Outline for Creative Reading
POV
90 degrees is a hard angle
Astrologically
Demanding full attention
In philosophy we agree
To disagree
Poetically
We speak
Aesthetically
And square off
Authoritatively
Lines drawn
Lightly in the sand
Discreetly
Challenging
The war
I should have known
As my spirit plummeted
And my mood mourned
After that first year
Culminating with lucky
Bats' ammoniaed guano
Deposits thick as thugs
Or locusts of
disgruntled housewives
Weilding their lack
Of knowledge like
Dull swords rusted
From disuse
While daggers
Their tongues
Told razored lies
Weapons of spies
And cowards
We battled every inch
Of change
Until i lost
Myself
In the war
Magi
The magician made
Birds from dollar bills
His assistant wore a sari
Of secrets and silk
Knotted mysteriously
Tucked to bind securely
He spoke of Pisces
Commonbirths bred by
Beltane fires
And of Leos
More rare
Children of last hopes
Before winter's
Brewing despair
This magic man
Illusion drawn
From dreams
More real made memory
A singularity
Outside the realm
Of possibility
In a poorly lit life
Of scarcity
Da
Night skulls
One bareboned face
Locked in horror
Eschewing grace
Repeated across
Reams of
Childhood dreams
The death years later
Wished on you
You died and died
And died
Until morning
When i saw you
I knew
You had long given up
The ghost
Simply suffering
The body as
Convenient host
While you communed
Until monsooned
In the blood
Hmmm...
Questioning
Bruised to pleasure
Women dreaming dreams
Their looking glass
Knowledge increases
Unreality
When the city sleeps
The future and the maps
Hide something I was
Waiting for
Green roads to the forest
0ak, a host,
Memories
All things forget
Far below
Deeper sunniness
In the bottom of
My mind
I cannot find
The place
I am searching
Everywhere
Naked I go
Sore afraid
Through the darkness
I am the fear
That frightens me
A woman sings
Mystery of song
Strings remembrance
Heart of me weeps
Sages of absurdity
Worm content
Declining memories
Imagination's labyrinth
Translunar delirium
I took these words and phrases from random poems but don't know what came from where other than they were in Six Centuries of Great Poetry. I haven't organized them but i like the way they fall together synchronistically. I think there's a poem here somewhere.
This next group of writings are recent, from a writing group that adheres to the Amherst Writing Method (Writing Ourselves Whole.)
Solstice 2018
Light growing as berries ripen
succulent and sweet
Morning light Twilight
melting with sweet cream
Milky Way of night
My heart
Light with the newness of the day
Sleep's quietly
Afterimages fade with the dawn
Rays of connection
forming paths for introspection
Noon bears the heaviness
of awareness full of choice
Direction
into the heart
red and gold and bright
with the day's load of promises kept
and misplaced
Evening branches into birdsong
calls to dinner
Two of Wands to The Tower (edited)
A spark
sticks feed flames
unraveling the landscape
in flickers and flashes
revealing passions
surging with light
Fear not
the beginning
contains its own end
moving us
in its mystery
cloaking us in destiny
Not burning down.
Not burning up.
When the heatstrikes,
We are smoke.
Whatever (edited)
Whatever matters
when it passes the stick
when it dodges the blow
when it answers the accusation
not on my dime
turning tables 'til
all seated round the chalice
rim each to sip
Whatever matters
if it stings the stiff upper lip
if it pushes deep buttons
if it stubs toes,
however accidentally,
from inattention, squirming over
not my fault,
fault lines, lei lines,
ripples in the storm
brewed inside this cup
tempests in teapots
Whatever matters
because of how the stick
lands the blow accusingly
and turns round and round
dervishing the butter
found golden
perfection
Whatever matters
because when the final curtain is drawn
the play is the thing
what always and forever matters
not who
In response to Audre Lorde (edited)
Who is woman?
for whom you speak.
This voiceless, frightened victim,
I'm sorry,
Not,
I know only courage when I think
of my gender.
The courage of silence,
of deep knowing
of larger enemies than any
shaped by mere words.
Woman is courage, is quiet, is still.
Womanis open, is listening, is attuned
to resonant choirs of footsteps
and footprints and tiptoes
of progress.
Woman's progress is not chopping and
felling of trees, not clashing of swords,
nor beating of chests,
unless the beating of chests
is the drumming of hearts,
pulsing in rhythm with all nature.
Who is this silent, cringing, quaking reader
whom you address?
This is not woman.
This is not the fragile being that stands back up
from every blow, that holds a space
for the human race
Yet to be run,
not won.
