Another Thread to Weave

Another Thread to Weave.

I pluck at a thread, I begin to tease it loose,

its tangled up tightly.

This thread needs to come loose, I need to find it's end

it's reason and along the way I will

stumble into and over what it feeds on

and shelters under.

This thread begins with sex.

(a pause for me to consider the subject in an objective way

for it leaves me blushing at the best of times)

I come to you with veiled eyes

Eyes that need exposing to me to see

That I am a woman, one at one with desire

And not at the mercy of desire.

I have veiled my eyes as I as yet

still live between places.

Scattered fragments that I pick up as and when

I happen to see them lying discarded.

And for others looking upon me

the veils hide the fragments that are missing

So they see nothing unusual and remind me

of the bits that I have forgotten along the way.

Grandly I hold you higher, able to see it all.

I like the way you bring me to my

being, a fierce but careful love.

With a passion still to be fully undressed.

And I like the undressing.

But it was not to be and the absence

of such desire, the absence of the reforging of the bond

I have with you has simply got me worried.

That something in its blossoming

has got caught by an early frost

And it lies heavy

with melted water in its fragile cells.

I expected sex. It was that simple.

I didn't get it and I am disappointed,

And lost in shame for wanting that so much.

Not at one with desire at all but at it's supreme mercy.

I feel tossed aside.

A two day old toy of a fickle child.

And I see very clearly, (though my mind

shut down and loaded silence once again

took centre stage, singing proudly in the sulk,)

Just how much I feed off others and

rarely off myself.

(It hurts to realise my gifts have been cast aside for others for almost all my life.

It hurts to realise my gifts have been cast aside for my own self harm for almost all of my life.)

I enjoy the pain of the shut down, oh how I enjoy the flagellation of the wallow,

Breathing blackness in a sunken ribcage.

Only the succulent globules of salt water spewing from my eyes

Allow a purer breath and a clarity to enter.

But my mind still spins with stories of other lovers,

and whilst nothing is defined there will be other lovers.

And I do not wish to be caught and kept nor do I wish to catch and keep

But oh, oh! how I long to be your only and you my only-madness I tell you

This love. For my beating heart, my beating love wants more, it is my sadness

That clings to you as my hero and my sadness and my mind

can dictate no longer.

So from sex and absence of sex,

A whole world opens to be looked apon.

The thread I pull seems endless.

My habits, my patterns, my motivations

That all need realising fully

And changing to allow acceptance for whatever situation I find myself in.

Another thread to weave into the shawl that will keep me warm.

The Tapestry of Skin

I sit on this solstice eve

Remembering the time when

Creeping tendrils fell from my hand,

Tying me tightly and as still as stone.

That is when I lost the egg I was holding

And the life that it held

For the life was tainted and rotten.

The rain still falls heavily on my head.

Submerging me in cold murky water that leaves

Mud trails down my legs.

The moss still dies in the moisture

And the lichen, it still crumbles

But the dust that collects at my toes

Protects my connection with the earth,

With myself.

For there was a time and will still be times

When I cannot hear the quietude, the whispers

Of love and peace.

And I try to cease the harm to my spirit

Tracing the dried blood trails down

Her ethereal thighs.

Her eyes, though heavy, still stop the see the sublime

In the honesty of every story. That I praise.

I'll happily allow the hummingbirds

To sip the nectar from my eyes

Suckling the syrup of my precious vision,

To bind.

And give freely of my soul to the songbirds

Spinning the silks

To sew

Into the tapestry of my

Skin.

For me to walk upon.

For you to walk upon.

I was shocked when, one day I picked up a wasps nest

At just how fragile and delicate it was

Less then paper thin. A home of crushable walls.

A creature feared but courageous I say

beneath the black and yellow.

I shall battle fearlessly once again

Thanking myself daily for all I have.

And in doing so

I dedicate my life to each of you

In devotion and deep gratitude for

all you have given me.

And as I look up towards boundless skies

I know I will soar with the red kites that

Fly high above my mothers house.

Landing only to share experience 

And to hear the sweet sounds of stories.

Peering Through a Telescope.

 Peering Through a Telescope.

I'll look one way and you look the other

Or else I will stare right at you,

Make you sweat with nervous energy

Not blinking, barely breathing

Until you leave.

Tail between your legs, whimpering a little bit.

Do I want to be your friend for any reason

Other then to ease/increase the love/pain I have for you.

It is still new and dark red.

My mind yo yo's, being toyed with

And dragged on a string through broken glass

and warm smooth custard. Yellow and sweet.

Ridiculous is all I can now think

No, maybe its still despair.

The string frays more each day,

Half relishing the release, half clinging to the safety of the familiar.

Still its about to drop all the weight that it is carrying.

to smash or slide to a stop.

Stop! I think, such a novel concept.

Does anything ever stop or just carry on in some

thoughtless, thoughtful, thorough way

Either/or. Anything is better then this frozen tundra,

vast, yes, but not welcoming. Beautiful in its bleakness.

I will scatter the dark red all over the white,

and take you by the hand so you no longer look

the other way but straight down the bloodied path

I have walked and I will leave you there.

Lesson no. 1

Lesson no. 1

This year has bought to me many challenges in which I have had to learn deeply and honestly about myself and my interactions with the world. Throughout these past days, stretching back to new years day there have been some words of common goals from unknown faces, stories, sage scented advice and pointers that have helped me along the way. I have gone back to these 'lessons' over and over this year to bring me back to reality and to my own motivations for how I wish to take ownership on my life. This poem by Marge Piercy was the first of the lessons.


To Have Without Holding.

Learning to love differently is hard,
Love with hands wide open, love
With doors banging on there hinges,
The cupboard unlocked, the wind
Roaring and whimpering in the rooms
Rustling the sheets and snapping the blinds
That twack like rubber bands
In an open palm.

It hurts to love wide open
Stretching the muscles that feel
As if they are made of wet plaser,
Then of blunt knives, then
Of sharp knives.

It hurts to thwart the reflexes
Of grab, of clutch; to love and let
Go again and again. It pesters to remember
The lover who is not in bed,
To hold back what is owed to the work
That gutters like a candle in a cave
Without air, to love consciously,
Conscientiously, concretely, constructively.

I can't do it, you say its killing
Me but you thrive, you glow
On the street like a neon raspberry
You float and sail, a helium baloon,
Bright bachelors button blue and bobbing.

On the hot and cold winds of our breath,
As we make and unmake in passionate
Diastole and systole the rhythm
Of our unbound bounding, to have
And not to hold, to love
with minimised malice, hunger
and anger moment by moment balanced.

Separation

The darkness has come
Like the nettle stings all over my knees and arms,
tingling, pulsating at the attack.
Fair play I tell myself
For I pulled out many by the roots today.
They are just trying to survive
and still as I lay beneath the blackcurrent bush
Using all my weight to pull out deep roots,
I notice how the raspberries are still raspberries
Even though they are drowning in nettles, cleavers and buttercups.

'I've done nothing wrong' you say.
'I've had something put upon me' you say.
But I have done wrong.
I have remained a girl whilst in your arms
Submissive and lazy.
I have not grown but stayed timid and disengaged
For fear of revealing parts of myself that I don't like, not ready for.
And now I am alone in the home that we built
Hating myself for not allowing those parts
to flourish and to allow you to see them.

Stolen chocolate from the chocolate box
That keeps me dependent and disenchanted
Rain pours down again, its been a while
And the pumpkin seedlings left out to harden off,
Experience it for the first time.
Such innocence being battered by the will of the skies.

I search your eyes for news of her.
I search her eyes for news of you
and yet I do not want to know.
I am ripping myself away from you both
as if I was to gut a chicken
Its uncomfortable, its undesirable
But necessary for us all to fed.

(The small black cut on the sole of my foot,
infectious and bleeding,
dirty and painful.
I want it gone
but I cannot focus enough to deal with it.
I image it going sceptic,
I see it go green and spread to my toes,
my precious toes
and I watch each one fall off in solitude)

Passion dulled to a heavy smog
licking my core out.

Dance Free

Until I can't love you anymore..

Until I can't love you anymore.
I have loved you with all I have.
And will continue until all my energy has been drained
Pulled out of my body in a vortex, spiralling in emptiness.


Until I can't love you anymore,
Tears create floods, swans sit on dirty water where fields once were.
I isolate myself on an island for a short while
To clean out the debris.

Until I can't love you anymore,
And you throw more and more my way,
Endless tests to my compassion.
And yet I still love you.

Until I can't love you anymore,
This may never be.
I will love others, just as deeply,
Responding to the rhythms.

Until I can't love anyone anymore.
And I die a little death.
For the cycles will begin again.
Loving innocently and purely. 

ljmh 2012