poetry

SOLD

AriaPhoenix Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , 3 Comments

I am tinged green by these Summertime, Wintertime

All-The-Time means

The Ad Man has of slamming us against the Shame Bricks

Slicing us through and through

Again and Again and Again

With their never-ending selling

Telling us what our own Souls are

Lest we start to think that ought to be

Our own self-discovery

Lest we start to think

Well, damn

Lest we start to Think.

We all wonder where the Rage comes from

As it jumps out of the shadows into a

Darkened, crowded theater

Spewing bullets into infants

Where there ain’t no caped crusader

Just blood and chaos

Followed by The Bachelor Host Chris Harrison

Expressing “Everyone here at ABCs deepest sympathies…”

“And NOW…”

— Announcer Voice! —

“Back to the Bachelor Pad!”

And messages from our euphemistic Sponsors

And Un-Reality Housewives masquerading as reality so much that it has become Reality

With their Fake Everything

Now Mentors to the 12 year old girls

Who come into my office Anorexic or smelling like vomit

Jabbering on starry-eyed about The Kardashians who in turn say,

“We’re just business women.”

In the business of selling an image of…?

“Normalcy. We’re normal.” Robot-Kim insists with her unmoving 20-something face

And inflated lipscheeksbuttpocketbook

GIVE ME A BREAK

When will we STOP?

Put our wallets away.

Go visit our neighbors?

Unglue ourselves from whatever electronic device is controlling us this instant?

Take back what we have

Sold.

Want

AriaPhoenix Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , 4 Comments

I want a fast car –

A Jaguar

And a werewolf-vampire boyfriend.

I want a close-up when I wake up

That shows perfect lush lips and long, curled lashes

As I slither out my California King in silk and lace lingerie

Slipping artfully pedicured feet into cashmere slippers.

I want to inhale imported Italian espresso as I pad to my pristine

kitchen —

The one my top-chef cooks in.

I want to look out my various-home-windows and gaze upon oceans,

And skyscrapers, and the Leaning Tower.

I want to wear buttery-leather skin-tight pants and stilettos that feel like flats

Because they’re made by Someone Fancy.

I want to be naked on one of those faux-fur rugs that feel better than the real thing –

All sprawled out in front of a glowing fire on a stormy night

Waiting to be seduced by my other-worldly boyfriend whose millionth kiss

Feels like it were the first kiss

Every Single Time.

I want the thick anticipation; the rich, shaky kind of energy to vibrate between us

Like Commitment was an Illicit Affair.

Instead, I sit in my 500 square foot apartment with the broken A/C

And wonder if I should make the effort to brush my teeth tonight.

 

Lovers Lane

AriaPhoenix Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

Well you were just a memory:

A fallen leaf off a winter’s tree.

And so I left you – blatantly —

There on the cold, barren street.

I found no more You for me –

A once-green leaf now brown and weak;

A final teardrop etched down your cheek –

Brittle, dying – you chose to sleep! –

Became the shriveled leaf in that cursed street.

If only I could have changed your mind,

Why, I would have made it so!

I ache to think how you gave in,

How your cracks began to show.

Then…Nothing More was left of you…

So Winter made it snow.

I could not mourn that haunted night

Nor those that passed by after.

I stayed frozen (to the snow’s delight) –

Feared the memory of your laughter.

But the snow did melt, ‘course the leaf was gone…

No trace You ever existed.

In its place the sweetest pain –

The pain I had resisted.

I welcomed Her now,

Wretched heaviness came —

From Winter’s numb to Springtime rain;

Perhaps with time, my love will fade…

My hope for an ever-after.

Now you are just a memory:

A fallen leaf off a winter’s tree

It was you who left me – blatantly —

There on the cold, barren street.

Death March

AriaPhoenix Uncategorized Tags: , , , , 6 Comments

I see you all out there –

Dying

With desperate claims of

“I want to be thin!

I will be thin!

Nothing matters but thin!”

And you live in this smallest of worlds

Like your smallest of bodies

Trying to die with at least some victory:

A cry: I was the thinnest!

A bag of bones in a grave.

Oh, yes, girl – you won.

Just look how you won.

Oh, I see you all out there –

Dying

With the extra flesh and fat hanging off your

Helpless body,

Stuffing more food into your face

Creating a barrier between your soul and the world

With your desperate claims of

“I deserve this food!”

Treat? Or punishment of the severest kind?

Your largest of bodies in the very same smallest of worlds.

Small little worlds seem so safe. Ha.

Watts said,

“There is no safety. Seeking it is painful.”

I see you all out there –

Dying

With your sweet, still-beating hearts.

The hearts you have always had, that have been hurt

And trampled on, and damaged…

Are Hearts begging you to face What Lives In Them.

Oh, the true power you would find there!

Have you not already lived the Worst?

Have you not already felt the Pain of the very Worst?

I see how you cling to your faulty thoughts as you walk lifelessly to your graves –

Believing that your only power…

Is in choosing…

How

You die.

But that is not your only choice.

I am one of you

And I chose

Life.

And I am calling to you as I watch your Death March.

“You don’t have to go! Oh child, you do not have to go.”

Join me

And we can walk a different road

Together.

The Lake

AriaPhoenix Uncategorized Tags: , , , Leave a comment

I have reached the water’s edge –

Once merely a mirage in the distance.

Sunlight bouncing like glitter off sparkling watery ripples –

Closer to a glorious-white than a golden-yellow,

Though that hue shows up, too,

Mixing with the Shining Light

And the many-colored blues.

I have reached the water’s edge,

Passed the ragged, sharp stones and pieces of glass

And broken shells that slice open flesh

Passed the jagged, wooden sticks –

Poking out from hidden spaces,

Just waiting for my Blundering Step.

But here I stand at this cool, refreshing place –

Made where the softest, finest, silk-like sand meets

Gentle waves that lap up over scarred, tired feet.

I have reached the water’s edge.

I am bathed in Nature’s kiss:

That soul-reaching Warmth

Only Sun can give.

I know you know the feeling!

I feel it wash over my begging, eager skin,

Through each atom –

My whole Being

Cleansed.

Not knowing if I would ever make it Here,

If Here even existed…

Still I kept trudging through each sharp, angry feeling;

Feet dragging as I resisted.

Oh, how I cut and tore and scarred my skin,

Fueled on hope and faith and trust in

All those who tread this road before me.

And Here I stand

At the water’s edge –

Once merely a mirage in the distance.

They did not let me down, you see

I stand at the lake called

“Forgiveness.”

 

Madhatter

AriaPhoenix Uncategorized Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

“I will get you,” he said.

That little, unassuming voice in your head.

The one that can play both Devil or Squire

While whispering humbly, “I serve you, Sire.”

He stalks like a tiger,

He snakes through the mind,

No locked doors exist –

No key he won’t find.

He will play any Switch like no one before

Head master of tricks, gatekeeper of lore.

One moment your lover, the next your friend;

Underneath it – self-serving – right to the end.

But in that is His game;

His mystery undone.

In His endless bag of tricks, we find…

Only one.

Destruction his motive, Power his aim,

Killing all parts who don’t feel the same;

We uncover in Him the truly insane –

For Power in death is paradoxical gain.

Shape-shifter and Trickster

Magician of mind

Quick – see the trick!

Or die trapped by His bind.

Extremes

AriaPhoenix Uncategorized Tags: , , , , 1 Comment

I’m not sure what it means

This endless stream of dreams

Coming out of me

Overflowing in heaps and waves

Someone forgot to turn off the faucet in the tub

Flooding, splashing, spilling

Everywhere

It is everywhere

This perfect mess of Everything-Ness

Where can I put it all

I seem to try

Try again and stall

As this back-up comes rushing

Flushing through this creaky dam

Of a human body that is me

Fingers flow, I type

Let it out

More,

More

But where can I start to package it up?

Like those hamburger buns in that one dream – where

It was about to rain on them and there were so many

And I had to contain them in plastic bags

But did not know where to begin?

There is just so much,

So very much.

Then someone, abruptly,

Turns the faucet off.

And now there is nothing, nothing at all.

And that sure as hell won’t work either.

 

Ebb

AriaPhoenix Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , 3 Comments

The long drought is over.

The Dry all dried up.

The water spills over

My parched, thirsty cup.

Inspiration, She fills me –

Quenches my fires.

Dehydration – a Teacher –

Who finally retires.

I waited in the desert.

I stayed with my pain.

Knowing the suffering

Would one day bring rain.

My soul sings again.

Her Lover returns!

The blaze of Creation

Brings Life as She burns.

This Thing I can’t Own…

But just let it pass through

Til the last embers die out;

Til flood turns to dew.

Then, dried up again.

Inspiration, She’s gone.

I wait in the desert.

She’ll come back along…

 

Meeting the God Within

AriaPhoenix Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , 1 Comment

Let me in, let me in.

She said,

You only thought I was dead.

But I have been here

burning deep deep deep in your soul.

I have been the Thing that has held you close.

No I never let you go.

When you dove down to the depths of your

Saddened, lost soul;

When you used and you used and you used

And you used;

When you used and you used and it went on like this…

I brought you – Ragged – back from the abyss.

And still you were Wild, you clawed and you cried

Screeching your threats, still – I stayed by your side.

You did everything you could to push me away –

Humankind’s hero – Sabotage of Self,

Oh yes how I know her, I know her so well!

She, forcing me to see the Ugly in you

Over everything else –

Making me see the pain of abuse.

Begging me to Condemn you

Like you condemned yourself.

Ha.

Miss Sabotage has no idea who I am:

The Other Side of your soul –

The side you can’t bear to see.

(We all know how it’s easier to believe

All the Ugly Things.)

But I Live.

I glow, I reach, I rise –

Throw light on your pain, so you’ll learn to thrive.

I let you hate me and shriek as I stay by your side

You writhe til you Break and surrender your pride.

We hold on together til you’re down on your knees

Complete abdication, heart pouring out pleas:

A new cry from your lips:“Let me worship you, please.”

But I simply smile and help you to stand.

“Look down,” I say.

You hold your own hand.

The Heavy

AriaPhoenix Uncategorized Tags: , , , , 1 Comment

It is back – it is back:

That heavy, Heavy Black.

That feeling that Hangs, everywhere.

That lifeless Black Heavy in the air.

Like barren days preceding rain,

Gray-cloud Apathy masking Pain.

Oh, yes, Those Days –

You know the kind –

Seeking something you just can’t find.

You try to Try but the Heavy wins out.

Smashing your tiny, pathetic ‘try’ all about.

So you stop the fight, you put down the try.

People, they judge you, they can’t figure out why.

They whisper and snarl, say, “Depression’s not Real.”

This coming from people who never learned how to feel.

Not deep down in their souls in the Dark Birthing Black

Where the pains create life and the joy cycles back.

Oh yes, that part we forget when we’re stuck in the bog,

When that Nothing feeling hangs thick as the fog –

That if we can Hold On and just get through the black

We might say,

“The joy! The Joy…

It is back.”