Category: life

Renovating The Psyche

Pardon the mess, but currently
renovating the psyche, moving
rape to a separate apartment,
trying to make room for God.

Heart is the crux of my home,
space for recreation essential,
my family is growing, roots
spreading outwards, Muslims

now amongst our beloveds.
I need to be present – useful
to communicate without
appearing challenged – hope

the elephant in the room
does not describe me, signs
of burning startling – smoking
is not permitted here – breath

is a requirement; I live here!
Dare I reveal, make a scene?
I’ve made my bed, better to
stay conservative, constrict

airways; don’t need much to
get by: a modest income,
marriage insurance, quiet
appliances, easy navigation.

Post overhaul, I’m hoping for
less complications, more flow,
compartmentalized sanity so
that God will stop questioning.

(Image: http://watersofnoah.blogspot.ca/2012/03/big-rock.html)

Meaning of Life, Anyone?

If I could, I would ask the dead
about the secrets of life, raise
spirits to help me understand
this phenomena of cancer, the
need to find relief in addictions,
the key to successful relations.

Or perhaps It is the youth, set
on creating the next YouTube
sensation, who have insights
I should pay attention to, but
they seem to prefer contrived
reality, ignoring mundane life.

Asking the heads of education
what the guiding principles are
for living a good life seems use-
less; they are too buried beneath
the red tape of bureaucracy, out
of touch with front line teaching.

I might ask new immigrants who
carry with them an accented
authority and certainty about the
meaning of life that I have not
considered – their faith and hope
badges of courage that betray
our lack of social cohesiveness.

I feel compelled to investigate
why this hard-working, caring
soul has sold herself three times
for love and continues to come up
victim; is it an insatiable need
for attention or lack of willingness
to let go of the past and just be?

(Image: btloc.com)

 

It’s Not That I Don’t See…

Somewhere, searchers are combing through rubble
to find signs of life, or remains, while I fret over the
size of my belly, bloated by excess, filled by gluttony.

Somewhere, a mother pleas for the return of her child,
a daughter stolen, held by soldiers, while another cries
because her toddler’s coiffed appearance fails to win.

Somewhere, their village destroyed by war, families
flee to find peace, encounter rejection, and worse,
while a son murders his sister to honour family pride.

Somewhere, parents wait with terror-seized hearts
as a gun-wielding lunatic holds their children hostage,
while businessman fatten their wallets over arms sales.

Perspective tells me that I am unjustified to complain
over my first world problems, am selfish to bemoan
the trivialities of my self-centered existence, that I just

need to shift my viewpoint, look outside myself, and see
that inequalities and hardships beg for my compassion,
alter my focus and become a beacon for the world; and,

yet, I am overwhelmed by the tragedy that floods my
large screen tv, desensitized by the staged and unstaged
images of brutality, tired of the unsubstantiated claims

of terrorism, and the political garnering for votes; cannot
bear to hear of one more gun attack in a country where
the right to bear arms is confused with personal security;

feel out of control when I listen to stories of great loss,
am compelled to shut off the media, turn my attention to
self-criticism, and find a manageable issue close to home.

(Image: dict.space.4goo.net)

A 60’s Childhood

Formative years were more destruct
than construct; contradictions riddled

the foundation of our familial structure:
one man tyrannized five females while

in the news, women marched for equality;
called the likes of him a male chauvinist.

Aunt drove a forklift truck, looked like a man,
chalked one up for women’s liberation, didn’t

talk about her sexuality; shadow of illegality
hovering around her – no one dared to ask.

At nine, I questioned the fairness of being
born a girl in a man’s world, felt impassioned

by feminist cries, yet feared my mom would
leave the nest, abandon baking, domestics;

leave us to fend for ourselves – the warm waft
of fresh-baked goods greeting us each day, gone.

Watched my sisters flaunt their womanly ways
for virile young men who flocked to see bikini

clad bodies, ripe and tanned by the sun – who
was reducing whom to sex objects? And when

my mother’s family came to visit, why were the
men’s hands so invasive, their tongues equally

misplaced, and was this what women in the streets
were crying out against? I wanted to be free, explore

my future prospects – open road ahead – but Mother
said boys will be boys, and men don’t like smart

women, and better to drop out of school at sixteen,
get a secretarial job, and be ready when your prince

arrives – so I rebelled, cut my hair, flaunted my
intelligence, spoke up about inconsistencies,

such as why is a God a He, and why Aunt didn’t
ever date – did feminist mean celibate? and why

when women were so oppressed and men had
all the power, did my father wish he could be one?

Formative years more destruct than construct;
a deviate imprint tainting normalcy’s prospects.

(Image: retrochick.co.uk)

Self Portrait in Colours

Found an old diary – days
when I prayed to the angels,
painted myself white, believed
in a God that cared about personal
forever after – painted myself pathetic.

Took me back to days of heartbreak,
when I pined after a man, noncommittal,
painted myself pink – an altruistic heart
yearning after unrequitable love, willing
to sacrifice, change – painted myself foolish.

Read between the lines about a woman
so desperately co-dependent she’d risk it all,
painted herself yellow, projected sunshine,
believed in fairy tale endings, threw away
dignity, sanity – painted herself delusional.

Wondered how she’d ever survived, knew
that life intervened in the end, saved her –
painted her broken; but somehow she found
strength, moved on, made better choices,
learned to love herself, painted herself indigo.

Dawn’s Promise

The mountain before me
blocks out the rising of the sun
and if I focus only on its enormity
and the challenges it presents
I miss what is happening beyond.

A tree at the peak stands barren,
stark naked against the grey of the sky;
it is the dead of winter and nature sleeps.

But I do not.

The turmoil inside me continues to churn
and while nature reflects my dying spirit,
still I am unable to slow the inner mechanism.

Light begins to streak the sky,
beyond the tree,
beyond the mountain;
colours take hold -A new day is dawning.

Inside, there is celebration
A new day is dawning in here as well –
New hope, new joy, new possibility –
For I am yet alive.

(Penned January, 2002, edited 2016)

Image from:  allposters.com.au

Oh Baby, I Have Purpose

Baby Whisperer, they call me –
some definitions we just slide
into, naturally; discovered mine
at the age of nine, when my sister,
a child herself, gave birth and I,
the babysitter, was also born.

Ran a school that summer –
charged a quarter a week to
neighbouring parents, promised
to prepare their children for the
year ahead, turned my knack
into an entrepreneurship.

Uprooted at eleven to a highrise
full of families, filled my calendar
with other’s people’s offspring –
was in demand – while other teens
partied and rebelled, my wallet
bulged with babysitter’s cash.

Projected success into future
plans, told the guidance counsellor
I wanted to get my ECE – work in
day care – she scoffed, said I was
too smart, should be a psychiatrist
the world needs shrinks, not nannies.

So I signed up for psychology and
sociology – did not find myself, quit,
married a man – really just a child –
felt I’d found myself in the role of
wife, ignored the fact that I had
only replaced his mother – grew tired,

ran into the arms of another, racing
to have children of his own – knew
how to do children – returned to school,
studied Children’s literature, psychology,
set my sights on being a teacher – but
it all fell apart; alone raising three.

Married again, finding comfort in the
mothering role, became a teacher –
replaced offspring with classrooms;
certain I was fulfilling a calling, until
illness swept it all away, confined me
to a bed, homebound, erased purpose.

But wait; the story doesn’t end there –
because now I’m a grandmother – my
babies have babies – and even from my
invalid bed, I can care for the wee  –
the Baby Whisperer still has the touch –
purpose reignited with each new life.

Let Me Out Of Here!

Weighed down by complications –
you see, the amount of baggage
I carry surpasses my storage
capacity; and despite attempts
to simplify, paranoia tends to
my bathroom routines, and
no amount of persuasion can
appease her suspicions; and
the majority of my contents
have been accumulated by
my father’s business, and not
really mine to unload, although
I try, his tyranny still haunts me;
and well, anything new that I
start has to be protected from
the familial bouts of insanity;
and that is why I just want to
pack my bags and get out of
here, and be a mother to my
children; but it’s complicated.

Haunted Corners

There’s a place, at the intersection
of break downs and choices ahead,
where I have ownership, but avoid.

Courage resides there, and other
parts of self unnamed – I haunt
the place by night, intrigued by

the camaraderie, lack the guts
to venture into the unknown –
decidedly a criminal element;

need a sense of adventure to aid
escape, squeeze me past seedy,
neglected, cracked pane spaces;

lack wheels, coordinates confused –
am located who knows where –
war for independence my identifier.

In daylight, I am redeemed, visited
by semblances of normalcy, sweet
offerings of obligation, distraction;

revel in youth’s exuberance, pretend
that gifts of kindness sustain me,
ignore the relentlessness of corners.

Crocodile Dreams

How are we to sleep
with this croc in our bed?

Who will protect whom?
Your meaty limbs surely

more appealing morsel;
assert your masculinity

will you dear?  I’ll just
curl up in the corner –

pretend I hadn’t noticed.
Oh but what if he’s hungry,

and takes a bite out of
your leg, making a mess

and I’ll have to clean up and care
for you? That’s not acceptable!

I’ll just hoist this critter out
of here, put him in the hall

shut the door – crocodiles
can’t turn knobs can they?

But oh, what about the kids,
do you think he’ll find them?

How are they to sleep with
a crocodile in their beds?

And what kind of legacy
is that to leave the children?