Words Search

Words

Poetry becomes concrete when written

My mouth longs for what wasn’t said 

I sit searching for the moments I can laugh again

Instead I look at your fashion flaws

Frayed jeans accented by expensive shoes.

Your head turns to my request to style.

I didn’t touch your hair. Could I? Would I?

Appeals will be released?

I surrender to poetry.  

Frozen in time I know you somewhere:

The electricity of who I am will be freed.

Words and Feelings no longer constrained.  

A gentle kiss will return.

My words and needs to tell you more.

Will flow, being made solid,

Wherever they land they will be ours.

Memories ignited

--Pat Schneider, Writing Alone and With Others

Week #1 Prompt:

• “Close your eyes and recall your earliest memory. (or very early memory). Where are you? How old are you? Who is with you? What emotions are you experiencing? What is going on in the scene around you? Consider the sensory experience of this memory and explore it in your writing. What do you see, taste, feel, hear, or smell?”

 My hand is gripped tightly, being squeezed in my mother’s larger hand as I walk into an office building on States Street, in Rochester, New York. Could I find this building today? I'm not sure. I was not yet five years old? I usually walked into this same space with my father's grasp, as I remember his hand had a different force about it. I want to believe it was less fearful and more loving. Is this the truth, only in my imagination? What I can remember is the largeness of the freight elevator and the spaces in the wooden slats as we rode up to the floor where my father had a rifle range. For years I had a fear of the space between the doors and the floor of the elevator.

I have always been told I should write a book. Stories have been my coping and I am keeping this Blog as a way to record parts of my history. I also have promised my son I would get my stories on the computer. As I spent hours this afternoon looking at my paper trail, I  will not be held back, I am remembering and expanding on my truths and what I have found charted in journal and legal pads. My very important friend who was pivotal in my childhood friend’s passing, has given me a drive to move forward with a sense of urgency.

Tonight’s Diversion

Tonight’s memories and gifts. A Diversion from Grief to my Art

A young man walks past;

Shoulders baring his bike

He speaks to my Art

Artworks surround his passage

He handed me a gift of admiration,

Unsolicited yet accepted in full.

We express my creativity given life.  

Freedom unlocks my closets

My breathing is to be shown.

My spirit then tired and worn.

I haven’t a clue of my assets.

How would they appear and hang to be displayed?

Then this stranger offered vigor.

Now it’s hung with a donation of help.

It waits for words and prices.

Who now might give this Art a home?

Bonnie

My childhood friend died this week and a wide net is cast on the world to embrace our memories! Now as I work in such a small amount of time; I see how I have cast my web which expresses my art in memories! Abstractions in my poetry are found as I work. I know what is seen or read or heard depends on the mind of those who look from their lives! There are many meanings to even one sentence, one brush stroke. Clarity finds words spreading in circles, stretching across the canvas of my life. I am the artist and as I open to be seen. I release without expectations; only hope! Yet now I am being defined by her memory. We were sisters, without blood, as our childhood was meshed together. I spent a lot of time at her home. She had a family, Mother, father and two brothers, my mother and I ate many a family dinner there. She ate everything, I picked and gagged on green beans. She played the piano and taught me chop sticks. That was the extent of my music lessons. As we entered our teen years we sat in the bathroom exploring our bodies, separately. Hiding there, sitting on the floor, we looked and giggled.  This was a time when it was all considered; that anything below our waist and above were private parts. As preteens we were going to break the rules. Oh there were so many of rules. She was beautiful with breasts already and I had none. We began to drift, however our connection continued. Bonnie is Gone. Can I write a poem about such a concrete part of my life? I hope so, It will come!

Truth Seeker

  

The truth I need to unleash has found itself on my doorstep in a dream; A lost little girl comes crying, telling me to take her home and love her. That's not how it works and I know it, but do I fully understand. Have I the ability to integrate this into my heart, I’m not sure!

 "There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth... not going all the way, and not starting." ~ Buddha  

My dream last night was that of my first husband’s parents coming to visit me with photos of various artifact’s, I had left behind. They wanted me to take what I wanted, I asked if he was still alive. As I stared at the remnants of my past, in some ill begotten form, I really didn’t want any of it. There was a man on a motorcycle who was there to protect me. At first I thought it was one of my brother’s drunken friends. As dreams go there is a jumble of thoughts and lingering questions. Was David Hamilton still alive in San Francisco, I heard that he had become a porno star? Had he gotten Aids? It had happened to so many of the people I danced and frolicked with where I met him.  In my dream he was still alive. What I know is that his memory and what he meant to me and our nights as a married couple. My first sexual experience was that of humiliation and it lingers with me now.  I didn’t know till after this was a part of  my primal self.

I have kept very few remnants of photography and news clippings from my first wedding, as I clean and get rid of just another layer of my past. I have found a photo of the very beautiful me with David’s hand perfectly posed on my waist. My sense of loss of  real love and trust became a doorway to discovering how life could build some base of  discovering a world that had where I had no idea of how men could love men and women could love women. The question became who did I love? 

My naïve, freighted virginal self, carried abuse,  and the ability with my first husband not being able to make love me as a heterosexual male; for he was gay. I was clueless.

So many stories start and don’t get to be finished until the end!

Can it be truth?

This space is mine

I sit for hours staring

Greeting the world I have created

You walk with me yet you’re not there

Steps cemented with vibrations

My body wrapped in yours

I know the photo exists.

This photographic memory

Tender touches and grace

Windows light and fire blares

A crest to my back illuminates

Your words are mine.

You thought I might doubt

I do not; I will not!

My truth moves forward.

Over the Top

Fact or Fiction

My Athletic Aging

A memoir of my life

Without a game book

A pheromone (from Greek φέρω phero "to bear" and hormone, from Greek ὁρμή "impetus") is a secreted or excreted chemical factor that triggers a social response in members of the same species. Pheromones are chemicals capable of acting outside the body of the secreting individual to impact the behavior of the receiving individual.[1] There are alarm pheromones, food trail pheromones, sex pheromones, and many others that affect behavior or physiology. Pheromones are used from basic unicellular prokaryotes to complex multicellular eukaryotes.[2] Their use among insects has been particularly well documented. In addition, some vertebrates and plants communicate by using pheromones.

How shall I communicate with my writing as Art?

This is a generated trigger

A social response waiting to be read and felt. It is up to you?

From the 70’s to the 70’s

Guitar strings wrap hearts

Screaming for freedom

another beat of longing

I run from my own steps

Wondering how to retrieve

my wishes and breath.

Loving from There to here, a contrast in touch!

Iron Fist

Hanging next to the door with easy access

Swift motion grabs a yardstick

Meant for legs so thin and frail

Each sting of its swing

Future numbness creating a practice

Wrapping wounds not owned

An Index and a standard

Memorized 

Setting a stage for courage

Years of submission

Years of letting go

Tethered and torn

Still cloaked in her strength

Never broken

Resilience held in excess

Breaking the glue

Each layer met

Speaking without memory

Iron Fist lives in my soul

Words rule in a clenched hand.

New and Welcomed

Power grasps and slides from ribs to hip

Slowly gripping, hips awaken

Arms rest as shoulders beckon

One sweet kiss rests on a bearded cheek

Lips brushed and bruised

Nothing more, Nothing less

This what we had.

The Thank you

The cover artwork and design are stunning. I am in awe of your creativity, boundless energy and talent. You are an inspiration. Always creating something new and unique, you are a shining star in the brilliant sky. You are an amazing woman and artist. I am so lucky to call you friend. With love Kathy

Breathing Practice

Thoughts ruminate and remind me of how to breathe into the knowledge of my learning. I did not have clear words of articulation at a young age, I can still struggle. I have worked to continually redefine who I am. “This is not as good as it gets”. For me my struggle is over thinking about my aging life. I refused to poke fun at being in this body for 70+ years. I am less serious at this point, yet aging still finds wholehearted contemplation. As fun loving as I like to be, I now ask another set of questions of myself: Questions never answered or felt, before. My inquiry of how I want to be old continues.  Most of all what does old look like, how do I breathe into life stuck in a Pandemic. A sinus infection tells me to free my Oxygen flow in life and sing the written word.

Why do I want to be empathic in examining myself, I will honor this need to do so. Working at loving who I am at any given moment.  I feel when I go through these serious rumblings in a lack of humor about age, there is something to be learned.  What makes my aging life uncomfortable or not? Is it the same as saying you can’t wear pajamas into the street at this stage, still wanting a fashion statement outside. I used to care deeply. Now there’s a random thought. Yet judgements are dangerous from my experience, unless they add to my life. Why do I know now I don’t like poking fun at myself. I do like finding healing humor though expressive interaction. It used to be so easy for me with expressing so glibly.  I am stuck in the truth of not breathing well. under pressuring questions, still wanting to be heard. I will redefine this knowledge over and over I am sure.

Loving Sideways Defined

It seems that writing prose has follows my poetic lead. I’m sure I can’t be without my poetry, as I want to tell integrate stories. I have this springboard, where a voice of editorial comments is deeply ingrained. When asked what is the meaning of “Loving Sideways"? The answer was searched and found in a discussion with my son.

I have had the privilege of being married for 42 years. This stability fostered my expression; as I came to search my understanding of who I am, coming forward with my title. I viewed my many in directions. Not really upside down, merely adventurous and looking into my world of possibilities. Education and loving the amazing part of my life force has me still searching in many directions. Sometimes I am surprised at life’s offering me new thoughts of love from the sidebars of my life.

When times of my life becomes weary with excessive extroversion, I come back to the strait lines, helped me build my life while still loving the world of variety and many wonders. Still here to learning and “Loving Sideways”

The world of opposites came to visit me!

Memories of those I sought to impress

They all slipped away and I am free

Free to walk away in fettered garments

Diamonds hidden in drawers

I found my center?

Looking forward as I remember

I don’t have to look back

While confusion can rest on the sofa.

We have forgotten who we were

 Slipping away and retreating

A hidden voice tells me I can.

Longing to forget where I came from

Finding a center forecasted in a sideways flow

I know my envelope is full

Still more letters need to be:

Written and slipped inside my book.

A mothers tale revisited

Grasping at Straws

She stood with her iron fists grasping the edge of my bed

Her eyes staring in wonder as my doubt surfaced.

When asked; a resounding: “Nothing” clapped in my ears.

I had only just left her bed for a room of my own.

Now she was watching my every move.

I was to have a perfect posture with my books balanced on my head.

“What do you want, mother”? “Nothing”

She clung to me knowing I was only lent to her,

Once she had the identity of wife, sister, and mother, daughter and flapper.

Dancing on tables without underwear, she shared her star and her song.

Grief then became my mother’s new dress.

With the loss of her sister’s, a brother, babies, husband and son who left home. 

She taught me how to sprint, looking at the world through trepidation.

She cloaked her brow with longing and complaints shadowed with anger.

School books became hers; there wouldn’t be saying no to her.

She was to tell me what she read and I hid in my Art.

As I swallowed my desires with acrobatic form; I kept smiling.

I held her head when her sickness took hold.

I became the caretaker; and a jester wanting to find a star of my own.

Wishing and dreaming; I slid into the escape of my room and slept.

I slept through my teens designing my own truth.

Questions

Perplexed!

I didn’t say the things I’ve said with any planned motivation to manipulate. I only did what I do to hear myself talk and learn. What faulty reasoning is there for me in this time to be here wishing I was there? This is not a sane way to exist in wanting to change. I’m perplexed in my body that won’t breathe without a struggle. The clogged blog limits my ability just to flow. What is it that has made me change? I want to be my cheery self after the world and I find it center again!

I need a vacation!

Outtakes in Male Foundation

As a toddler I can almost feel how much control I had over my parents, especially my father. My mother told me he was finally ready to be a father. They had a teenage boy, who probably didn’t want much to do with them, and there I was; dethroning (my mother’s words) my brother and capturing them and their friends with my cuteness.  My mom, Opal Jeanne Orem, the proper Southern Belle and her daughter, was going to be a part of a very fine confederate tradition.  Patent leather shoes, little anklets, a smocked dress with lots of crinolines, and white gloves with a little patent leather purse to match my shoes.  

My father, an orphan was raised by a Bostonian family giving him culture my mother didn’t know, but the sensitivity from being given up for adoption, probably never left him. Victor Dayton Westcott, my father’s name, was ever proving himself as an entrepreneur after leaving his adoptive family. I only know hints about this from my mother and given that my mother was prone to embellishments; I’m not sure what is true and what is not. Adoption was what most men did when their wife died in childbirth. Back then in the early part of the 20th century.

Mother told me that my dad never forgave his father and our visits were limited to his favorite Aunt and Uncle. The story that seemed to be repeated by my mother’s secretive nature was my beginning relationship with my father and clues to who I am now. Ever present is my tale of the little girl with my little purse and my father taking me to work with him at the range.  I was loved by this man, I often said he gave me enough love to last into my adult life. My little purse became the essence of what connected me with men and sense of loss.At least I have discovered that in my years of searching for my truth, my memories and perceptions.

I became a compulsive truth teller in reaction to the power of my mother’s expressive confusion and lack of being able to tell her truth because of fear. I must have observed it, she also held over my brother and me the fear of loss that she carried; only to be understood later. My brother was 17 and became the new man in my mother’s life, when I would think he only wanted just to be a teenager. My sense of craving attention among the men at the rifle range was gone. As I see it now, Daddy as I called him and the attention and the other men gave me a sense of entitlement that has carried me through my life, within this base of how I developed a relationship with men and a doting father I lost. My teenage brother who was now taking both my mother and me as a father image. Within a left he barely got out of high school, wanting college and receiving a college scholarship for Basketball; it was out of the question. He started working to help my mother and me. She took in foster babies to add to the loss of my father’s income. He was only 45 years old and his career and sense of party spirit left a home to be paid for by only Social Security. In today’s world he would still be alive because of the advancements of medicine

The Football Doctor Plays

There was always a smile and warmth welcoming me, yet he too has question marks tattooed on his eyes. What will I offer in the way of entertainment; his eyes say to me in these visits? I never knew with a list in my hand how my entertainment would take over and he wouldn’t stop me. Perhaps his saying life isn’t always about stories is where I fall short into what he has labeled my “failsafe”. Labeling is what he does as he writes formulas for health. Is there ever going to be an action instead of statements of open ended incredulity.  I’m not sure I want an actual answer. I just want to live flexibly as I work and express this new art form, as he creates in a usually laissez-faire manner. Even in my most outrageous moments, I find a warm regard. I can only imagine what he has seen, in his life with football players and Doctoring’s. There is never enough time for me to really know.  I would like to think that I am now beginning to really create the light openness just by showing up.  Perhaps there is no stopping me? He prescribes in his mind for me wellness not confined by fear. I wait for any opportunity or illness centered directing, reaction or responsive words that free me. I once asked him if he was so used to the football game running in front of him; he just let me run with my personal dynamic.  Back and forth in front of him. His words were: “a good coach knows when to jump in.” His mind knows how to create a sport with whatever I offer. I think he is the same with every other patient. This passive stance where being secure seems to drive me further into creating stories. He is in his unidentifiable thrilling posture. He wanted me to like him, I am sure he didn’t know or care what that meant and neither did I.

Whirling again

Spinning into a labyrinth

His web tangled in mine

A quick swirl

Without feelings

 We move.

We repeat habits.

Never really talking

Only evolving comfort

Till the day I can play

No more.

Shadowed Censored Artist

My Memories confine me with a censorship of years. My artist fell into shadows of another’s art. A “Shadow Artist” I became hidden. Now knowing the light was less than optimal for the art he fashioned. It was dark and having canvas paintings of wild looking women, birds or animals flying from their hair; were as dark as the studio. The painting looked a lot like Cher became. I heard later that she even bought one of his paintings. I had wild long and curly hair and while I appeared unfettered, I was a screaming poem existing inside hiding my truth. I wanted to be one of his women and so I was. The heat of my naked body with his on the floor. A mattress in a dust laden attic floor covered us. Consequently starting a practice, I had no concern of what was happening or my truth or anyone’s. He told me I had magic hands as I took my breath blowing love into my every touch when I massaged his body. I was his but he could not be mine. My poetry began in the openness of a generation wrapped in love and rebellious, becoming a half truth. Really not know who I was; only longing to open to add light to my life of discovery!

Nickels and Dimes

 Repetition of anything has a boring effect in my childhood family and sharing tales of any kind seemed frightening.  As I searched for some old comfortable story to cling to, I remembered the story my mother told me about my father and me.  My parents were in their forties and there I was toddling into their lives with a force that opened their eyes wide.  I can almost feel how much control I had over them.  They had a teenage boy who probably didn’t want much to do with them and there I was.  My mom, Opal Jeanne, was a proper southern belle and her little girl was going to be a part of a very fine confederate tradition. The story begins with the purse and my father taking me to work with him.  I was so loved by this man and can still feel the impact.

                My little purse became the essence of what connected me to the adult world.  “Do you have any money in there?”  My father’s customers would ask pointing at my purse and sometimes even taking it out of my hands without permission.  Blonde, curly headed, blue-eyed me with all the feminine charms a three or four year old could muster would say, “Oh no, my daddy didn’t give me any.”  Every time my mother told me this story, I continually got the feeling that she harbored resentment in feelings attached to this story.  She was in competition with a four year old and I was winning, at least I thought I was. Perhaps it is looking at all the lost time with my father.

                I can remember looking forward to going to my father’s rifle range where men would set down their guns and reach into their pockets, pulling out a hand full of nickels and dimes.  Always noticing if they had quarters, I’d watch them carefully pick them out before offering me a reward.  Quarters to men who lived through the Depression were not to be given away.  Giving more than a nickel or dime to a three year old wouldn’t be thought of.   After all, a dime could buy a lot in the late Forties, a loaf of bread or enough sliced sandwich meat for several people.

                Looking into the large open hands of these men seemed like a wonderful opportunity for fun.  My mother’s story continues with my need to always pick the nickels out of their hands.  I was insulted at the dimes, after all dimes were smaller than nickels.  How could these men insist I take a dime and they couldn’t convince me it was worth more.  I could see the dime was smaller.  My temperament didn’t allow for teaching me otherwise. I pranced around the rifle range in my cute starched dress, guns roaring.  I ran from man to man collecting my coins to fill my purse. My mother told me I was thrilled with my treasure. I still held onto the thought of the nerve of these men. Giving me dimes, how could they.  Remembering this game that developed between me and my mother and the men, Opal Jeanne would seize the opportunity to keep the dimes to help me out with my disgust. Is this where my sense of money and men developed?  This must have been a grand position for me to have men sit down their guns, that made such loud noises and put holes in far-off targets.  The noise was tolerated for the reward of the money I imagine

                Gradually the game between my mother and me became a competition.  How many of my dimes and even nickels could she acquire?  She liked her position of power.  The purse took on this new meaning and I became very possessive of it. The men also began to take on new statues of rewarding me with pats on my backside and unwanted kisses.  Nickels and dimes were a whole lot more complex and the memory does too.

The Artist

Stairs continually climbing ahead,

I am intrepid, accelerating as I launch myself.

Taking walks with penetrating steps.

Wild places are not mine, except in dreams.

Reaching forward with haunting memories

Of rooms so hot my breath was swallowed

Indelible ink writes letters never sent

Where do I resist remembering every vision?

Every canvas stretched and painted.

Images of myself  lingering, wild birds fly.

My hair tinted with streaks of loss.

I am love lost but remember in the studio’s focus.

The Book Shelf

As I sit in this evening thinking of my Day and how my life can be so crowded. I will let go of most of my harsh disturbances, those annual visits that are all business except for a small bit of conversation. However, is there ever enough time for me, I have allowed my creativity to be expressed in book form, with a external love across a wide net. Casting my book to the shelves to be embraced! Waiting to be caught.

Now as I work in such a small amount of time; I see how I have shed my protective web. I’m looking forward in abstractions of my poetry found within, as I work. I know what is seen, or read, or heard, depends on the eyes of those who look! There are many meanings to even one sentence for me, one brush stroke. Definitions lost, looking for clarity, where finding words span circles, stretching across the canvas of my life. I am the artist and as I open to be seen, I release without expectations only hope! I do love the whimsy of my life and work! Yet now I shall work to be defined! My book in form without function to be sold. Hopes finds a place where hearts wait to be seen.