Category: art

Who Am I?

(Trigger warning: this poem alludes to child abuse)

Who I am
if not a harbinger –
eyes turned to the sky
diligent?

And what defines me
beyond calm in a crisis
action-taking, firmly
responsible?

No bystander here
I will fight injustice
free the wrongfully accused
capable

Driven
driving
fearless
awake

No sleeping
when danger presents
turmoil relentless
nightmares persist

Visions of uprising
and natural disasters
filling my dreams –
I grow weary

I cry, but no one is listening
the bustle outside reflective
of lives being lived
while I cower

Worried that the sky will fall
and I will be too torn
too bruised
to rise to the occasion

That child I coddled
now questioning my motives
that woman I saved
scoffing at my delusion

I am neither saint nor saviour
I am just a woman/child running
from the drunk under the table
still trying to define herself
as anything but his prey.

(Drawing is my own)

Oh, How I Pray

These hovering lows
how does one escape the pull?

Defensiveness a useless tool
I cannot read intentions

I self-animate
a contrived endeavour

Shine reduced
I am humbled
off colour

Grief, on repeat
I want to disappear
like Peter Pan
childlike, armed
with illustrious fantasies

Could this be metamorphosis –

A paralytic calm
a spell-binding ponder
cracking righteousness
till clarity fades the gray

Oh, how I pray it is
the light of love
chiseling a new path

(Inked sketch my own)

Lines

Give me a map
and I will trace the lines
of where I have been

A timeline
will communicate
my raison d’être

Report cards
demonstrate the depth
of my conformity

Lines on my face
a testament
to personal efforts

Good girls colour in the lines
and I am no different
waxing orange and green

Wishing to create contours
differentiate self
from the compliance

Essence is fluid
and lines flimsy
and substance seeks
exposure and celebration

And try as I might
the orange of my soul
bleeds into blank spaces

and green of my nature
reaches across divisions
and I shall not succumb

to prescribed limits
and I invite you to do the same
colour with me outside the lines.

(Art my own)

What Remains?

Should I escape these shackles –
manage to re-surface, swim
despite this weakened condition
against the currents of disability,
find myself once again on the
solid grounds of civilization –
will I be embraced with cheers
of victory, or slotted into some
back room, reserved for the fallen,
spoken to in hushed tones,
forever handled at arms length,
an object to be feared?

And, if I manage to fight these
bonds that for so long have
threatened to annihilate,
will I have the bravery to face
the calling that once defined me,
shake off the cobwebs of
disorientation, defy the
certainty of unpreparedness,
draw from the well of past
experiences and rise to
a new battle, proving the
validity of my return?

Or, with freedom, do I look
to opportunity, clear the slate
of former ambitions, rewrite
the pages of my destiny,
embrace an attitude of
rebirth, decide to relinquish
the sword, cut my losses
and redefine a new, gentler
way of being in the world,
less dependent on a system
which undoubtedly propelled
this descent in the first place?

(My art, entitled Abandoned Forest, acrylic. This poem first appeared in 2016, when after two years bedridden with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, I pondered what would become of me. As part of a support group now, I recognize this same struggle in others plagued by chronic illness. Personally, I eventually found my answer in the third stanza.)

Repression is Not an Option

This divide is but an illusion
glass partitions fallible

We drink from the same source
our assigned task reverential

Denial has limits…
the beast swells…
writhes in churning waters

We are fearful
because power feeds off fear –
Eden’s serpent reincarnated

Round up your loyalties
your petty contrivances
and prepare

Patriarchy engorged
 on misogynistic agendas
force feeds archaic notions

Subdues
constricts
silences
disembodies the feminine –

We have been here before, women
and we are Eve –
not born of man’s weakness
but in response to it!

She-power
intuits
channels
transforms

We are the beast
wombs pulsing
curves thrashing
our collective hearts
life affirming

Let us shatter glass illusions
hold our sisters, mothers, children
in heart-centered conviction

align our voices
stand firm
and channel this righteous rage
into empowered revelation.

(Art mine with an AI boost)

Surrender

Nurturing sweetness –
a desire to maintain
childlike response

A barrier
to what lies within
darkness waiting

Funny, this present impulsivity –
am alone,
overweight,
a dreamer

Pretence overcomes stage fright –
a worthy role for any story

Not a glittery, Star-crusted version
but a well-worn edition

I am solid, ebony,
earthen –
value innate

Unknown depths
murky shadows –
A brokenness craving
perfection

Must surrender
to the catharsis of creativity –

Fear and protectiveness retreating,
helpless in the face
of the adventure that calls.

(My sketch with AI interpretation)


Genie Unleashed

Artistic sensibility
hungering for the exquisite
craves expression

The critic guffaws
decries creativity
starves the impulse

Who unleashed
such nonsense,
such magical thinking?

To think beauty
once espied
can be replicated

and by such an amateur –
the unskilled hand
an unworthy representative

But the artist, unleashed
knows only magic –
the genie will not be rebottled.

(This is an edited version of a previous post. Art my own.)

Compulsive Clotheshound

I would befriend hesitation,
take her shopping with me,
invest the time, but impulse
is my constant companion.

Hesitation, born of shared
trauma, labours over pain-
filled decisions; my need is
palpable, throbbing, must

suffocate it beneath layers
of numbing fabric, weight;
afraid to show myself, afraid
that she will find me, block

any progress, or worse, make
me pay for these layers of
stolen moments; encounter
crazy reflected in her eyes.

(Found this little gem hidden away in 2016 poems. Art my own. Current theme is ‘Women Entangled”)