Tag: past

Filters

Age
masks the depth
and breadth of ability –
houses more than anticipated
room for expansion, however;
current state of disrepair –
walls buckling, wiring faulty,
and security systems failing –
compromises output.

Old
holds a certain charm,
character well-earned,
but it would be useful
to install a mechanism
for locking out the past –
perhaps the future too –
eliciting and validating
the fullness of present.

Adjust the Focus

What purpose is served
in going back – and yet,
I find myself revisiting,
expecting what?

Revelation…
apology…
renewal…

I am no more than a guest
in history’s halls
powerless to undo
the drama, only
risk further complications.

Past equates with inequity,
no point turning on
the faucet of resentment
unleashing floods of anger.

Best to focus on tomorrow
forgive the past and self
and open to the new.

Sleeping Alone

Sleeping alone –
so intrusive –
a child born of
so many intentions
awash in a trail
of barricades

I cope, cook up
breezes, strike
wet ground,
stuff myself
to satiate
the onslaught

ground rapidly
shifting –
Earth Mother
exerting presence –
too stubborn,
I turn away

Look for
God, but my
cup keeps moving –
I am unreachable,
charmed by
a broken tale

aimless,
oppositional,
overwhelmed –
cry out but
absence holds
no listeners

need adhesive
to fix this urgency –
a peerless torrent –
if only I could simplify
these wounds
find a stopgap

emotion
bubbles up
overflows
manifests
external turmoil
replaying sorrow

sleep offers
no repair
alone
tormented
by the issue
at hand.

(Image: blogs.voanews.com)

Bundled Memories

I carry my past
in a long, white sack –
canvas like a sailor’s –
as if my life depends on it…

or a laundress toting
bundles, tied with string,
promises of toil and
recompense to come.

My contents are not
sustainable, though,
only sorry tales,
entangled woes
mutated into plastic
figurines, more comical
than menacing,
torment born of
pretense and shame.

I am eager to set
this burden down,
loosen the binds,
but self-assurance
and management skills
are just out of reach
a level above me

preoccupied with
organizing
appearances,
disinterested
in healing
old hag’s haunts.

Common sense says
let go, but I’m not sure
I can handle the repercussions,
fear there is more to suffer
for their release

can’t be sure I won’t be
feeding these frailties
to a bigger beast –
the stuff of nightmares –

once exposed will become
bait for a lascivious predator
who toys with ruffled emotion,
a vulture for vulnerability.

Is it not better to cast the
damned so far as to be
forgotten; to be free
for once and all, board
a bus on out of here
find comfort in masses
following a common drum?

My husband has license
to drive a bus, if I take
my chances, could we
prevail together?

How I wish I knew
the protocols of social
etiquette when involving
baggage, am so afraid of
igniting rage in anyone else
but me.

(Image:  www.ebay.co.uk)

Let Failures Lie

Pampered, socially supported
education would have been preferable
but I don’t belong to the elite,
and this malaise disrupts
any hope for success.

Learn best in the trenches,
dragged-out combat over hobnobbing
– can relate to the broken,
other-abled, survivors who thrive
despite challenges.

Know a man, who without
speech or behavioural norms,
moves others – inspires
(trapped as he is) love
and forgiveness.

Have loved others, projected
goodness into selfishness, been
betrayed,  watched friendships grow
where mine was cut off –
bore the burden of blame,

still I will share myself –
adverse to saying no –
in restlessness, seeking others,
when I should be nurturing self –
Who’s really at fault here?

A mother, once faced with immeasurable
tribulations, never giving up –
is not to be found, cut down
by illness, misfortune having culled
her optimism, her enthusiasm –

What is there to do now?
I kick aside the ashes of former
identities, contemplate the meaning
of failure, the loss of ambition
this locked out alienation:

Is it hurt, I feel…
abandonment…guilt…shame?
Absence of former friends
echoes in the empty cliffs of
rejection…questioning

all that has been –
do they feel it too, or
is it merely personal mire?
What choice is there
but to embrace this solo journey?

miscalculated distances,
energy deficit, and yet,
I continue…until straight
and narrow meets clover leafs
and learning dawns –

paths cross over, crisscross;
life is about movement
and choices, and change
and endless possibilities –
there is no going back.

(Image: alone-alone-alone.blogspot.com)

Anchored in Morbidity

Cruising fills my fantasies –
reveling in life, loved ones in tow,
prideful, excited –
sailing past Mecca,
places of service,
relinquishing embellishments,
fully alive!

Conceived in strife –
a familial intrigue
with the macabre –
I am dragged along
treacherous passages,
abandoning joy for desolation,
preoccupied with loss of life.

Reviled, I retreat
flee, crying out in alarm,
cannot tolerate
flesh-eating
walking dead

Crave restoration
of equilibrium,
a life purpose
worthy of visibility

am stalked
by regrets –
a damaged child
seeking baser needs-
elude her!

Launch this ship;
sail into the exotic –
escape!

Responsibility
anchors me,
secrets and wounds
regress – I am
the living dead,
locked out,
focus crowded

need a new defense
if I am to intentionally
recapture relation
ships.

Broken Locks

The house we have moved into is old and on closer inspection has many more rooms than we had initially understood.  It is a pleasant surprise and I am wondering what we will do with all this extra space, when I notice that the back door is broken:  there is a problem with the lock. 

I awaken, my heart racing.

“The back door is unlocked again,”  I jokingly tell my husband.  It has become an ongoing theme in my dreams, and one I fail to grasp.

So what is the back door?  Interestingly, we have purchased an older home, and while it doesn’t have extra rooms such as the ones in my dream, it does come with an additional building we had not anticipated:  a bomb shelter. It is difficult not to notice the parallel to my dreams.  Our new home is one of hope for a better life, security, and maybe one day, retirement.

So, why the difficulty with the back door?

The back door isn’t the entrance that is used by guests or even ourselves, for the most part.  It is purely the entrance to the back yard.   Our back yard is private.  A place where family and friends will gather; a place of solitude and escape.

In terms of the psyche, I always think of the backyard as being what the public doesn’t see – private lives, or maybe even the past.

Aha, I think.  No matter how much I move on in life, or tell myself I’ve moved on, it isn’t escape if the back door isn’t secured.

Could it be that my dreams are telling me that the only way to enjoy my present is to find a way to lock out the past?

(Image:  brooklynheightsblog.com)