Wordle #91

Even your entropy is rigid,

the lymph gurgling behind

your prostrated smile,

the admonishing aftertaste

of your subcutaneous adhesions.

Skinflint, star-caster, striptease

my thighs pulsate beneath

your extraneous gravity and what a let down,

what a climax, what a keepsake it all is.

–

The tobacco churning behind your lip,

turmeric-spiced silt sticking in your nail beds,

the subtle admonishment of your filaments

breaking me like a riding saddle.

How vile, how terrible, how irrefutable you are.

Must you control everything?

Must you crush the throats that sing?

Must I, the shameless, the purse-string, the mule-headed thief

love you, contend with you, worship the soles

of your endless retreats?

–

managed to barely get one in

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Apologies

Where has Yves been? I apologize to anyone I might have worried in my unexplained absence. Winter is hitting me hard this year and I fear I have entered a kind of quasi hibernation state. Eating, sleeping, compulsively preparing my den. My husband is also suffering with Depression and is currently feeling very low. Even my daughter is experiencing mood swings from bouncing off the walls to sulky/whiny. We are a fine mess! With the holidays everyone is home and so we have attempted several outings which have kept me away from the computer much of the day (come night I am too tired to put anything together).

–

While I have not received a response from every magazine I have submitted to, every one that has responded has replied with a NO THANKS. The rejections have been polite and none of them have suggested that I should never write again or that it would be a waste of time to submit again (some have encouraged future submissions) but they are still rejections. I am wondering if I should continue pursuing magazine publication or just go with self-publishing my own books? While I have found magazines that have some great poetry (none that have wowed with every poem but some gems), I don’t think I have found a magazine that suits me exactly. I think my writing may be too abstract but not so abstract as to be deliberately nonsensical. I think my work is in this uncomfortable state of quasi-reality that just isn’t fashionable, classification specific enough. Still, I think some people want to read my poems and I sure as hell want to write them. Only right now I am processing the rejections and feeling supremely vulnerable and guarded about the whole business. I will snap back. I know it but right now this is where I am.

–

Some of you may not know this but I am obsessive. My mom calls it OCD, I call it hyper-focus but who knows. If I am focused on exercise I will exercise several hours a day, draw up exercise plans, diet plans, weigh and measure my food, weigh and measure myself, read about exercise, watch exercise/nutrition related videos, dream about exercise, think about exercise nonstop to the point where anything not specifically exercise/nutrition related becomes a bother (did I mention I also talk about the topic until other people want to either join my obsession or murder me?). Right now I am like that about organizing. I lay awake at night thinking about boxes and organization but since I have literally organized everything in the house I am just sort of left picking up lint off the floor mindlessly whenever I am home. Maybe I have OCD, maybe! The thing is I am not that way all the time. I have 3 big obsessions diet/exercise, cleaning (as a kid this meant 3 hour baths daily and rearranging our house continuously), and writing. I have others but those are the big 3. As I said though I am not always obsessed, I can go weeks without being stuck but when I get stuck I don’t usually unstick until I complete the mission, if there is a mission, wear out or become frightened. I might get stuck on the exercise bit for a year and then realize I have lost way too much weight and the sight of myself in the mirror snaps me out of it again (I never seem to mind the buying new clothes part though, except when adult clothes no longer fit). I am hoping once my delivery comes in from Ikea with more storage boxes and I have sorted that it will be enough. If it doesn’t do the trick I may have to literally write a schedule that forces me to do other things for a while until I regain my bearings. Sigh.

Writing Prompt #139 “The Magician”

Mark Stavish

Overflowing with wreaths of smoke

I am a heated pot, gurgling, impatient.

The words I love, the gift that I

do not own but borrow though the timing

does not often suit me.

Some things must be done

and no amount of even ifs will steady

the hand once the need strips

those skulking sheets their innocence.

–

I am uncommon, a candle

burning in its own juices,

once untenanted, I burn,

spectral and appetent.

The things I know shame me.

My great and ghastly divots,

my scars wet as the day

they were cast. I am pitiful,

miserable, I bereave myself,

offal cast as pearls, heart

a stalk of weather-hardened barely.

For The Love Of The Whip

I don’t hold many threads in the bid for sanity.

–

The rejections pile in and though they are not cruel

they have become common, at times unshakable.

–

I could write of other things. I could write more directly.

I could coat my skin in lard that the tears would cease to leek through

but in the end I cannot recant my love of the whip.

–

Happy Holidays everyone =) Sorry no holiday themed poems from me! Right now I have an obsessive need to organize but I have organized my house and there is nothing, even my storage closet it tidy.

Photo Challenge #92

(Awarded 1st Place) Great Grandmother by SFC Lance Widner – Division 1 (Active Duty Military) CC BY 2.0

When holding you I remember that I am still capable.

Though I have been wrung, plucked, and boiled

life has failed to swallow me and still manages despite

its myriad deficits to fill you up. I could regale you

with stories of gregarious shadows and hearts rent

And rendered into a version of love deeper than

the seas when placed on top of each other.

–

I am still in my funk sorry =(

Wordle #230

The scheming crease of your withered lure,

a smile sweet and vicious falters to the left.

My secret fear, the facts laid bare as poultry.

There is no stone past or present that I

have not wept over, no flood in which I have not

consequently drowned. How the extremes beckon me!

I do not endure, the stream erodes my sallow shores.

Lines spread across my brow, the incoming swell,

a madness that etches all that is necessary in me.

Misery is not meaningless, it is a way of translating

that which is expressively incommunicable.

–

I am feeling very gloomy, we are now experiencing the darkest days. My writing has been very unfocused lately I realize, I am just feeling off. I can’t really explain it, like a sense of withering humiliation.

Mag 299 and Wordle # 90

The platform bristles, primal aggregates, passage.

–

It was the vaguest of murmurs

like the blush of an areola on awakening.

–

The wide hearse of your body

swallows my etiolating gaze,

a zenith obsequious in the dark.

–

My heart lost, scours the tables,

the narcissistic nightshade traipsing

from mantel to windowsill and back again

despite my expressed concern.

–

Love is strange and grand.

I stand here fading, bracing

praying silently for a delay,

a glint of your mad, keeling grin

to peel back and say I’ll stay.

Not sure why I wrote the poem in this form. Anyhow I have included a picture so you can see the room. I didn’t even know Sam was taking pictures because I was vacuuming hence it being visible. You can also sort of see our X-mas tree which honestly went up on the 20th! I know, know but the painting. You can also see Sam’s feet didn’t bother to stand I suppose haha The room had to be disorganized a bit for the sake of the tree. Sam did all the stenciling and decided on colors and everything. This was his room to design. All furniture currently is hand me downs.

Writing Prompt #138 “Collage 13″ and Friday Music #21 “Heaven Coming Down” by The Tea Party

To what do we owe this intermission?

I drink cumulus from a mason jar

but nothing worth salvage brews in me.

I carry the mementos and scars

of every transition we have ever

jointly maintained. My heart does not wane

though these abbreviations refuse to spare.

I see you, I bate you, I wolf you down.

–

Remember the haunted televisions

we saw while chasing rainbows through asphalt?

We were inebriated, infectious, half-laughing

And death smiled at us as if we were the only

one’s left alive. At our best did we not embody love?

Leave me if you must, forget me while you can,

but in the end it’s inevitable, surrender, home.

Even though we fail, we still have the grace to bow.

–

I am beat 6 hours of cleaning. The painting is finally done!

https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2015/12/18/friday-music-21-heaven-coming-down-by-the-tea-party/

 

Confession

I ease myself into his throat

decalescent and substantial

like a memory too exclusive

to divulge in conversation.

I clip his tongue, dance

in the groove of his soft palate,

slide sideways along pink gums

and imperfect teeth.

His first confession

and he’s all nerves

and no etiquette.

Not a word but a murmur,

a subcutaneous plea

extricated from a darkness

so vulnerable it bleeds.

I do not even hear her reply

but I can taste it and it’s as if

all the oceans submerged themselves.

Insanity

Yesterday I had an appointment with the Unemployment Office. I now have a code that identifies me as disabled actually I have 2 codes one for ADD and one for psychological problems. What does that mean? It means that I am eligible to receive extra help. Also apparently I will get some money from the government but I do not know how much or when that starts. Some time in January I will begin job training. I will begin with two hours a day and work my way up to four, which is effectively half-time. Half-time is my goal as I want to keep going with my writing. My caseworker will accompany me to the training site in the beginning. When I am finished with training the next step is to find a job placement. They will contact any prospective employers in my stead and if I should get accepted, accompany me to work as well. For how long I don’t really know maybe only the first day?

–

Asking for help is not easy. Aside from the self-loathing aspect that insists I do not deserve help/compassion/generosity there is the pride aspect that says nothing counts if you don’t do it by yourself. I try to reason with myself that no one lives in a vacuum and that everyone needs support at times (in fact we work together all the time in life) but my big fat ego refuses to accept common sense. I have tremendous issue with pride. Pride denies the need for outside help in treatment. Pride says you have to earn the payment and self-loathing says you never can because you aren’t worth anything. It is a vicious cycle and honestly this insane thinking has prevented me from going through unemployment before. It has also left me sitting around in my room with uncashed checks because I didn’t feel worthy. The money I earned from my first book, I only recently spent to support a poetry magazine but literally it had been siting in my account untouched. There is nothing logical about this issue and I hope I can shift my thinking. I am hoping training and working will improve my confidence (what confidence?).