Dinner With My Shadow

I imagine Her

Not so hard, really

The one I’m constantly trying to forget

She incessantly sticks at my side

I imagine Her

Upon walking into a dinner party

Oh, the 13th Sister

Oh, the one who wasn’t invited

They’re embarrassed by Her

Nervous, prim and proper

Unable, really, to relax

Attuned to all the feels of the room

All the unattended forgotten ones

She fidgets, She fidgets

Short of breath and internally gasping for

Escape

But she stays

She stays

And she pulls out her measuring cups

Right there at the table

And she pulls out her calculator

Disturbing the frilly napkin

And she begins to tally the foods for possible consumption

This, this eases Her

This, this somehow distracts Her from the

Intensities of the unspoken she rides

She’s cleared off a part of the setting

She’s got her cups weighing

She’s got her numbers, calculating

She’s taking up space

Writing it all down

Before it goes inside

Somehow

This keeps it all in order

Somehow this keeps it all in order

I imagine me, looking at Her

And wishing She wasn’t here, at the party

Knowing, everyone knowing She’s here with me

They stare at Her, and I, unsettled

Some even trying to tutor

Encouraging discretion

But still She counts,

Still She levels

The mashed potatoes

So the surface aligns precisely

And only then plops it onto

Her plate

She’s still deciding whether she’ll actually

Eat

She knows

How to push it all around

Pretending

I hate Her

I wish she never existed

I wish she’d stop following me

And learn to chill out

I wish she’d know

How to laugh and eat and play

Choosing, tasting, adventuring

Like everyone else in the room

That she’d have other interests

Than the next meal, the next amount

The next possible poisoning

The next protective

Ritual

That she’d be led by her hunger

And quelled by her fullness

That she’d speak with wisecrack

At the lurking phantoms swirling

Around the table

Changing the field

Trusting Herself

And not just trying to hold It all together

Until It no longer breathes

She haunts me

And I’d rather not go anywhere

Meals solitary, inside

Appeasing Her

Than to continually risk

The shame I feel

When she’s seen

When I’m seen,

With Her

But She, cups clanging

And numbers whirring

Doesn’t seem to really care

She just knows she’s got to survive

This madness

She does what needs doing

To keep us from drowning

In a culture, externally, showing no other way

In a culture, introjected, systematically brainwashed

And I stare at Her

Eyes focused and uninterested in small talk

And I begin to see Her

And what she’s doing

And start to understand

How she helps

How she is helping

Until the scene shifts

Until the evolved tools present

She’s holding out

For nothing less than The Truth

And I start to see Her

And I start to see

I say to myself, watching me

This crazed laced-up alchemist madwoman

Desperately trying to keep us in order

So we don’t just lose it in a world

Of no holding

I say to Her, myself

That’s pretty epic

In its own strange way

And I begin to accept Her, me

Seeing how She helps

Seeing how She’s needed

Now

And I see Her

And I start

To maybe

To maybe someday

To maybe possibly

To maybe someday possibly

Begin

To love Her

Thanks for reading! This poem came from the following prompt–perhaps it will wet your whistle too?

What parts of yourself would you not take to dinner? What parts of yourself would you want to leave at home?

Father Wind

Over the course of decades

Over the span of many trials

Comes to pass that I now wield

The reins to guide him

This wild bull of Will

This wild bull of Mind

Great Sprit within

I have known

The beggar and the king

The priestess and the sorcerer

The madman, addict and the sage

Wrestling, ever

With the parts that want to kill

And the parts that want to love

The parts that want to stay

The parts that want to run, hide, flee

In terror

Integration of the Two, the Many

Into center reins of the One

Mind now not so snaggled

By layered fallings of the Abyss

I hold center

I am He

Who discerns

Who brings the great power of Mind and Word

To serve the whole

To serve

The whole

But I remember

Sometimes nightly, so

Those days, and months and years

Of muddled and crazed conscience

Leading to darkness

Magic to manipulate and destroy

Even if in illusion of self

The unexalted one within

I remember

I will never forget that line

I walk it

Daily

I walk it daily

Now holding these reins

Now riding this spit-slobbering yet

Ever-gifting bull

Now speaking the words that calm him

I hold center

I trust

Over the course of decades

Over the span of many trials

Comes to pass that I now wield

The reins to guide and honor him

This wild bull of Will

This wild bull of Mind

These Two, these Many

This One

The Great Sprit

Wind-whipping and wise

Within

I am Father

Father Wind

Image credit: “Father Wind” from Tarot of The Spirit by Pamela and Joyce Eakins

The Monkey

Inanimate surrogate mother

Made from wire and wood

Each infant becomes attached

To its particular mother, choosing

Bare wire

Or cloth-covered

In time

With tests of deprivation

Despite the milk available at the wire mother’s teat

The infant clings to the cloth mother

Only leaving when survival deems

To retrieve the milk from cold and steel

These experiments

Although primate-focused

Describe a haunting similarity

Between the mothers I was asked to choose from

Not a straight correlation

But the tendency

To favor machine-made meals

Instead

Of her cigarette smoke rage infused ones

This choice, reminds me

Of these grasping creatures

My odd preference

For the mechanically measured

Hermetically sealed

Thick and milky liquid

For the vending machine’s

Savory chemical noodle brew

For the gravy-laden chunks

Of distant crafting hands

Poured cold from freshly popped tin

These

These give me comfort

I am wary of anything made by someone who sees me

Suspicious of the homemade meal

I fear a strange possibility of poisoning

From the farm-fresh hands of the local chef

He, smiling to feed

I hunger for the package

To see the numbers, ensuring

To see the seal, broken open only by me

To have no idea who it was that made the food

To know they had no idea I’d eat it

To know that their spells

Could never be intended specifically for my destruction

Like her’s did

Like mine did

Although consciously huffing

At such silly paranoias

This

This gives me comfort

Inanimate surrogate mother

Made from wire and wood

Each infant becomes attached

To its particular mother, choosing

Somehow

As usual, I am the odd monkey out

Whereas my brethren cling to the cloth

I seek the chilled, impersonal wire

It’s safer that way

~Image and topic inspired (and haunted) by Henry Harlow’s primate experiments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Harlow

Food Memory Prompt: Travel

I thought I’d do something a little different today and post a little Food Memory Prompt for your perusal and writing practice :}

–>What food memory from a trip you’ve taken comes directly to mind? How do you remember this, through your senses?

For me, I’ll share about “Cornish Cream Tea”– a scone basted with clotted cream and jam, accompanied by a cup of the strongest of milky black tea.

Way back yonder, a friend and I ventured on a trip to Wales and England to research ancestry and geek out on Beatles and King Arthur hotspots. After traipsing around the green and rocky crevices of Tintagel Castle looking for gnomes, we found ourselves in a small cafe in the village eating this delectable meal. I think there were doilies everywhere. I still can remember the feeling of my teeth biting through the cloud of clotted cream, into the layers of jam and finally sinking into the doughy denseness of the scone…heavenly.

I’d love to hear about a strong food memory related to your travels if you’d like to share :}

PS. Just a short ways away from Cornwall is Devonshire, where they have “Devon Cream Tea.” Basically the same dish, but they insist on the jam topping the cream vs. the other way around. Both factions are pretty serious about the “right” way to do this topping!

CPU

The swirlings have begun again

The ancestors, knocking

The babies, crying

The choices, beckoning

The holographic realizations, expanding

The foundations, crumbling

The blazing electrical rerouting, destroying

I keep freezing

This CPU, once able to conduct

What flows through me

Is breaking, again

The terror of its outmoded form

Dissolving

Although timely

Haunts my days

Beckoned, once again

To step into new clothes, new understanding

New wakings, new dyings

These circuit boards are blitzing out

Frequent blankness

Random shut downs

Booting issues

All of these apply

To this slowly failing

Outmoded processing unit

If you calculate the ancestors

That may be waiting to download

Waiting for the seventh son of a seventh son

To finally heal the lines

It doesn’t take that long

To get into the thousands

Thousands waiting

Thousands hovering

Thousands begging

For the one to receive

Thousands of wounds

Thousands of traumas

Thousands of wisdoms

Thousands

This CPU once had blocking features

To not feel it all, throbbing

But the last upgrade

Advertised the removal of this feature

As a bonus

“Now including ancestral awareness”

I feel them

All

Waiting

Thousands

Waiting

Thousands

Wanting

Thousands

Hoping

That I will finally see

That I will carry the essence, magick

The whole of the bloodline sparkle

Clear the misunderstandings

Heal the torn fibers

Alchemize the great and pulsing mass

Into the once true beauty of the well ones

No pressure, eh?

Perhaps it is only I that imagines

But regardless

I can feel the throbbing

I can feel the freezing

I can feel the increasing rate of blips

Occurring in my way of going about it all

I can feel

This circuit board failing

Heavy and pathways jagged

If only by my imagined load

But still it’s real

From the four to the five

And hopefully, eventually

To the six

The old ways of holding

Are breaking down

I’ve been here before

Oh, sacred Tower

Oh sacred Nigredo

I know the downward spiral

The unraveling to a new beginning

It used to cause great upheaval

It used to cause me to run

Sanity imploding

Holding onto to mere threadlines

Doing extreme things

To get something bigger to contain me

Not knowing what was happening

The institution was the only safe place

I can understand now

Why I, and many

Keep returning

But lately, although shaken

I no longer scurry

It’s almost routine

I feel it coming, know what’s happening

And a switch called surrender

A switch called opening

A switch called receiving and curiousity

And an especially helpful feature called

Peaceful

Floating

In the Great

Abyss

Automatically it starts running

Holding me through

As this CPU falters

I realize the coming

Of the hand of a larger technician, replacing

I do my best

To settle back

To switch on the trust mode

Floating in that hollow unknown

As the new

And the old

Circuitry

Lifts and settles

One more time

To ready me

To carry

The thousand watt currents

Of the waiting

Ancient future

Memory

Memory

Oh mysterious memory

Why do I re-member you?

Why do I only re-member

Some of you

Hidden, fogotten boxes

Once unwrapped

Revealing a universe before?

That one taste…

That one specific sound…

That touch…

Forevermore, inscribed

Why?

Why do you stay?

Why do you linger?

Do you wait, embedded

For us to return?

To re-live

To heal

To release?

Memory

Oh mysterious memory

Do you wait for us

To collectively review

To see the old story

Perhaps ones laden in bone

To reflect

And to re-write?

Or are you simply

A leftover echo

Of primal survival mechanics

What to avoid

What to draw near

How to keep safe

How to

Attack

Memory

Oh mysterious memory

Why do we re-member you?

Why do we only re-member some of

You

Hidden, fogotten boxes

Once unwrapped

Revealing a universe before?

Teach me

Oh mysterious memory

Of why

You stay

Earth Sister, Sister Earth

Eyes towards Earth

A swirling macrosphere hovers

You know, you know

Balancing the spheres

Fire, Water, Wind and Earth

There’s a peace within

How do you hold it?

How do you wield it?

How do you tend

To this exponential, often terrifying

Sometimes dismembering

Vast and swimming field?

I’m here

Listening to the assignments

Great meditations

Horrid initiations

Carving hollow the space that now holds birth

You know, you know

On winter ice, use caution

There is no use fighting winter

Has it taken eons

To cultivate the space you hold within

All that intersect, feel it

Your pulsing orb of potential

Some call you Sister

Some know you as Queen

This unstoppable force

That springs eternal

Kore Persephone Demeter

Birth, bud, flower, aliveness

Seduction, withering, trauma

Falling

Dissolving, sleeping, waking

Sprouting

The cycle goes on and on

Now, in my gaze

A new birth becomes you

Revelation is near

Filled with the knowing

Ancient mycorrhizal tendrils

Growing into, and out of your form

Connecting, connecting

Pulsing, pulsing

Earth Sister

Will I ever really know your field?

I meditate on this, over and over

And still, struck with the vastness

Of this potential

Filled with birth, life, death and sooty particles

Stuck beneath nail

Smeared upon skin

Cosmological origins solidified

Holding, Holding

Birthing, birthing

Will I ever know you

In me?

This mastery of all potential

A walking Tree

A Radiant Sister-Queen

Serving the wholeness of your creation

Serving the wholeness of Creation

Through only a breath

A glance

A touch

Of your shimmer?

Meditating

On this, Earth Sister

You approach and call into attention

Eyes now open and glaring directly

You say…Follow Your Name

A psychic transmission as I gaze upon you

Calm and pulsing chest

Head now turned to sky

Mouth open, a haunting circumference

Follow Your Name

And Pay

Attention

She reminds me

And then re-absorbs into the field

She is the field

I stand, holding splintering post

This mysterious fence

I’ve circled

The entirety of my life

Looking out

Looking in

Circling

Living

Dying

Birthing

Earth Sister

You are the field

I am in

You are the earth

We are in

You are we

Becoming

Oh holy Shekinah

Precious

Radiant Tree,Walking

Out, onto the Land

My, Our

Your

Earth Sister

~image credit: “Earth Sister” from Tarot of The Spirit by Pamela and Joyce Eakins sourced from https://www.elitarotstrickingly.com/blog/the-tarot-of-eli-llc-court-cards-thoth-tarot-princess-of-disks-tarot-of

Deep, Fast

It’s taken me a while

To accept the thing I’ve hated most–

That strange field surrounding this form

And its wyrd ways

Upon coming into contact

With you

Somehow

The electrons and wavelengths

Rotating auric realities

Arrange themselves

To raise the shadows

You

Don’t want to see

At one point

At many points

These invisible hoverings

Yours and mine

Were things I didn’t want to see

But with their repetition

This constant reverent attendance

Slowly

We’ve made friends

Deep, fast

Smiling

It’s not a conscious effort

I just watch as the charcoal-green-gray

Bubbles start to simmer

Between us

Their puckered, hollow seeking

Here they come again

Deep, Fast

Some people say this is my approach

The specters naturally raised

When two or more are gathered

Here

But it’s taken decades

Of hating it, always

Seeing over and over again

The things I didn’t ask to feel

The things I didn’t mean to insert

The things I’d rather not notice

Wishing for laughter, and ease

And that thing that people call

Casual relations

Deep, fast

Over the years I’ve seen it at work

Sometimes conscious

Often coyote

And after wrastling, resentful

Have come to learn how to hold

These particular reins in hand

How to be gentle

Self-reflecting

And true

Always

Learning

Responsible

I do my best to be responsible

With the unmet, yearning, screaming

Invisible creatures that emerge

That some part of you

And me

Contract to bring into light

But often

Mostly

As usual

These hungry ghosts, begging

Finally seen…

Are abandoned

Deep, fast

This creates a life of only few

Who stay

Who stay in the reverberating tension

Who stay to talk about

What they don’t want to feel

Who stay to explore

The mind-bending transformations

The unexplainable dissolutions

The terrifying Void

The sacred coagulations

That come to pass, sometimes within minutes, hours

Between us

Deep, fast

I now put that on my intake form

Preparing those who enter

Leaving them to choose

Isn’t it funny

The thing I always hated

The thing that seemed to keep me apart

Now, in my embrace

Is the thing that I am sought to provide?

Deep, fast

If you want to go deep, fast

If you want to hold on

Through a rocky but kickass ride

Braced and committed to presence

To speaking to what can be spoken

A hall of mirrors, tended

Meta meta meta

Shadows seeing shadows

To the best of your ability

Come in

My door is open

But watch your step as you enter

That first one

Is quite

A doozy

It’s deep

And fast

Ghosties

It’s happening all around me

Left and right

Dates and clients

Poof! Into thin air

Groovin’ and smilin’

In the pocket

Supposed reflection in their orbs

And then, gone

Gone

Perhaps, it’s occurred

Over and over again

Without such conscious notice

But lately

It feels like all’s I gots’

Is ghosts

Perhaps, and most likely

A teaching

This repeated, multi-faced patterning

Trying to get me to see

Trying to get me to heal

The unattended ghosts

Of the past

Like that first one

I’m sure his eyes filled my babe core

His gaze, for a few months

Completing me

And then

Poof!

Gone.

No explanations

Silence all around it

Except the rumblings a young mind

And hollowed center

Can make

Ghosties

And then that man

Bustin’ onto my scene like a dream

Wolf in hand, care in heart

Blowing my mind with his Love

And shit, not long after

Bullet-penetrated aortas

Leaving me wondering

The rumblings a young mind

And hollowed center

Can make

Ghosties

The pattern, oft repeated

But not until recently

Did I see

How I

Ghost me

How I leave my babies like he did

Thrilled with creation

Gazing at the outcome

But running

Running

As fast as I can

From the inadequacy I feel

In bringing them babies to life

The fear, the overwhelm, the way they might tie me down

The terror that I might destroy them

The shame that I, clueless, feel unworthy to stay

Focused

And by their side

Granted, my babies take up

Memoir form

Bohemian caravan festival vending form

Self-owned business form

Poetry Anthology form

Musical album form

Grimoire form

….

But nevertheless

They’re babies

Creations once filling me with inspiration

Now left in some void floating

Hollow

Wondering where I’ve gone

Such potential

They hoped for so much

To be supported

To be encouraged

To shine

Through the light and darkness

We’d face together on the path

They look at me, from a distance

Begging

Sorrow in their supposedly inanimate heart

Wondering what they did

And where I’ve gone

Do they feel

The buried rage

I’ve carried for so long?

Ghosties

Damn

I see it so clearly now

I leave my babies just like he did

Just like they do

I ghost

All these parts of me reflecting

Over and over until I see it right

Now that the mirror is clear

Now that I face the terror in me

Now that I feel, perhaps, what he felt

Now that I look at those babies, yearning

What’s left to do?

Keep ramblin’ on, chasing shineys?

I suppose this old blood could carry on down that road

But somehow

Although I’m hella respectful of the ghosts among the living

I think I’ll turn back

And face the panic of meeting their need

Ghosties

My ghosties

Blood and Bones

The things I’m not supposed to talk about

Like how I covet collecting blood and bones

Like how my gaze is transfixed

By the slow descent of crimson matter

Dripping down glass

Blood that takes no injury to procure

Blood that causes life, not death, in losing

Blood that returns, over and over

To remind me I am real

I am not supposed to share about

Collections

And paintings

Watching the red transform

Upon surfaces

Well beyond toilet water

And mass-produced cotton shame inducing

Hiding devices

I’m not supposed to talk about it

But the blood

Is all that makes me re-member

So I love it

The things I’m not supposed to talk about

Like how I’ve been waiting

Months, weeks, many moons

Watching the torrential waters

Wash over its sacred, but ignored, body

Wondering if one day it might vanish

That stinky, striped carcass

A life once vibrant, now rotting

But upon each circling

I’ve found her

Slowly dissolving away

Staying

In my Dream

Her thick, black quills

Floating to the creek below

Batch by batch

And recently

The innards of tail

The sharp ridge of scapula

Washed clean from storm

Appeared

I’m not supposed to talk about it

How I’ve been waiting to be chosen by bones

How excited I am to see them

Wondering if they’ve been holding

As if cleansing

For my capture

I’m not supposed to feel

Such excitement as I crouch down, finally

Lay my gloved hand on its beauty

Whisper grateful blessings

And transfer this evidence of life and death

And the micro-macro cycle of everything

Into my blessed receptacle

A neighbor, leashed wildness by his side

Stops, childlike, to ask what I’ve found

A skunk, I say

Looking up to him

Staring from face laden

With invisible echoes

Of recent blood ceremony

It’s been here a long time, I say

Hoping for a moment he’ll join me

But his gaze immediately shifts

And there is no response

And still

Like many things I’m not supposed to Do

Like many things I’m not supposed to Say

Like many things I’m not supposed to Feel

I allow myself to honor

These strange desires

These drops of vital plasma

These candle-lit applications

These dirty sacred road blessings

These bones

This blood

I allow myself to honor

And let the human, thinking

Walk on