A Therapy Poem

not surrender


so the doctor says
maybe surrender your womb
but she doesn't use those words
     remove           uterus
like it's an organ
like a part
of my physical body
and not the place
where I grew my daughter
and not the place
where all of humanity
grows
and not the place
that makes me
woman
and she is a woman
but uteruses are her business
her work
like woman's work
working on women
and she maybe doesn't know
what all I hold there
and what we all have in there
and that it's the warm red place
where some secrets hide
and where a goddess sleeps
and it's where I grew my daughter
and I don't want another child
but it's my woman self in there
and even if they don't take my eggs
and even if I get to keep my hormones
that place will be gone
and I look inside to wonder
how things will move
because I'm not pieces
I am a whole
I am a woman

but the body-part
that walking around part of me
she says it's just not fighting
and I think what do you mean
I'm strong
I'm fighting every day
surely if the rest of me will
my body will fight too
maybe no one told her
maybe she doesn't know
those cells don't belong
do you have a phone, doc
an in-there phone
so we could call her
and tell her to woman-up
because it's taken me too long
to get this far
and I know that if I have to
I will surrender that part
and be still whole
and be still woman
because I am

because I am a fighter
and I know no part makes me me
and I know I will move through every fear
and I know where my power lies
it's not in that warm red place
and it's not in a place that can be
removed
it's a part that will always be
that will come with me
even when I leave the body
with or without its womb
or any other parts
that can't seem to fight

because whole doesn't come
from a collaboration of parts
and strength is buried deeper
than the deepest inside me
it rides up through the earth
to fill all the unseen parts
and becomes the essence
of who I really am

little bits

Things on my Fridge

You are a forest 

needing sun to grow stories

& the sea is your dream

rain beats a languid chant

to make fresh mist beneath a bare purple sky

explore your new voice

wild as a bouquet not from a garden

delicate as a petal still

your smile is a story library

man

end 

new 

&

old 

wars

whisper moon language

              never 

              cover your (heart)

from the world

              under shadow

              create beauty          (*never,cover,world,under,create came together)

wander the ancient library of the human head

explore this magic life

A poem I just wrote.

maybe i should eat

i need some more words

i think i'll have to start

eating dictionaries

because i can't seem to come up with

enough words

or the right ones to

mean what i'm saying like

how i love the word mobius

and i know what it is

and what it looks like but

sometimes i use it when

i mean something else and so

maybe i'll have to

eat up some geometry books too

to try to find a better shape

to metaphor with

and sometimes singing

even in words that have nothing to do with it

seems to get out or get across

what i'm feelin at the time

in the most direct, most satisfying way

so maybe i should eat some cds

or music books or my violin

and when it starts to all seem

too surreal like

life has gone

quite strange

maybe i should start eating

some of the old and true

fairy tales

warning us of how twisted

and mistakenly lovely

life can be

Something little I wrote last November.

Her nostrils flare like a horse when she's hot
and sometimes, when she looks at something
that makes her want to run, like to the barn,
you can tell everything else is out of focus.

Something I wrote a few days ago.

(unfinished)

working stiffs

So what has us working

as we toil for our supper

and nobody seems to be singing much

about anything

and sleep tends to defer to the needs

of a person to be a person

and sometimes around other people

and these natural needs take

an unnatural back seat to the

make-believe needs of

a culture of has-to-be

where balance is so sorely twisted

that if it were struck, even for a moment,

it would be askew

and it seems to me that most people don't see

that it's only this way because we say it's ok

we get up too early

go to sleep too late

eat food that's not that at all

being, often, grossly under-compensated

for our time and our energy

both of which are so consumed that

it becomes difficult to look around

it's hard to take it all in

to fathom the big picture

or bother to ask questions

 about- why do we do this thing

but instead just keep doing

because it's what we all believe in

and I may be a bit on the fringe when i'm thinking

we've all lost our minds