never get

her to work in my corner, channel that
energy into fitness or financial success –
she just likes to stir things up, doesn’t
believe in peace of mind, jolts me awake

out of my comfort zone.  Maybe I need
her now – forgo relaxation and surrender –
to shake this inactivity, give a hand up
to those repressed, forgotten selves –

get her to lift me out this self-conscious
mire – she doesn’t care about feelings –
markets herself with confidence, breathes
assertiveness, knows her own business…

can you see me sitting up a little straighter,
composing myself in the light of this new
possibility, readying myself to relaunch –
reconsidering my stance on corners?

There’s remodelling to be done here –
and orienting to the new will take a bit,
given my age, but I’m willing to concede
that there is community to serve, and

that as long as human rights are being
violated there is a place for compassion,
and no town is immune to need, so I’d
better get my bustle on and start painting.

( Image: lokeshsomu.blogspot.com )

Black Madonna

Remember that autumn
we drove up to Campbell River,
like teenagers skipping out of class –
a cackle of women, spirituality forming –
felt as if we had bided our time, willing
this union to occur – high on anticipation.

Giddy that our routine femininity had
been strewn across the barricades of
our socially careful existences – we were
like lesbian lovers unafraid to explore our
crevices, our souls hungering for release,
we were researchers, reinventing masks

adopted in formative years, stretching our
capacity to believe, awakened by the crones
among us, sisters united, standing in the
flood of our collective herstory, shedding
the padding of our religious upbringings,
teetering on the brink of a lost divinity –

weavers, once paralyzed by the guck of
patriarchal dictates, fear of ascension
retreating, we broke free, immersed in
Goddess splendour, felt the ecstasy of
true abandonment, were wild women
unrestrained, catalysts for change.

How is it that the passion faded so abruptly,
that motherhood and responsibility, and
the rigours of competing in daily life stripped
away the afterglow, smacked me back into
this rigid self-definition, prayerful, thankful,
yet lacking the empowerment of the island?

Have I stored her somewhere; is there even
a space within me capable of housing such
expansiveness, open to wading once again
in the waters of a lunar deity, willing to sacrifice
superficiality for the compassionate mystery
of the Black Madonna haunting my memory?

(Image: paradisefoundsantabarbara.com)

This Big Old House

Bought myself a big, old house
with a myriad of rooms; needed
it to accommodate all those I
wanted to please – it’s what I do.

Learned it living in a house full
of children – adults that were
children – do it to compensate
for never having been a child.

Raised my own family, bent
on making sure they had
their space, their autonomy,
they’re gone now, still can’t

quit – spend my days cleaning
up in the aftermath: so much
dirt to launder; need it to be
pristine so they’ll come back.

Bought this old house partially
furnished – remnants of lives
before me – the crumbs of past
denial hardened now, panicked

to imagine what petulance has
been drawn to their neglect,
becoming obsessed about the
infestation, erasing the past

confine myself to the main floor,
ignore the filth on walls – crayon
figures pleading for help – until
daylight reveals truth, and leaves

me no options but to toil harder –
cannot let these patterns repeat,
need to save the innocents –
this work is never done – refuse

to see that I am not responsible
for it all – project rage onto my
spouse (latest in a string of
targets) for the sin of taking

pleasure, when I cannot relax,
(everyone knows how to unwind
but me, Super Woman) feel the
compulsion to flee, but disability

allots me no recourse – thank
goodness for this big old house –
places to hide, be forgotten –
if it wasn’t for the old crone

who haunts my dreams, drags
me out of my spinning misery
forces me to extend myself,
meets me at the edge of calm

where tranquil waters soothe
my inner churning, and where
kindred spirits come to play,
and connections are real, and

I can roam freely, unattached,
until illness brings me back –
reminds me of my limitations –
that I have been eternally lost

in a house with many rooms
aimlessly wandering in hopes
or renewal, lost for so long
that I’ve forgotten how to let

go, and only in my dreams do
I find the freedom to walk away
and reclaim the life that awaits

(Image: bigoldhouses.blogspot.com)

 

Where Servitude Ends

Born to be domesticated
in a white, controlled desert
tending to two-leggeds –

blamed for delinquencies
I fed but did not groom –
privacy overrun by wannabes

everyone has their own scheme –
I am finished, threaten to disclose
neglect – no limitation to disgust

What fate is this? Abandoned
only to perish – Have I not been
loyal?  Accepting of my role?

Tending to young, in charge of
personal care – translation:
laundry – only comfort solitude.

Past – as industrious as a line
of ants – no longer viable, I am
nothing, dependents gone;

bodily restrictions now claim me
forgotten dreams dissolved – I am
dependent, unwilling legs confine

care unpredictable – ward of the
state – semblance of nutrition
provided, encouraged to sanitize

my body, my attitude; no rest
this home is overpopulated –
vocal laments torment old ears

Pestered by small things, would
leave, stop being a burden, am
decidedly stuck, until life fades.

(Image: favim.com)