Poetry from Chaos

I have found that Chaos flings out the best little bits of odd poetry. The key is getting close enough to catch them without getting caught in the riptide.

Finders Keepers

Keep singing
keep playing
keep looking
right at me
not at me
into me
abandoned house

Broken shutters
battered siding
frame windows

Standing across
overgrown lot
only ghost
of a curtain
skeleton chair
crooked picture frame

Peering into
cobwebbed attic
of my soul

Picking through
dusty scraps
broken things
left behind

Spying sparkle
shiny thing
in some forgotten corner

Passing grin
across face
as though
already possessing

Lowering blinds
too late

Southern Martyr
2-3-10

The Hermit is dead. Long live the Hermit.

JD Salinger was a personal favorite of mine. He will be missed.

"I don't care if it's a sad good-by or a bad good-by, but when I leave a place I like to know I'm leaving it. If you don't, you feel even worse."

~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

I've not got much today...

But what I've got is mine.

I'm hungry.
I'm tired.
I'm angry.
I burnt dinner.
My toe hurts.
My best friend's B-Day present is on someone else's porch.
My heart still aches.
I know I'm alive.

southern martyr 1-15-10

Life's but a walking shadow...

I resisted as long as I could.
It called to me.
There's no other explanation as to why I knew it was out there
- cold, snow dusted, untrod -
waiting for me.
Waiting for the press of my feet.
Straining for the sound of my crossing.
The sky so grey that no shadow would betray my passing.







"...a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more."
~macbeth

2009 - Could Have Been Worse...

if there had been zombies. Work sucked, Geek & I split for good, work sucked some more, then my cat died. There you have it - the Year of your Lord, MMIX.

There's a full moon tonight, the second of the month - a Blue Moon, on New Year's Eve. It's an opportunity you may not see again. Take it. Do something you wouldn't otherwise do.

As you pass through the doorway from 2009 to 2010 may Janus smile on you from both sides.

I scare myself sometimes...

I was moving my desk into the Ex-Geek's office today and came across one of my poetry journals from about 2 years ago. I didn't remember writing most of them, so I started reading them before moving on to the next stack of crap to be sorted through. Most were my normal melancholy drivel. Then I get to one particularly cynical depressing bit of wordplay & I actually said out loud: "That is just AWFUL." It was. I think I may have just driven myself into a dark spiral. All the more reason for a brand new fluffy kitty cat - therapy. By the way, my long time, black, fluffy, cycloptic, feline companion, One Eyed Jack, died a little more than a week ago.

Happy Hollowdays one and all!

Untitled Awful Poem

She holds Hope
like a child's face
wanting it to stay
small, bright, & her's alone.
Yet, Hope grows into Dream,
it's gangly arms & legs
stretched - reaching.
Dream, enamored of Risk,
leaves Her to her garden,
her cats &
her dirty dishes.

southern martyr 2007

Flipsides...

If roots went as deep
as branches high -
trees would never fall.

If love went as far
as hate goes wide -
I'd never have to call.

southern martyr 11-24-09

Here's an Oldie but Goodie that has been rolling around on the hard wood floor inside my head:

Within the Lover turned Enemy
dwells Man's fiercest Hate

To be the Lover hated
Life's cruelest twist of Fate

southern martyr circa 1992

No worries though, I do my best writing when I've got something under my skin. I'll enjoy it while it lasts and save up a little misery for some sunny day that's needs inspiration. Happy Hollowdays one and all!

a long night in a dark wood

It is 1:30am.
I have restored the InterWebs.
Again.
It wasn't gremlins this time.
It was dragons.
I may never fully recover.
Neither will the groundhog.

Woe Unto Me!

Oh InterWebs! Why hast thou forsaken me?! Do I not worship at your altar daily? Do I not type my fingers to the bones? Yet, in the hour of my greatest need, you abandon me. With a thunderous laugh and flashing a quick cruel and blinding smile, you smote my Router where he stood. What is it that you require of me? I have no Geek to offer in sacrifice. I am but a lowly User. I know no incantations, wield no enchanted teeny tiny screwdriver. Alas, I am not 133t.

Epiphany

Did battle with the router demons once again. Dragon slain, gremlins banished, peace and the Interwebs restored to my wooded kingdom once again.

While perched atop a ladder in the middle of the woods with my itty bitty pink laptop balanced on one hand while ants crawled down my other arm from the router's power cord, I had a rare moment of clarity. I realized something that I've always known, yet seem to forget every time my heart is broken: I don't NEED anybody.

Yeah, I'm a Daddy's girl, and it was nice when Dad drove by on the four-wheeler and asked if I needed any help buying a new router. But I was able to tell him in all honesty that it didn't matter. I do use the internet to do work from home sometimes, but I could always wander down to my old house or even just drag a chair out under the tree in the middle of the woods where the router is and plug into the ethernet cable.

I've always been like that. Wood burning stove as the only source of heat? No problem! Wringer washer? Who cares! No television? I have books! I've always been independent. I've always been a bit weird. I've always been a bit of a hermit. Those things don't change and neither does the fact that it's nice to have someone around who can and will help you, but in the end if you can't do it yourself then you'd better not really NEED it or else you'll find yourself without it one day. Whether that something happens to be love, or running water, or the Interwebs, I've always been able to cope before and I haven't changed one bit.

Needs and wants are two different things altogether. I want the Interwebs so I went out and figured it out myself. If I want love I'll figure that out for myself too. Yeah, I miss what I had with The Geek, but if it's gone I can live without it...

Hot tea & a Cold heart

Been okay lately, right up until yesterday. Went out for a couple of glasses of wine with an old friend on Friday night. Awake until 2am. Thought I was actually kinda moving on. Then BAM! weird things start happening way too early in the morning for me to do anything but deal with everything through gut reaction. Geek has a bit of a problem which requires me to talk to him again, toss in a little bit of guilt on my side about the wine & the friend from the night before... That's when things start to get confusing for me. I know it's done & gone, but when we talk it sounds & feels just like it always has. Comfortable, familiar... Geek thinks that's the problem, that we somehow slipped past love and into comfortable and then got stuck. I'm not sure that was the case for me. The whole reason that I opened up to him in the first place was because I was completely and instantaneously comfortable around him - like we'd been best friends forever. Anyway... that's why it all slides sideways for me when he & I talk like that.

I cried a little yesterday. I felt sorry for myself a little yesterday. I talked about it with my friends and it put some things in perspective again. I guess it's just one of those things that will get easier and easier with time. I still care about Geek. I can't quite close that door... yet. However, I also realized yesterday that I had let go of him little bit by little bit over the past few years. Not sure what any of this means to the future and I'm not sure it really matters right now.

So, this morning I'm drinking hot tea and trying to thaw my frozen heart. Today is a different day and tonight will be a different night...

Melancholy Muse

Having you, was like drinking spring water from my hand.
Natural, pure, bittersweet,
and all too quickly slipping between my fingers.
Now, I sit with parted lips pressed to palm,
savoring the cold numbness,
and wondering if I've drunk my fill.

~ Southern Martyr 6/11/09

As I said before, my muse has found me once again. I don't know if I'll keep posting the little quick things I write, but for now it helps put things in perspective and believe it or not it actually makes it all much much easier. If I can channel a little grey funk into a poem or even just a meaningless string of words on paper, then somehow it's gone from my mind afterwards. I guess it's my way of passing it all on to the dragon who never sleeps...

A moment of painful honesty... with myself.

This morning I took a long hot bath.
Rummaging through almost empty bottles
while water slipped down my sleepy face,
I realized I was out of shampoo.
That I would have to use his.
That today would be another struggle.

~Southern Martyr 6/11/09

Last night - A Dream Study

I was getting married

in a pink dress

which was being decorated

with pink FROSTING roses

when someone brushed my hair

and made me cry

a midget swore to kill me on my honeymoon

yet was willing to give me a sporting chance

Barbie gave a pep talk to convince him

to go through with his threat

it apparently didn't matter to her

that my family raised fish

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to 2009...

I have a "friend" going through a very tough time right now. They were very supportive of me when I was going through a very tough time. So I spent the evening talking to them and being supportive. I had called My Geek earlier in the evening to inform him of said supportive tough time talk. Geek is aware of said tough time and is also supportive though not as close to the friend and does not talk.

My Geek has a bit of a tough time this time of year also. I have a tough time this time of year. My mother has a tough time this time of year. And on December 29, 2008 they all intersected in a truly spectacular way.

My Geek had spent the entire evening working in the out of doors restoring the Interwebs to us by endlessly adjusting the routers which transfer a wireless internet signal between three houses and through the deep, dark, & panic inducing woods to our house. He did not check his voicemail to hear my explanation of the aforementioned tough time talk. He instead stumbled up through the woods to find a large truck idling in his driveway at 9:30pm. He proceeds to call me in a slight panic.

I, being a good and decent friend, have turned off my cell phone so as not to belittle nor interrupt aforementioned tough time talk. My Geek, who has a tough time this time of year, has been having nightmares recently. My Geek should not go without sleep, due to yet other more recent tough times. This along with prolonged physical exertion, probably a little low blood sugar, a dark and creepy wood, a monster truck idling in his driveway, his girlfriend nowhere to be found, not answering her phone AND a little extra emotional tough time of the year baggage thrown in for good measure and he proceeds to stalk through the woods panicked, calling & text messaging me for the next 20-30 minutes.

I, being a good and decent friend, am completely unaware of any of this. My friend finally assures me that he will be okay. I return satisfied of being a good and decent friend to my home only to find it empty. I pull out my phone to call MY Geek and see a voicemail notification. I check my voicemail. It sounds like something from The Blair Witch Project. It's My Geek out of breath, twigs snapping underfoot, asking where I am and what's wrong and what's that truck?! and then the message just cuts off mid sentence. I call him. He's out of breath. He's in the woods. He's mad. It is now 10pm. He hangs up on me.

I wander out of doors to meet him at the top of the trail and try to smooth things out or maybe start a fight. (Sometimes I try not to overthink these things and just go with what feels right in the moment, you know.) I reach the trail, in the dark, and am startled by what I think to be My Geek. However, this figure, though as tall as My Geek, is not agitated as My Geek would have been. This figure, I soon realize, is My Mother. We raise our arms in mutual bewilderment, like two mimes. My Geek stomps up the trail, passes between the two of us (still in prolonged shrugs like two sarcastic Greek statues), and then proceeds to stomp into the house and turn off all the lights.

My Mother turns to me, hugs me, hugs me again, hugs me a third time while slightly rocking me back & forth, and then announces at the top of her lungs...

"Happy Festivus!"

Indeed.


*All is well now. And I thank my lucky stars for my Geek, my friends (all five or six of you) and my family. I hope 2009 brings us all the best - and when it doesn't I'll remember why I love you all so much! Thank you all.

Forgotten but Not Gone

I've been really frazzled & scattered & screwed up all summer. My writing has suffered, my personal life has suffered, and my poor neglected blog has suffered. But with fall slowly decaying around me I feel freshly inspired. I replied to MyBestestFriend's email today with the following message and I think it sums up how things are going for me right now:

"I’m not sure what the hell happened this afternoon… I think my muse might be back. He’s been lounging around just outside the corner of my eye, teasing me while I’m trying to work, and whispering wonderfully brazen ideas in my ear while I’m sleeping. I’m thinking of trying to lure him out into the open with coffee, absinthe, and an old typewriter."

I'm still really busy, however I have a sneaking suspicion that I'll be making the time to dabble with my favorite creative outlets very soon...

Spring and other things

I've been working my ass off lately, not sleeping very well, and just been generally pissed off at the entire world. It happens every fucking spring. I hate the color green, I hate pollen, I hate humidity, I hate warm weather. Spring has always reminded me of kudzu - this choking green cover that seems to smother everything.

And now for something COMPLETELY different.
This is what MyBigStupidHero had for lunch yesterday:

I ate the same thing minus the dead animal and broccoli casserole (I've always suspected there's something lurking in there I don't want... maybe chicken broth) plus a side of fried squash. Very very good. Well, okay, so maybe life isn't so fuckin' bad after all when a vegetarian can go out to lunch with her friends and have some kick ass southern cooking. Thanks for making me leave my little grey funk at the office, ThomAss!

I have not fallen off the face of the earth...

Though there have been times in the past few weeks when it would have been nice to have had that option. Work is HORRIFYING! I hate being a grown up! I hate having a job where I can't say what I really think about people and situations. I may be blunt and brutaly honest, but at least I am tactful and take other people's feelings into consideration! Have I mentioned I hate my job? I don't especially like living in a house with another human being at the moment either, but I really do love my Geek and would be lost without him so I just apologize to him every day for being so prickly and angry about stuff. I'm just frustrated. Frustrated! I could SO easily become a hermit. I would LOVE to be a hermit! A lonely old witch living off in the woods by herself. I like alone. I like not quite right. I like silence and darkness. I like reading out loud. I like a bottle of SoCo and bad movies. I like wine and Mozart. I like vodka and punk. I like quilts and cats and books. I like soft grass and warm sun. I feel like I'm losing myself. I'm just overwhelmed, that's all. It happens about every 2 years. I'll get over it. Probably by drinking and writing and reading and being a little more me. My apologies to everyone who has to put up with my melodramatic ass.

iamold

It's official.
I'm old.
Today I turned 32.
The thing that makes me feel REALLY old though?
My Geek turned 30 this year.
I will never again fuck a guy in his 20s.
I have a feeling it's all downhill from here.
Is this why guys feel the need to try and pick up girls half their age?
I understand the urge.
But it doesn't make YOU any younger.
It actually only makes you seem even older.
I plan on aging gracefully.
No mid-life Cougar phase for this girl.
Just a Mustang, a tight pair of jeans, and a long bumpy road.

New Year's Excuses

Okay, so I haven’t been “blogging” much lately. There are a myriad of reasons – and most of them are personal character flaws.

#1 Work. Hell-a-shish! Weekends, evenings, writing content in my fucking sleep.
Character flaw associated with Work: Procrastination.

#2 Holidays. Suck. Wallowing took up a lot of my time this year, but I’m almost done.
Character flaw associated with Holidays: Self pity.

#3 Family. See #2. No box of Whitman’s chocolates from Daddy. I got a Christmas present from him, but it wasn’t Whitman’s box chocolates. What does he think I am – a 31 year old woman?! Plus the usual awkward Family Get Together bullshit. Although, I bet most of you didn’t pull up to your grandparents’ house Thanksgiving Day to see a Sheriff’s car parked out front.
P.S. The present I DID get from him was great & I really did NEED it. I am going to get out with the camera one day this next week and get some photos to put up on the old blog to show it off.
Character flaw associated with Family: Arrogance & self centeredness. I’m only listing my own character flaws here. If I listed all of my family’s flaws not only would the list be the longest blog entry I’ve ever typed (which is saying A LOT!) but it would also only serve to highlight my own arrogance & self centeredness by doing so.

#4 Pregnant Best Friend. Pregnant. This one is a good reason. I am spending as much time as possible making fun of - I mean - supporting her. (With boobs like that she needs all the support she can get).
Character flaw associated with Pregnant Best Friend: Vicarious living. Not so much a flaw as a survival technique.

So that’s my list of New Year’s Excuses. What’s yours?