proof of life :

she taught me to not like
myself/

especially, my image
— in photographs and in the moments themselves

ingraining a self-consciousness in me

in the candidness of my real life

in

play
laughter
effort
surprise
exertion
contemplation
fatigue
wonder
sadness
silliness
conversation
worry
unmade

pose, poise, posture, profile, perfect,

control

and because perfection

is unattainable,

in the eye of the beholder and in the eye of the beheld

she was absent from the photos of our lives, and so also was i,

becoming onlooker, background, instead of subject

and, i learned to make myself invisible

to become invisible

to accept invisibility

there are so many ways to be a thief


self-portrait, proof of life,
Kahlo, an ideal of self-possession

proof of life | crone consciousness

a perfect girl for one brief moment

Open

I walk bare

out in the open

on borrowed land|stolen

to be returned to the people, to all be-ings, to them

with my bones or ash interred, one day

the Sun, Moon, Rain, Wind, Clouds, Sky and Stars
kiss me at all hours

did you see me open up
this Autumn?

after a Summer spent crying,
wet, yet fruitless

spent Spring wading into lies instead of soft blossoms and new grass
Winter approaches, maybe the frost will kill this disease,
for good

For now, I bathe

nearly naked in sunshine, cold rainstorms, wetland pools and moonlight

unapologetically

|out in the open|

unabashedly

baptising
my face,
hair,
and eyes,
my breasts
vulva
and legs,
my lips,
throat,
spine,
and my wild heart

ceremonially, first
with wine, like Magdalene, anointing and anointed,
in the name of the mother, Sun and holy ghosts
|cabernet henna|
then, with rainwater from the willow’s edge, like Ophelia,
lying in the woodland and meadow, flooded
to cleanse or drown [to be, or not to be]
in the name of the Moon

|I ponder the stone cistern laden with glacial deposits and ruminant bones|

the woodland is abundant with new mushroom, new overnight growth

[puhpowee]

the hint of ancient circles supplants my judgment with instinct
and overrides decorum with new delights
| and old delights, revisited |

an aged grapevine is rooted deep, climbing, trailing, snaking
hidden in plain sight, everywhere
and I’ve intuited It as Ol’ Scratch,
I take a hatchet to quell Its influence, here

You,
Your windows are not true eyes
Your lamps are not enlightenment

So, bless the dark

of the night

of the country night sky

And the Moonset

of my moon

it’s been decades,
but
this place wants to birth or impregnate me,

and I want that too
i want it to

|I come here and open up|

 

 

Famêlée

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This feels like an arrow
Made from a tree
That rose from
An acorn
That I gathered and stored
In another life

Scribed with a message continually
piercing my heart

I wasn’t only wounded though,
I was woke
into a clarity
that I was already sighting in my dreams,
writing with words
mortal and eternal

You once said, proclaimed or whispered
Every single thing
that I ever believed
My own truths embarrassed in the shadow of your confidence
My inner voice silenced in your animated persuasion
Believing you so completely – for the better of my years
Becoming like and unlike you because of it,
but not be-coming me,
Un-be-coming me every day

I ain’t even mad
You don’t know this – still,
You don’t want
to hear,
or listen;

Our time is running out
Even this admission
Is sure to haunt me one day,
and guilts me today

But I can’t call you confidant or crone
If you refuse to learn,
to evolve,
From this one archetype

The wide and long view
seems to escape you
You live in the moment in the least way, the worst way
And I don’t worship here or there, any more
The faith in your godliness is gone,
It is unfamiliar
For me to pity you
You, deaf and tone deaf

You had all the answers
In the morning shallows, perhaps
But evaporation revealed even those
Were anchor-less, yet stationary
An algae
Mucking up the colorless perfection of sunlit water

But in the deep, or dark, or quiet pools, you were always so lost
And in the ocean, at night
You drown even in its calm
You have ridden civil swells and storms,
I’ll give you that
But have you ever communed with waves
Allowing them to be part of you
Swallowing and absorbing the mystery
Becoming the colorless perfection of dark water

You seem to stay parched
Your belly’s hollow from impious fasting and pious thirst
You do know that’s where your heart sits?

But let’s agree to come around again, friend
We’ll swap places and next time
I’ll be the mother,
and the son,
and the husband,
and the elder,
and the babe,
and the foreign one,
I’ll become The Other One
because,
I want the chance to know
You

 

Wanderten Mutter

“Lief heim ins Seitelein.” Unitätsarchiv, R.20.E.36.12. Archiv der Brüder-unität, Herrnhut. http://bq.blakearchive.org/40.3.schuchard “Lief heim ins Seitelein.” Unitätsarchiv, R.20.E.36.12. Archiv der Brüder-unität, Herrnhut.
http://bq.blakearchive.org/40.3.schuchard

My life seems long, I know
My body’s mostly worn
Inside, she’s just begun to live, again
A girl gone long ago

There are bottled laughs to voice aloud
New smiles to wear with these old shoes
Time to know the world, and you, and you, and you…
Between these peeling walls of muted hues

Once Herr died
My Self was ready to return
My cadence so shy and slow,
Lamenting the awkward waste of precious years

I find my voice as I write the past,
But in my book, the Tomorrow has no page
Forever winter approaches from within
These years and years upright on hard chairs

Unreal, unseen, unheard, untouched
by the world, by the womb, it may concern, Whom
I speak through and then beyond this pain of bone and life
Before the cold within brings silence of the tomb

You see, to me, my presence still feels warm, and blush
somehow, even new
My life stretched out behind me, no steps ahead
And I forestall Death’s cue, awaiting mere glimpse of you

If you can imagine, child
I love, unsaid,
I feel as just alive, as real, as you.

Lamentations of Birth and Exultations of Re-Birth: An ode of the birthed and mothered on Mother’s Day

Lamentation and Exultation

I am spirit
Though not pre-conceived;
I was conceived; and pro-created;
I contained knowledge, and
I was known
I did experience,
and I remembered; but
I was then birthed, and
I became human; so
I was mother’d;

I was mis-guided;
I was injured,

I was mis-judged; and
I was so scarred

I became ignorant;
I became blind
I forgot experience;

I became animal
I fell asleep and
I became unknown;

I too conceived; and
I pro-created
He too was spirit
He too contained knowledge;

I birthed him ignorance
He too was experienced;
He too remembered
I was the witness; but
I was still blind’d

I was still sleeping;
I then mother’d, and
he became human,

I then mis-guided,
I then injured,
I then mis-judged
I then so scarred;

I saw the death of one dear before me;
and then,
I remembered;
I was re-wakened,

I became un-blind’d;
I sought my [lost] knowing
I reclaimed my experience;

I forgave the mis-guidance
I so sought forgiveness;
I forgave the mis-understanding
I so sought forgiveness;
I forgave the injury
I so sought forgiveness;

I understood ignorance, and
I so sought re-knowing:

Those who are born are meant to be born;
Some who are born, though, choose to be born;
Most who are born though, have no choice to be born;
Most who are unborn; are not meant to be born
Not meant for this time; not meant for this World;
Those who have birthed, those who have fathered, have re-pro-created error;

Still there are Those who were sung into exIStence
Those are the Ones who chose to be born;
Now those who were birthed, not sung into existence, must will to re-member,
must choose to re-birth, to become re-known;

I re-membered mySelf, re-birthed mySelf
Now,
I am beginning to become re-Known.


Jesus said: “When you see one who was not born of woman, prostrate yourselves on your faces and worship him. That one is your father.” – Gospel of Thomas (15)

Jesus said, “The man old in days will not hesitate to ask a small child seven days old about the place of life, and he will live. For many who are first will become last, and they will become one and the same.” – Gospel of Thomas (4)

Jesus said, “Take heed of the living one while you are alive, lest you die and seek to see him and be unable to do so.” – Gospel of Thomas (59)

A woman from the crowd said to him, “Blessed are the womb which bore you and the breasts which nourished you.”
He said to her, “Blessed are those who have heard the word of the father and have truly kept it. For there will be days when you will say, ‘Blessed are the womb which has not conceived and the breasts which have not given milk.’ – Gospel of Thomas (79)