Noise

We all swim now, submerged in the noise of meta-data-exhaust,

Our climate changed by a constant flood of digital-audio-visual-content.

Many people seem to breathe this noise effortlessly,

As if they have suddenly grown gills, somehow.

Me - I flounder, un-evolved, unfit to survive the thick atmosphere of information.

I gasp and choke on this noise, feeling like I will implode, wondering how to grow gills.

I try to carve out artificial niches of silence,

Like diving bells. Like space suits.

How many of the others, who seem to me to be functioning fine,

Have, in fact, adapted to this? Or how many, instead, inhale the poisonous noise

With tender lungs meant for silence,

and slip into unconsciousness,

And drown?

Craigslisted

ROOM WANTED

Seeking someone to let me live in his (or her) attic free of rent. I am exceedingly quiet and tidy. I do tend to wander in gardens and stare at bugs. I prefer not to be spoken to. This someone would need to stand, once daily, below the window, so that I may lower a basket down to him (or her) with my poems tied in ribbon. He (or she) shall then send aloft, by same basket: fruit, cheese, paper, and more ribbons.

Only serious respondents need contact emdick@yoohoo.nut

OH, THIS BRAIN OF MINE

This brain of mine

Called bipolar

Is given plenty of drugs

To draw in the poles

And shrink the swings in its behavior.

But every half a year or so,

It still climbs the pole

Called manic

And I exhale - I’ll have a couple of weeks of feeling

More like myself, and relief

From that flat brain and its trips down the pole

Called depression

I wake up ready

To get out of bed and do stuff;

The stuff I went to bed thinking of -

And I think of stuff!

I do things while I’m doing things -

I can do several things fluidly –

Putting my hands to one after the other.

I sing show tunes out loud – usually Oklahoma! –

Oh, what a beautiful morning!

My room is clean before I know I cleaned it,

And poems write themselves in my head,

And I have to scribble to keep up with them,

And I eat standing, and plan the next thing

I’ll do after the dishes,

I finish all my half-knitted scarfs,

And feel ten pounds lighter,

Or ten times stronger,

Or ten years younger,

Or something.

I wake up, and I feel, and I do -

Whenever this brain of mine

Like a brightly colored flag

Climbs up the pole

I call MYSELF.

My Mom

This one is for my mom
who worries about me
when she reads my sad poems.

She's a mother bear,
ready to maul anyone
who would try to hurt me.

But what is she supposed to do
when I seek out my own pain
and revel in it?

Her precious cub
has wandered off
and tends to mope.

But she manages to love me,
to love my sad words
fiercely, from afar.

I want to tell her that
I'm happy being sad - I'm happiest
when sad words come together in a poem.

I wish my sad wouldn't make her sad.
I wish my happy could make her happy,
but in every case she loves me.

SEED

(image source: http://mindsparkenigma.blogspot.com.au/2010/04/seed.html)

The seed of pain

is planted in my left heel,

like a stone unnoticed until

I stand.

It speaks with each step:

Stop! What do you think you’re doing?

I think I’m walking.

It's something to do

besides food, alcohol, money, internet, sex -

the one thing I can think of

that should cause me no harm

while I avoid facing pain.

After some miles

The sprouting seed reaches up,

Unfolding tender leaves into my ankle

With every step now the pain blossoms

And shouts. But my right foot continues

To catch my forward movement.

After more miles

Pain is an established plant

Echoing when I’m off my foot,

Sending new shoots to my knee with each limp.

I know I must stop walking.

Soon. I sit down.

The seed of pain

is planted in my heart,

noticed no matter how hard I try not to.

Wine is no herbicide.

It speaks with each word I write:

Stop! what do you think you’re doing?

I think I’m facing myself finally,

or at least trying to stop

with the running away in every way I run,

To face whatever this root of truth is

So I write - name things,

Look it square.

After some time

the sprouting seed reaches up,

unfolding tender leaves into my tear ducts and sinuses.

With every word now pain blossoms,

and shouts – true names: 

Lost, Failed, Broken, Alone.

After more words

the plant is established, but not the same

as the stunted weed that started.

Now that I have let it live in the light,

It bears mysterious fruit:

Healing, peace, release, rest.

I know at some point I will

Let the garden go back to seed.

I don't like pain. No matter what grows.

So I will write as long as I can stand, then stop.

This is why it takes my heart

So long to get anywhere.

Merciless Muse

A man who had painted himself all blue

Shouts political diatribes into a megaphone,

Without pause for breath. He shouts

At everyone, at no one, about

Everything wrong.

I sit and listen respectfully for a while,

Then, when I walk past, I thank him for speaking,

Wanting to honor the effort it takes

To express himself so honestly.

He ignores me.

I suppose that you don’t paint yourself blue,

And shout into a megaphone, if you care what

Anyone thinks, or need some woman’s approval.

He serves a merciless muse,

Poor man.

AWKWARD

From the bus, I watched a man

with his pants pulled up high,

white socks with dress shoes, oafish,

walking as if a stiff wind fought him. I thought…

What does he do for a job?

Do his coworkers like him?

Tolerate him? Tell stories?

Has he loved someone?

Has someone tried to love him?

And how do any of us make it through life?

I mean, we don’t, of course.

We all die from something.

But before we die, we live, 

limp along,

Walking funny, talking funny, dressing funny,

Hurting

Others and ourselves,

And being hurt,

Laughing our asses off out loud,

Wasting time, and our time

Is so precious.

How do we make it through?

Loving and fearing,

Dying every day,

Wanting things and losing things,

And holding things too tightly,

Trying, TRYING,

We are all just trying.

We all walk into a stiff wind.

KNOWING MY PLACE

(photo stolen from Tamara Bryan)

In this place of natural beauty I think I could stay, and have so much fodder for poems.
- rain clouds rising from steep hills -
- spume spraying iron colored sand -

My voice could speak for all the world. But quickly after nailing a few apt descriptors
- looming, profligate and rich -
- ever-changing, fitful and fleeting -

I descend into simply listing all the elements overwhelming me and pushing me out
- wren, goose, otter, moss, mist -
- ocean, ocean, ocean, sky, sky -

I realize that none of it needs me to describe it or name it. Every last bit speaks for itself.
- you know such places -
- you'll fall silent, for no poem can represent -

It is all I can do here to listen and wonder and become something else. Any poem is only my voice
- creating my self in this crowded place -
- At a loss but for my own words -

Paper Flower Man

Arnold the Paper Flower Man

Works at one of the shared tables in the café,

Shredding paper towels into delicate strips,

Fluttering, flipping, and swirling the pieces,

His hands move like moths.

(He says this is to impress the eight year olds. I am enraptured.)

Dipping a finger lightly in water and brushing the frayed edge,

He molds fantastic flowers that are propped up in to-go cups.

Tendrils, leaves, petals, stems and stamens bloom.

Arnold is binge-watching Downton Abbey on his laptop

While he makes ART.

He flamboyantly makes flowers out of paper towels,

No matter what anyone else thinks.

This is the very definition of a MAKER SPACE –

I sit down with my coffee and sandwich across from him,

Knowing that HERE needs no permission.

I eat, and watch Arnold work, and feel this poem coming on.

I say, “BRAVO, Arnold!” in loopy letters – it’s what I do.

He’s glancing, guessing probably I write about him,

Knowing full well he’s a spectacle – spectacular –

So we make things, and watch each other make things.

It’s not that we don’t care what anyone else thinks.

We can’t help but care deeply, (playing for a crowd, as we are),

But we have to do something -

MAKE something -

Be something -

While everyone else thinks what they think.

I think I like making things with Arnold the Paper Flower Man.

(Arnold World Drake has written a book about his art, We Dont Fold, We Roll, and has a website, worldpaperflowers.com.)

WHEN THE LAKE SPARKLES

An ecstasy for me
Is when words sound out
Themselves, and express a thing,
Round out a truth.

That I love that my brain works that way
Makes me a poet.

Anther ecstasy, immediate,
Is when there are no words that can say
What sun and wind do on water
And to me.

That I love that my brain doesn't work when the lake sparkles
Makes me alive.

PROBLEM SOLVED

If I do whatever feels good in the moment,

Adding positives that gratify the instant,

It calculates: what feels good PLUS what feels good PLUS what feels good

EQUALS hangovers and mania.

If I avoid what causes hangovers and mania,

Omitting negatives that didn’t work the first time,

It calculates: what causes bad MINUS what causes bad MINUS what causes bad

EQUALS a void life. (I avoided living.) What have I got left?

I am trying to sit still a minute, and figure out my desired outcome,

Then build an equation backwards –

THIS may not feel good, or THAT may cause pain,

But it calculates: PLUS this and MINUS that and MULTIPLY the other

EQUALS the sum at which I hope to arrive.  Right?

What adds up for you? I advise:

Don’t waste your time with digits that do nothing for the final answer.

Find real numbers that are true for you and add only that every day.

I think that will solve the problem. I’ll keep you posted.

CRAZY IDEAS

Crazy Ideas:

Maybe I could eat only when necessary only what is necessary,

Like treating a disease called starvation.

Maybe I could wear only the most functional clothes, like a mumu or a robe,

Or my Jedi costume every day. Could I?

Crazier Ideas:

Maybe I should never get in a car again. Maybe I should stop talking altogether.

Hyperlink John Francis, environmentalist.

Maybe I should sign up on Freecycle, and give away all my possessions at once,

And change my name to something Elfin or Hobbit. Should I?

Not So Crazy Ideas:

Maybe I will stick to a schedule. Maybe I will remember to take my meds.

SIT. STAY. Good girl.

Maybe I will turn off the electric buzz of my devices and power down.

Close my eyes, and rest. Will I?

The Craziest:

I want to open my eyes in every sense, and see souls, and hear them.

To let them stop me in my tracks.

I want to walk at the pace of my heartbeat. I want to walk everywhere.

To write to the same rhythm.  May I?

Oh, let me receive every embrace and hold on.

Let me follow whims and pray and give thanks.

Let me honor everything I find that is tender and broken.

Let me let in this crazy stream of coulds, and shoulds, and wills, and mays;

Let me let flow this stream of consciousness from the desert mother’s mouth.

Let her answer me - YES. Yes, daughter, you must.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Francis_%28environmentalist%29)

(note from the poet: I don't mean to be offensive with the word, "crazy." It's in my own head, about my own head.)

Work in Progress

I haven't figured out how to edit this yet. But I'm feeling this a lot today.

WORK IN PROGRESS

The voices in my head
who are me
keep up a stream
of instruction that I hear
with varying degrees
of attention and reaction.

Emotion: guilt desire fear shame hope

Right now they are loud
and I am inert
listening and puzzling
unable to sort out a direction
unwilling to accept
the solution of more medication.

Progression: bearing my brain in bloom