To Inspiration

I

I allow myself to wither
My passions separated out from
the lyrical
The core of thought desiccated
in prose
While I try to ferment these thoughts
unassisted
into words.

From time to time the dam breaks open
and my need for poetry to
translate
out my thoughts, unable to
contain
my scratch work in my head
any longer
to describe.

In this way the disparate parts of me
I segregate the elements that make me
my passion
from my thoughts, and so I dwell in the
facts and figures
moving out my emotions through a
vent hole
in private.

II

There is a time that a story can move
words without sound
dance more powerful without music
ecstatic exhalations of
power, emotion and thought in one
gigantic swoop of expression.

My own words trembled and failed to pass out
the encompassing effects.
But though my speech doesn't move
my thoughts do, my soul does
and, guided forward by the winds of fellows
already moving, I move too.

III

In 1969 (no jokes just now please)
Feminist Theorist Carol Hanisch declared
"The personal is Political"
A response to the idea that when a group
of people suffering under
oppression come together to discuss their
oppression, it is "Just group therapy."

Throughout the ages (maybe longer than we've been homo sapiens sapiens)
art has been a method of non-verbal declaration
Expression of our interior into the exterior world.
To dare to speak the unspeakable,
Expressing in words-
or without them- that which might,
in fullness, not lend itself to language alone.

We are taught (Or is it demanded?)

that our desperation is private, our personal

a secret to be shared in dimly- or fluorescently- lit rooms.

Our pain is somehow ours alone,

to separate experience

from the cause and conditions that

create and foster the framework upon which we are suspended.

Instead, someday (soon?)

can we not take our experience and, raw as art,

push out our collective ill-conceived self-loathing

acknowledging our unified-

and diverse-

experience, as people whose lives

before "without" defined, bloom from within identified out.

Dedicated to the performers of Sins Invalid- who inspire me not only to take my personal into public/political, but to take my experience- my "art"- there as well.

Analogy>Simile>Metaphor and Me

I. Analogy

Experience : is to

Once

I put my hand down

into a vat of wine that was fermenting

and felt the foam that was bubbling

up,

As the glucose broke down into

ethanol, and CO2 bubbled up

Exothermic

past the layer of sludgy

grape rinds.

:: as Emotion : is to

Often,

I read articles

constructed by "professionals", families

supposed allies in my life, that then make

my

Emotions active, rising my blood pressure

and the heat slowly releasing

from my skin

in waves, stomach acids

churning.

II. Simile

My emotions then rise within me

like

CO2 from fermenting glucose;

my skin and thoughts release

as

the exothermic reaction of fermentation;

My physiological markers of distress feel

like

the bubbling yeast felt on my hands.

III. Metaphor

My rage and indignation

ferments as I read the words my

oft called

(by others)

allies have written

about, for, in lieu of me.

I release out my CO2 exhalations

In effort to respond to those who would

speak "for"

(how can they?)

me and mine

the heat, passion, held in frothing.

Bubbling up within me, I try to

translate out this emotion and find my

words lacking

(can words ever?)

to express the

emotion, sensation, feeling of you

and your presumptions of how far I can take this.

____

If you would like more info on what fermentation is/does/means in wine making, try this article at everyday Chemistry.

Allied, Unallied, Re-Ally.

Allied forces grey and green and flying

Technicolor on the television

our memorabilia reflecting

reminiscing

that our father's father's (father's)

alliance was not based on the same

wants needs expectations

of our allies...

And today I sit in a sea wider

Broader than the Atlantic that frothed

at Nomandy when my "grandfather"

climbed

the beaches soon to be wet with

a fluid that is NOT ocean

contemplate wonder self-doubt

me as ally...

My ancestral family rose up out of

Normandy and conquered and pillaged

presumed dominance

over those whose father's fathers were kings

In the name of our own prides

to subjugate the pride of a culture still rebuilding from

the last invasion...

I have to ask myself if their blood runs

too hot within my veins? Does it

spoil

my heart beats, my ancestral privilege?

Does conquest or obliviousness run in the

double helix of my fathers and again

in me...?

As my Grandfather's brothers walked into

a camp teeming with death unpredicted-

unimaginable-

did they feel the foot of their soul sink

into the quicksand of realization?

Or did they allow pride to restablize

them as heros....?

When we cast our roles as heros

denying how we conquest or ally without

perspective

how is that any different than the ignorance

we declare ourselves fighting to conquer?

Good things do sometimes come from our ignorances-

but should they?

Poetry and the vision of thought

I pour out these words

to describe the state of being

in my head

before I can make them form

the language that you all are speaking

Hours Days weeks at a time they build up

till over washing into this flood plain

of poetry

before fermenting, bubbling, then

coalescing into words that make sense

or seem to

Until I realize I've misunderstood your language again.

Feet

The arch curling round

bracing around what is surely

those absences society sees in us

the lack- they say lack

lack, a word with so much of saying

that there is something that

should must be there

but isn't-

of eyes touching

easy embrace

the societally explained expectations

that lead only to disappointment

when pursued-

in my experience at least.

Instead there is that space

of each of us being our own

beings

and yet united

continued, flowing, unlimited

by the bonds of societal affection.

our skills and wants and needs

uniquely ours and yet

a part and parcel of the drive

or desire of one whole.

United only by

the touching of our feet.