Do not contaminate the blue haze

of mountains that stretch across the miles

with thoughts of morality

or protests of who should own what part.

It seems a sin to carve such grandeur into squares

to satisfy whims and greeds of men.

Rather to imagine, like Lennon,

there would be no need for greed or hunger here,

no breath of air not pure and free.

 

Never question the harmony

of life lived with clouds

not dedicated to God but given without thought,

and not beyond gentle, gracious simplicity.

 

A placid silence filled with whispering pines

this place the dream of angels devine,

no less than the essence of souls.

 

A breed of people, made here, apart

bound by boundless blood and timeless time.

Small against endless shades of blue

that blend water with earth and both with sky;

humbled by the knowledge that this is what surrounds us all.

In the thickness of fog she had no beginning or end,

     only a humbled bubble, she twirled,

 round and soft.

      At the edges of her vision,

           a ghost; dismal and dull.

Then came the jingling of a bell:

        an angel, she thought, warning of hell.

 

Curiosity overcame her fear

as she stood up to peer into solid grayness toward the sound

where suddenly in front of her a hound bent on some cause,

self-sent or spirit-led,

stopped for one moment to raise his head

                as if he understood the trip she travelled on.

     With tags jingling, he left, heading toward silent oblivion,

                everything, again full of emptiness,

                               she was gone, dear sister-friend, tumbling into nothingness.

 

I.           

 

My mirror tells the truth.

I like it. 

I have to face the “me” I’d pushed aside, 

Recreating a new self built on the ashes of the old.

 

I remember not being broken,

being proud,

being fearless enough to be always gentle and kind,

when smiles and music blended and ruled,

dating someone for four years thinking it was forever,

thinking I knew the ways of the world.

Now humbled and beaten down,  

I fail. I fall. I get up and try it again.

But there’s no one there to meet me.

No one there to hold out their hand.

 

For years, I walked in circles, a Helter-Skelter rut always one step behind myself,

Like a tiger who blindly chases its own tail,

So proud to have caught what it chased at last

Only to find pain in the taste of blood in its mouth.

My blood: thick and brackish, filled with salt and pesticide.

I finally, and at least, realize it was a worn down circle path.

I can see beyond the milk carton I was in.

So erased that I wasn’t even pictured on its sides.

 

 

 

II.

 

The mountain in the far distance

Is as appealing as it is indifferent

I’ve never reached out.

I don’t know how to let go of my hold on the rocks.

My hands and feet bleed from the climb.

I am a forever student so my attempts are clumsy, hesitant.

There is no one to teach me

Only books and old thirty-three and a thirds on vinyl.

Only traditions and a heritage of gentleness left over

From social systems that crumbled and turned to dust

Long before I was born. 

 

 

III.

 

I am boring, I admit. I cut away the games

Before the rest of me was taken away.

The dainty monster within me died a horrible death.

I am not owed the world, I am simply rebuilding myself

From pieces I’m still finding

Abandoned on the floor.

 

 

 

IV.

 

Like everyone, my pages are filled

With my own story.

It is me inside this skin.

Read my story or don’t,

But don’t assume to know it.

Each of us, no matter how famous or forgotten, is our own story

Inside our own brain, creased with private memories, private thoughts

A private us that no picture shows, that no private investigator could uncover.

Like it or not, indifferent or not,

You are peripheral to everyone,  

No matter how much you are loved,  

No matter how many times we desperately try to fuck ourselves into oneness

      with someone else or multitudes of others.

No matter how many times we yell at each other

      or confide in each other’s ear,

Each of us indeed enters and exits life’s stage alone.

Don’t pretend you haven’t done your own strutting upon it.

As I have, as we all have.

 

 

 

V.

 

Like homage to the absurd spaghetti god

The holy stain from the holy sauce

Was always there as a reminder that I was humbly bowed before you.

My china broken. My youth broken. My world broken.

Next to the stain, the hole from a knife blade

            that took any pretense away. 

“Leave and you die,” you yelled over and over, and I knew it to be true.

 

 

Only a woman

Only a wife

Only a mother

Only a mistress and maid.

Only a “slit bottom”.

No matter how many “A”s I could make

(“It’s not real life”)

Or chess games I could win

(“It’s just a board game”)

No matter how well I played Rachmaninoff

(“What good is music”)

No matter how many years

I could calmly sit at a board meeting

Full of purpose and aplomb;

The promoted woman 

In a room of tailored suits,

The way their ties reminded them they were civilized men

My skirt reminding me of my husband’s taunts.

I would never be more than his

Never enough in this world designed, made, and run by men,

“Only a slit bottom bitch”

Too much the hot house plant to plow the fields

As his mother had

Too everything

And always nothing.

But an object of twisted love

And the protector of the children.

I meant to leave, I meant to leave!

(“You better hide under a dark rock.

 I’ll find you and take the children.

                        You’ll never see them again.”)

 

There are no more lies to tell myself

It was not alright to be the whore and the slave

‘till death do us part and the children are grown enough

            to tell their Daddy no,

                                    and not to listen to his lies.

 

The antithesis of self-absorption.

Nothing so grandiose as a martyred lamb

Or even a damsel in distress.

Just a simple doormat. A slave and nothing more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

VI.

 

I’ll fly a freak flag if it’s really necessary,

But I’m one of countless writers, artists and musicians.

We all know ourselves to be different

We all know the pain

And I’m not in hiding anymore.

I’m in semi-isolated peace and contentment.

I’m retired from the fight. Not necessarily a whole remade self,

But not suffering narcissism, not clueless.

Perhaps too clued. Trying to regain enough self.

Angry that I let myself become what I am:

What’s left of someone who was a good person.

The backbone of my ancestors calls out encouragement.

And I listen to every sound from the mountain.

I’m a great believer in sound.

I watch every change of season, every fallen leaf.

I applaud successes. I cry at the pain. I meditate. I wish

     to find some humbleness left behind your wise wall.

I write, I bleed, I breathe, I care, and I love.

 

 

VII.

 

The mirror doesn’t lie.

If I’ve learned nothing else in my life

I’ve learned you can never know the life of someone else

       By what you see, or hear, or read.

             Believe it, there are well hidden stories

Behind the most public and most private lives.

 

It’s not for me to question yours.

It’s not for anyone to assume they know mine.

 

 

A picture forms behind my eyes,
Pulled from tedious rusted mind full of memories.

          Vanilla candles burn
               dripping white rivulets
                    onto cold, mauve veined marble.
          The sky flies by our white gauze curtains
               in gentle shades of blue,
                    And I smile at the memory of you.

Today the sky is gray.
In the stunted sunlight
You are a wild and wonderful beast
Standing beneath the storm
In a pool of lust too strong to curb or deny.

You are a silhouette of power
With shimmering lion’s aura,
Encircling blonde mane
All disheveled,
Male and proud.
Your Martin filled with shades of blue.

 Charleston, South Carolina has a heartbeat all its own,
     Steady and slow,
The sound is St. Michael’s bell that has rung like clockwork
     For three-hundred years,
     Like an uncracked Liberty Bell
          Through two wars, slavery and civil rights,
And always it sings, “sweet freedom” as it tolls the hour
Over cobblestone streets and tourists taking carriage rides.

Couples still do their promenade on the Battery,
First down from their homes and back
     on Sundays after mandatory church,
With sea spray splashing on white fancy frocks
     and white planters’ suits,
The sound of Palmetto branches rattling
     In the sultry breeze,
          barely audible between the roaring roll of waves.

Rainbow Row, its softly rainbow colored houses
     Turned sideways to the road
     Each facing a garden with intricately designed wrought iron gates,
     And walls of tabby, oyster shells
          peeking out from accidental artistically placed patches.

It’s a matter of pride that only a few blocks away
Porgy met Bess and sang “Summertime” from a porch
     less well kept but sideways to the main road.
          It’s Charleston, after all.
And there’s always ambiance, a smile and a drawl.