All My Relations
Saturday, September 30, 2023
Thursday, September 28, 2023
Temerarious Tempest Reader in a Teacup
Temerarious Tempest Reader in a Teacup
Clever Crocutas serving high tea and trading omens
upon the shadowed ceiling of their oracular cave
Striped, spotted, earthy brown
Ferocious matriarchs, relentless Houdinis
never quite where or what you expect
Lunar priestesses, cloisonne pots steaming sigils
from Serengeti to Caucasus
Leading cackling feliform carnivoran packs.
Turning surviving into thriving
the way high rollers turn a pittance
into winner's stacks.
Roll them bones!
Mama needs a new pair of shoes!
Set yourself free from fears.
There is the cave that holds
the treasure you seek.
Giggle, chuckle, fill nights with cocksure glee.
Howl with the absurd hilarity
run mad as often as you please,
but do not faint, Fanny,
Oscar, so wild, combing your manes!
It could all turn on a dime.
Tails, you run!
Life is the grand game,
yet no one gets out alive.
Master that throat chakra, folks!
Clarity in communication
is worth more than being shy, quaint.
Nobody has time for that.
Laughter reduces shadows.
Good medicine for everything
except broken ribs.
Having some left at the end of the day
means there is still hope for tomorrow.
Laughter and tears
soap for the soul.
Moods are contagious.
Be courageous.
Stand in your truth.
Hunt diligently for the right words
rather than scavenge for what you can make use of
just because it is laying close at hand, MacGyver.
Tough enough to laugh first at yourself, fool.
Consult the Clan.
Hear our concert.
Create your oasis.
Fierce bite protects loyal heart.
Ready your battle plans.
Lead from the center of the mud puddle
Shenzi, Banzai... Ed
Everything light and shadow touches
Crown your lunacy
while shifting shape
on the crossroads of your desert
For those new to the game, each piece in the Singing series is inspired by a Teacher found in Nature; a star, stone, animal, plant etc that holds lessons of Wisdom for us. Can you guess who is singing today?
Hyenas have often gotten a bad reputation in folklore or symbolically, been cast as the villains, deceitful brutes or just dirty scavengers. In truth they more solidly represent the duality of nature, both worthy and brutal. Hyenas can hunt alone or in packs. They are capable of strategic thinking, fearless courage, great strength, resourceful, adaptable, resilient and yet all four species are most known for their barking which sounds so much like laughter. Hyena could represent fear, chaos, darkness, powers from beyond the void and the messengers that travel between carrying power, even death... and the laughter that exposes all those things, breaks their hold and dispels them, protection from all the evils that go bump in the night.
Saturday, September 9, 2023
Puirt à beul of the Maringouin
Puirt à Beul of the Maringouin
Whining hum
Here they come
Back again
Forever complaining
Incessant at the gate of every ear
since the dawn of time
226 million years
if it has been a minute, surely.
they come
as surely as winter thaws into spring
Oh yes go right ahead!
Help yourself
I see your narrow crystalline grin
revealing nary a jagged tooth
Butter wouldn't melt there!
Are you all world's worst come again?
Aedes, Culex, and Anopheles, oh my!
Click my ruby heels
Not saccharine little old you?
Something more savory?
Something with a little spice?
Bite down nevertheless
Dig deep,
not to the bone for your savory fare
just beneath the skin is far enough
Needling everyone around you
Work them into a rash, a fever
Set the world abuzz!
Slaver, drool over your feast
Swamp angel, Nighthawk
Spreading plague
Sowing discontent
Breeding anger, lies, rumors, gossip, envy
Make them itch with malcontent
Derision dropping easier than blood
from another wayward prick
Rub everyone the wrong way
Perhaps turning even the air toxic around you
Dispersing along paths of least resistance
with hardly more than an errant slap
as a screening process
to inoculate the masses
from the black vomit
unrelenting scourge
of our droning
repellant asses
Irritated?
Curse the day that ever we were born?
Think you are the first do you?
Let it go
All things pass eventually
even if they pass like hailstones
Even us,
Passing through cycles
through lives, rooms, dreams, veils
Vectors unstudied yet
Interconnected
Valuable to the fabric of life
in the extremist of conditions
Delicate enough to carry
a spark of creation
spreading verdant life
as easily as devastating disease
Balance in recycling motion
Yin Yang
Patience
The water's mirror will still once more
Reflect
Rise above
Resist
Persist
Examine
Transform as reason and season dictate
Be objective
Be present
Be here
Now
Sing in our ears
Hum along if you don't know the words
You are
the very cure you seek
Physician heal thyself
Spread the cure
Save the World
For those new to the game, each piece in the Singing series is inspired by a Teacher found in Nature; a star, stone, animal, plant etc that holds lessons of Wisdom for us. Can you guess who is singing today?
p.s. whew! lol It has been a minute. ;) just wanted to say, this is the first completely new Teacher poem I have managed since my mom passed. Like it or not lol I am pleased with this Shadow Teacher's song that has been humming in my ears a little louder every year since mom slipped the veil in 2018. more importantly to my heart, I know Mom would be so pleased and would laugh when I told her about this one. She always was so pleased, each and every time I had something to stick up on the fridge she carried around in her Mom heart since day one. I was so very lucky to have her. <3 Congratulations to Cathi on being the first to name this Creature Teacher!
Monday, April 24, 2023
Coursing River Dividing My Heart
Warning: therapy poetry.... it ain't pretty people. so, if you don't have the space for it today, skip this one. It needs somewhere to live other than my body. That's all. It doesn't need anything, just... air. lol
I sang your name to you
while you dreamed in your shell
I loved you with a wild joy
before either of us knew who you were
You seemed to see the world with a heart of compassion
You seemed to want to love it whole, happy, sane again
like I once did
as a foolish girl with dreams too large
I tried to shelter your heart close to mine as you grew
while letting you grow in your own directions
I tried to guard, to guide, to listen, to hear
Above all, believe you
when you took the time to speak to me
I saw when you began to hide and lie to me
It happens when we leave childhood behind
Life batters us, distracts, confuses
We all stumble, lose our way
Love is the source
All that heals, binds, lifts us up, inspires, makes worthy
We gather, share, to make ourselves not only happy but stronger
Beacons of lightSo my mother taught me
So Life has shown
So I believe
So I instructed
I didn't understand when you began lying to yourself
I didn't understand when you began treating yourself like a victim
I didn't understand when you stopped listening to me, hearing me, believing me
I didn't understand when you began to treat me more like a roommate than a parent
I damn sure don't understand when you went from "I would never do that to you, Mom"
to ripping my heart out so casually
leaving it on the floor like a forgotten toy
without a word, or a picture, or a scribble, not even one smile from your kids
while their presents pile up at graves that don't yet exist
to punish me for being your parent
to punish me for being the roof over your head and theirs
to punish me for being there to care for your children every day for years
diapers, baths, bedtime, meals, stories
just as I did every day for you
not just come and see Yaya so she can give you sweets
then go home after a visit
No
I fell asleep exhausted next to them
at the end of long days
Just like I did next to you and your siblings
a second parenthood I never earned nor complained of
How awful when Aunt So and So cut off precious Grandma
never did let her see those boys again
How evil when that sociopath denied me
the ability to see our first grandson
for an entire year
before she went and got him killed when he was just 3
Devastated the whole family
Why would anyone use their own child as a tool to cause pain,
or like a commodity with which to punish or reward?
Generational Trauma unleashed
Off the hook, connections unmade
"I would never do that to you, Mom"
I can still feel your arms around me as you said that
Liar
Nothing was enough to stop you
from dividing my heart
with your piercing river
Inexorable
Heedless
Consistently
From Texas to college and therapy
You rolled over all my concerns
with what you simply desired
as careless as a river in full flood
No thought to the damage you will leave in your wake
No empathy for the mourners left wailing along your banks
never to reclaim their loved ones for proper burial
Abandoned
by your piercing river
that should have brought love, healing, a renewal of wisdom
instead of this unnatural disaster
Because I insisted
Get Therapy or Get Out
for serious abusive issues
to a no job boyfriend
who just moved into the house
depressing the entire family
after two years of being forced to live in silence
against my will, better judgement, sanity, personal faith
all while I watch the campaign being run against me
the scapegoat
on the other side of your widening river
My heart dissolves slowly
like banks too soft to withstand yet another rain
While your sister
who refused to be a living light
laughs and tells me
You were not tactful enough, Mother
Enough
I could cry my own river
with how much I miss her
but I am thankful she
my Mom, the original Black Sheep,
isn't here to see any of this bullshit
We loved too much
She and I
We may be divided
You and I
Yet
I will not be drowned
by your silly trickle, my little love
For Love is the source
Not me
Not you
No matter how you flow
nor how we rage or grieve
You too will return to the source eventually
Though I may storm now
eventually my love will lie calm again
Reflecting that perfect light
back to you once again
Perhaps a sailboat or two
Moonlight
upon the ribbon of the river
dividing my heart
Sunday, November 6, 2022
Revolutionary
Tuesday, May 14, 2019
Odonata Sonata
Thursday, March 14, 2019
Love in Shades of Amethyst
Crown of Athens
Modest, humble, faithful
although not so shy
We hide among the shadows
whispering liminal wisdom
in shades of twilight sky
True of heart, woodland nobles
We herald the Goddess of Spring
encouraging honesty
temperance
self reinvention
cautioning vigilance in all things
Herb of the Trinity becomes cordial sweet
We could stew to thicken your soup
Heart shaped leaves tossed as tasty greens
Our song opens a place within
for contented self acceptance
pressed between pages
Perfumed reminder like
Napoleon's love for Josephine
For those new to the game, each piece is inspired by a teacher found in Nature: a star, stone, plant, animal etc that holds lessons of Wisdom for us. Can you guess who is singing today?