Softly sane, Betty has a delicate voice, redolent of secret inspiration, not often used.
There is the high-pitched panic
drones like angry bees, chaotic, insistent. That voice is not hers, but of her demons,
flaying, cackling, castigating, sizzling knives flown from angry hands — pyrotechnic effect while consciousness bathes in restraint;
senses restrict to calm, to cleanse, safe inside.
There is another voice, sure as ocean rain, forceful as gunshot on a silent night.
When we hear its tune, we listen. Pure bell that sings only Truth, it is in our sacred core to listen.
That voice is rare and wonderful, the essence of beauty. We become attuned, in awe, compassionate wisdom takes hold.
We become the voice of welcome, of familiar kind regard.
We become complicitous encouragement.
Mobs, ignorant, angry, boo and hiss, too loud to hear anything useful.
Lords of violence, long conjured real enough fear, sneer for the big screen. Pimping for Jehovah?
We learn to fear from what attacks every day.
Nobody likes to talk about Betty; but you can bet we cream over her (secretly, all cozy in our beds, in our heads and groins).
Nobody likes to admit what casual cruelty we are capable of. Gang-raping children because we can doesn’t appeal to our desired self-image. Her mother allowed it in exchange for food, a place to sleep, the blessed drugs to keep away the pain of knowing the endless, hopeless misery life had become. Or, she was alone on that dark street, lost and frightened, with nowhere safe to go, no one protecting her just then. Her sexuality tempted me, in all that frenzy of bonding blood cries, heightened primal energies, hot insistent bodies falling under ritual spell. She is but a sacrifice, a holding cell for sin. There is no freedom for will to grow within her, only unwanted, tainted seed, thrust outward from the nauseous collective psyche to poison her potential. Does she need to be defined by what has been done against her nascent will? Is there salvation in finding a slim, hiding, healthy cutting from her core, carefully planted and watered in hallow grounding? And what of all those other sacrificial lambs? What cosmically sympathetic vibration can be turned to healing, calling forth a will to grow whole, to become one’s own desired destiny?
Choose to negate a life that is never true.
Better the degradation than devil’s compromise
to consensual reality’s unmeetable demands, measurements.
Like suicide, a mortal sin, to give in to bestial temptation.
End life of the day; descend into fetid disgrace.
Is that so attractive?
Is that reason to negate possibility of choice?
How can I explain?
Rats, spiders, assorted displaced vermin, semi-feral humans, scrabble through garbage, stagnant remnants of rain and refinement, to no good end.
Unspeakably worse, self-protection demands imprisonment to stave off temptation.
Children grow consuming what is available, what is given or taken.
Revised as zombies — no minds worth saving, subsisting on dead flesh and legendary fear. How can dreams cope?
One whiff and life as conceptualized dayplanner delineation loses all continuity, protection from chaos,
impossible to pick up such raveled stitch.
Nothing to be done. Leave them alone.
Watery imagery — the ocean that meant to keep me so many years ago.
I become a swimmer,
a survivor in the storm.
I don’t know why. It wasn’t my idea to be strong. I didn’t think, just let my body work along from one plane to the next.
It may well be about discovering one’s ideals and working toward them. It is certainly not about having it all together from the get go.
Sing of Summer surf, held close to mystery. Undersea caves cradle chests of gems, shining like starlight.
Stars far from here call our craft home.
Call the cheer that carries carefree souls.
We’ve made our career a matter of energy.
Find a free meadow under the sky.
After brief eternity, given the designation “life,” simple, mundane sensuality
— slimy tears dissolve eye grit; sore structural muscles ease into melodious jazz.
She is stronger more able, vibrant in song. We are all learning to sing, dance, play, in this world we create, build in conversation,
in turning conceptions from experience into a private wealth from each to each,
teachers and students on the art of renaming.
This peculiar Hades Bohemia reflects like jewel facets, bioluminescent charms.
Too bad those chained to arms,
deprived of what arms can claim to feel fulfilled,
seek release in arms defined to kill
or to be killed.
I elect representation, powerful self-devised agent to promote my best interests,
prescient shadows, to pay my penance,
ritually claim my soul.
Yet, essence,
possibilities inherent in living seed
grow in potent mixtures
(tinctures for violent bifurcation, strictures, intricate captivating lulls)
for acculturation.
Captive, imagination still wanders on
long walks that suddenly awaken questioning:
“Where am I going?
Who is this “me”
that has a destiny
or merely flits along prevailing wind?”
That wandering devolves to slumber.
No one to remember, holding on to random sensory familiarity.
Don’t trust the mirror.
Aging eyes have looked too far for reliable witness. They love to lie, lazy, wistful —
if wishes could be more real than these fantasies,
murals tied to greasy walls —
self-made Hell —
Why should death’s mystery entice so much more than life’s?
What hope the best of men survive death’s fiery trial?
Why insist, assume, the bond of flesh is blood consumed, all against every?
Where is ecstasy of hand touching hand?
