Parents

Still wrapped in a blanket
Sitting in the cold
Wrapped in the colors of our making
Some complex webs
Of doubt and fear
Began before we could create them-
Our lovely parents
Set the glue in place
Some are artisans,
Some enchanting inspirations
While other parents simply
Taught us chaos
Filling our rooms with poor choices
Abusive sights
And destructive guidance.
Then some were somewhere
But never seemed to be there for us
They could not be faulted
By their sufficient completion of provisional supplies
Leading us to fend for ourselves
In the emotional arena.
Why does one sibling
Seem so “special” always “the one”
Who got everything the parents had to give;
While the other child got merciless recognition
As the identified family problem.
And why do some parents emulate
The meaning of lovers
While others can barely stand alone?
And some weep vengefully with internal morose,
While others pause in gratitude,
embodied in the miracle or our existence.
The answer lies somewhere between DNA and Karma
But we stay wrapped in our blanket
Until we learn how to nourish and nurture ourselves.

So You Are Not Having A Good Day?

It is all in how you get out of bed
Stretching to slowly uncoil
Breathing deeply to let out the night
And make room for the day
Looking at the clouds with imaginary patterns
Letting the fresh air of the morning
Embrace your silhouette

Not offering up your power
To the whims of those around you
Not molding and melding
Into someone else’s wishful thinking
Opening up the curtains to possibilities
That the shower will not wash away

Shattered glass chips
Worries from the night before
Must be exonerated
Shaking out the blankets
On your pretend European balcony
Taking away the debris of the
once perseverating guilt and anguish
that may have tortured you
at least some time during the sleep.

Experience the present
Meaning all of your senses in the context of you
In order to strengthen your stance
And solidly face the day
With a brave heart
And giving and receiving hands.

Why People Stay in Relationships

1. The Greatest Generation, or the GI Generation (1901-1924)
Many immigrants marrying there or here
Not even a thought of conforming, just accepting
The way things are designed to be.
Roles are clear as glass
And no one dares break the sound barrier
Both men and women come together for pragmatics
The depth and meaning that will unravel over time
Are mostly inconsequential to the quintessential fears of sphinsterhood
And no one to carry on the name or take over the farm.

2. The Silent Generation (1925-1942)
Fifty years of bliss or just fifty years.
I think back to my parents romance
It seemed as if my dad swept my mom off her feet
And whisked her away to the marriage chapel
Without a moment’s hesitation.
Men then were decisive
They proclaimed their desires
Without any modern fears of commitment or failure.
The women beckoned to be the lady of the house
With full, swirly skirts promising eternal awe.

3. Baby Boomer Generation (1943-1960)
Moving the hips to throw out the cobwebs
Of inhibitions gone wild
Changing partners, got to taste it all
The drugs and flower power
Ease the threats of blatant military atrocities
In wars that never let one go back home.
The changing of the guard
Making divorce a normal life transition
But their hearts were basically pure
Unable to forget those they left behind
Claiming both past and present as endearing lovers
While protesting and rocking out demands for change
Men and women not sure what roles they wanted
Or even what they could negotiate.
Marriage started out “just a piece of paper”
But lead right in to the tightening moralities for the next generation.

4. Generation X (1961-1981)
Hanging on to their parents rebellious coat tails
Wanting to make things a little more chill
Rebelling with alcohol and even speed
But, ultimately returning to an ultra conservative stance
Once again fearing being alone
Or a failed marriage
Getting so individualized it is all about me deserving
There is so much forethought just to date
All the criteria carefully run through the values computer
Scientifically dating, not spending a whole lot of time with
What can I be giving
Wanting the perfect child that overindulges their lives
Culminating with the idea that the balance of man and woman needs restoration
So traditional roles can once again soar.

5. Generation Y- /Generation Next, Millennials, or Echo Boomers (1982-2000)
Texting, teching, iphones and ipads and webcams
Keeping their distance
Short and sweet
A new language without particular verbs
Slangs and hesitations in abbreviated verses
Making the real contact awkward
And no where as revealing
Confused by the world of love
It is now more of an open playing field for choices
Love comes in any combination of genders
Roles are so convoluted there is no reason to ask anyone for a dance
The world has been such a wild crapshoot of boom and bust
And everything has been seen and heard on tv or the big screen or utube
All that is left is the uncertainty of the times, the health of the earth
And the longevity of the moment.

Labor Day To The Restless

We believe mistakenly that good is unrewarded, evil goes unpunished, and that life lacks true justice. Why? Because the memory of our positive and negative actions fades over time, and when their delayed effects appear, we see them as simply random events.

Make no mistake - everything counts!

Today, pay attention to the way you think, speak and act. Every thought counts, every action counts, every word counts. (Yehuda Berg)

Keeping this in mind, how do we put that in the context of how we live our lives. How many rules do we really need to make. Our internal self regulator (conscience, morals, innate knowing) is always there. It is only when we argue with what we know is right that we end up feeling so wrong.

So why do we rebel against our true nature? Our internal voice is there for the listening. Maybe we just want to live a little. By making these dumb and sometimes drastic mistakes we are furled into action. Our world is not so sane or mundane or disdained. Some believe that if you get it all together- you are out of here, you gleaned all that you need to know. We would all die young, if that were the case, as it is said that we are born with all the blessings of wisdom and righteousness, but we quickly forget as we proceed with the dance of life.

It is only when we realize that complication is not energy fueling us forward, but rather, delays by leading us astray. Both chaos and meandering aimlessly are two forks in the same road, like switching channels, you can vaciillate between their embers. When they call it “the straight and narrow”, I wonder if rather than think of it as the boring, goody two shoes path, what if it was the direct path straight to Paradise?

A Woman Meets Her Rapist

What’s a woman to do
Years have gone by
The air of safety
Was beginning to cool her collar
Then suddenly
After marrying a gentle man
She’s randomly on line
At the local 7/11
When who is behind them
With a breath rhythm she will never forget
Her body taisered by his looming omnipresence.

She tried to tell her husband
Who is deeply contemplating
The pink or the blue Slurpee?
And the words just don’t come out
After her obvious nudging
Should she run, or blast out the message
(This is my assailant- the rapist
Who tortured me Mind, Body and Soul)
Well there might as well have been a harkening choir
As her devastation once again took place
In the most seemingly appearing calm and normalcy

So, she waits until he happily
Leaves the counter with the bright blue Slurpy-
Already decorating his beard and chin
Now she is almost embarrassed
For her rapist to think this is the caliber of man
Who might have protected her
Then she gets to the car
Remembering her initial fear
That if she told
Her father would kill him and go to jail.
She slowed down her intents
To rethink the potential replay demise

It is bewildering how those horrid thoughts
Attack in the middle of the night
The body remembers
And like a freight train
It comes speeding down the tracks
Before the brain can stop it.
The constant hypervigilence
That never lets the survivor rest
The world becomes a facade of niceties
Packaging up the every day Hell
Called Post traumatic Stress Disorder.

They are safely back in the car
They made it to the border
She quickly tells him
Like rolling tiny, pink candy balls
Floating off the tongue
And on to the motor cross
“He’s the one” she managed to shake out
Like talking through a clarinet reed
“the rapist, the guy who raped me!”
He finally put the disjointed words together
Then turned his head either feeling her anguish
Or his own shame for not having been there to protect her
Heroically, or ego sustainingly
He asks her “What do you want me to do?”
Why is he asking me this she thinks
Movie heart throbs, always know what to do, on their own.

No Lights On

He looked like a man
Handsome and rugged
An inattentive look
From a stoic face
That only shares sarcasm

She asked him
“How do I look in this new dress?”
As she does a Marilyn Monroe swoosh
Without as much as a glance her way
He says “fine, okay”.

“Are you really sure?”, she asks
Now more seriously,
“What do you really think?”
“I’ve told you a million times-
Yea, just fine, why do you need so much reassurance?.”

It is like the final drum role
She feels way beyond the days of disappointment
She had truly believed there was some substance
Not just a masculine action figure

Yearning for connection
She realizes he is completely unplugged
If she were to drain the bathtub (metaphorically containing his engagement)
Little would be released

He is confused by what she wants
And searches through a multiple choice schema
Of what might please or get her off of his back,
Let him rest his feet instead of stretching his mind

He is probably running scared
Knowing he can’t keep up with the program
But, why now, must she interrogate so deeply
He believes he loves her and comes home to her, isn’t that enough?

Confusing to a committed spouse
How a partner could be so removed
From his own self
Her only remaining question-
How disconnected was she to have not believed it sooner.

We All Have Our…

We all have our secrets
Big and small
Erased and ongoing
Stuck inside or freed

Secrets like magic potions
Disappear in daylight
Or find temporary refuge
In the distant caverns of the heart

Secrets, Lies
Lying beneath
The lip service
The shame
Spindles in the wheel of living

Silent histories
Hush them away
Run, like wild horses
Spooked in the night

Secrets to lull our dreams
Blur the truth
Stifle the future
With visions of self sabotage

We can run
But not hide or seek
It is what it is
What is done cannot be erased

Vitality and vibrancy suffer
In the skeletal cove
hoarding the past
To foretell the future.