So it seems, three and a half years of Hell with nothing left to show for it, except heartache and pain watching love leach from my soul; phosphorescent, sparks like spheres float up, up and away to fizzle out in to nothingness.
Since when did I become the enemy?
Clumped into the annuls of misogyny tarred / scarred for being a woman empowered because I threaten the old ways where women were barefoot and pregnant, swathed in floral aprons with floured hands kneading wholesome Madonna complexes designed to subdue.
I love
depth and passion moving my heart to where I am mesmerized in awe; my fragile smile let loose like an arrow straight and true into you and I, jubilant where I am left wondering where you have been all my life – that I would do anything for you.
I love my self more,
and I am not broken completely. I can take those looks of contempt along with those cutting words and stand my ground against interrogation/subjugation I lead myself in cycles, navigating my way out of ear shot for a while till I can stand it no more, when I hide away inside and stuff my fingers.
All is not lost,
despite my sense of guilt at not being strong enough in your eyes, unlike grandma whom you adored, admiring resilience I am merely a shade by comparison if I subscribed to your anger and hurt if I took her on and became a better person, wife, mother for you if only I chose to keep my mouth shut like she learned in the war.
I don’t believe
staying silent will keep us alive these days. Life requires I fight for truth, freedom, rights and for love so you may find your self, lifted from those ashes – Dachau, and understand that women need tenderness, a kindness that takes away the hurt of injustices, finding safety your arms filling me with hope that I am not alone.
It is with great sadness
that I must choose love, letting go the innocence of youth and embrace my own mortality if I am to be a survivor. I cannot condone atrocities of any kind and turn a blind eye without losing that part of myself that wanted to die, finding respect in being true to myself Lest We Forget.
I am mourning
a life of trials and tribulations that had me in tears for the most part. My heart is broken, I no longer believe in you, us – I am setting fire to the 3rd mar closing my eyelids on my dreams facing those feelings I have been too afraid to feel reaching in to pull them out into the open and lay myself bare so I can finally heal.
“If I had the grace to fall apart respectfully, there would be no need for enlightenment”. JD Butler
He’s using me, I’m using him – both of us working on a palatable means to several ends & everyone’s happy on the dance floor, except me / Lady Lazarus, fully loaded
machinations mimicking my madness & everything I have survived is temporarily erased from my memory / the neglect, the rapes, the con artists & the turning of blind eyes. The violence
of insanity, cleansing the last of my contemptible dirty pieces. A ruse in the end, designed to ratify my plea bargain, still set to drown in a sea of toxic shame, churning
out green bile – something the dogs love to salivate over.
/
It all sounds so depressing, except for the sun that continues to rise; refracted light beams infiltrating my cracks,
forcefully illuminating all remaining fragments of hope that haven’t yet marvelled at a setting sun. I am thankful.
If I had the grace to fall apart respectfully, there would be no need for enlightenment, you would all marvel at my unadulterated halo & drop to your knees, prostrate
but I am a mere mortal woman. No God could ever carry me across the sand or walk on water or set me down on the island of my choice,
without some sort of comeuppance; paying the ferryman requires nerves of steel / I lack the will to either live or die,
His belt & scabbard first then shoulders & I wrap myself around himI am at peace looking out over the ocean & a sky full of stars
You are not unlike Orion guiding distant ships on the horizon I am like Klingon (Klingon usually mate for life)
but not this tide we are an interstellar medium: the space between Euryale & Poseidon
2.
We are of the Sea
reef, rocks & shoals perilous waters where foghorns & Siren songs sound familiar where fishy tales flush pink & my Veuve overflows
It doesn’t take me long to remember expectation is one, two, threefold we navigate in the dark sometimes moonlit mirrors reflect only one part of the whole our universe is bigger than most.
3.
I draw a line in the sand
for both our sakes there can be only one I feel the waves crash on the shore we are all arms & legs slipping & sliding
in & out of the water. I look to the stars & my faith for one brief moment there is no existential crisis Orion’s heavy breathing & sigh of relief
bring us both back to reality under the surface Death is not an unknown entity: one last roll of the die & our fate could be sealed.
4.
Thank you
Orion will always be near Jupiter will always be the biggest planet the full moon will always shine on me.
I could never go past King Island without thinking of you candlelight, frogs & our best mate Captain’s call still falling on deaf ears
but nevermind I’m still as blind as a bat & you’re as old as the hills.
Demeter’s world is falling apart
she enters the tomb
leaving behind every last bit
of skin and bone
her heart in jagged little pieces
tears condensed salted earth,
her spirit as dark as Hades, ashen
her womb, a barren undergrowth of loss, her voice, a howling banshee
sevenfold
Persephone revisited in dreams
her escape futile, Hades whispers
she runs, never holding on nor looking back
dismembered dissociation awaits
those who fail
while cadaverous limbs are discarded
fertile appendages flail
her pieces crumble to dust
Demeter withdraws her love
only to find a serpent tongue
suckling at her breast
Demeter descends, Persephone awaits
her chamber the great unclean
unashamedly devouring our lost souls
Demeter falls to her knees in despair
death is just a figment and life
here is just a memory
she breathes in the rancid air,
the smell of a distant pyre
she kisses the hand that feeds her
“Who gives a fuck anyway? This makes no sense at all to anyone with amnesia” JD Butler
Give me a .50 calibre assault weapon and I’ll show you how it’s done properly!
*
I’m from New Zealand and I can still marvel at the Milky Way, navigate my eyes toward the Southern Cross & find South in a flash.
Orion has a huge belt and scabbard and it still makes no sense; forbidden cliché sneaks up like a sniper in a sonnet.
What matters, is that poetry is devoid of faux pars and bright stars or anything obviously too subliminal for the masses that may require a deeper space continuum to ponder; an intellect that uses advanced thought to communicate,
falling on deaf and dying stereocilia hairs. Ears, to those who need further clarification, while my advanced alien brain sits within a universe only 2% of the world’s population can grasp.
The bourgeoisie cream themselves over it, while they play with their pencil and sharpener.
/
Poetry is only for those with a university education – an English degree, followed by a Diploma in Counselling and a Master of Creative Writing (an advanced degree with Honours). A PhD means power has been attained and is now ready to wield.
We, are merely stepping stones to someone else’s grandiose glory. Poverty and distress are relegated to the past, hidden in a black hole; inertia becoming the internalised abuser. Orion was once the great cosmic overlord,
looking down his nose.
/
Better not piss off the editor either, she’s next in line followed closely by someone we all know and love with his proverbial nose shoved up both of their arse’s.
Who gives a fuck anyway? This makes no sense to anyone at all with amnesia, but it is my way of creatively dying; poetic suicidal justice, is in a league all of it’s own.
*
Now, you’ll all have fodder for your next project fail and that makes me an evil genius.
My heart is breaking today. I want to die. I am all alone in this world, unloved and forgotten. I am breaking down in the moment surrounded by strangers and strange smells that have come barraging into my sacred space and pegged me into a corner. I don’t have the will to live anymore. I look for ways to end my life that doesn’t require umpteen steps to get there. I wish to just slip away in my sleep, in silence, in peace. There are spies everywhere. Pseudo friendships of users and manipulaters. Pretenders. I want to simply vanish, disappear without a trace knowing no one would ever call to find me and it will be as-if I never was. If I am a Goddess, it doesn’t add up. There is something inside me that fails to love or be loved. I must have been an angel once, but the universe has me outcast. I pray for my quick death but my whole life has been a slow grief stricken process of dying. I want it all to end. I visualise my soul manifesting in mist; graceful swirls arising from my lifeless body. Ascension taking me back home to timeless euphoria and relief. All I’ve ever wanted was to love and be loved but I am not worthy. None of us are. If life is a gift, I have been an ungrateful bitch.
But we all have down days. Poetry helps me to purge and heal.
My thoughts are a jumbled mess of confusion (yours, his, hers & mine) scrying for something to hold onto long enough to make sense of the anchors and foundations we’ve both forged from pain, which now threaten to cave in. There is nothing I can do but watch. You are the man. My dreams and cracked beams are giving way to violence — detachment and oblivion. Nothing will be left but a fully loaded house of teetering cards.
All I feel is loss.
The aftermath will have me face to face with Charon. He sits upon my chest now, opening up my third eye bidding me to say goodbye one last time. My soul declines, offering suffering in silence, compassion finding release in a steady stream and I overflow. My ears make wells to muffle his bargain but I belong to no one, not even him. I am a lost cause.
If I accept, demons could still tear me apart, dismember my appendages piece by bloody piece before sewing me back together skew-whiff, over and over again until I am utterly insane. Therein lies the abyss. The place that makes my life a living hell and all my heart aches for, is to love and be loved.
But all I feel is sadness.
Abandonment caves in my ribcage too. It digs in like a tick underneath my lungs and sucks every last drop of fluid left from my life. I am wrung out and strung out, so I waste no time in knocking myself out just to get lost — I wander in the ether to find her again and bring her back home but there is always a catch.
Twenty two foregone conclusions reek of tyranny. You can’t save me! I was lost before you found me and I don’t belong to you or them or here or anywhere and it will always be like this! I don’t want to believe in angels! I don’t want to believe in demons! I don’t want to live in this place!
There is another outburst of pain.
I seek comfort in my magic, my wand set to low creates slow circles that mimick your gentle touch. I feel pleasure for the first time since I last felt your gaze reach in to pull me out and into your Temple. You try to worship my foreign body, send ripples ricocheting between our vibrations but we have failed to find synchrony. In my delirium, I think I must have died.
Killing me softly like that song, trying not to harm me, trying not to lie — letting me fall to see if I come back stronger. I know what you’re doing; giving me facts to face my fears so you don’t have to wear a mask.
Sinking me down further, bit by bite.
You watch me wrestle with Psyche, see the squalls before they arrive, the rogue waves looming on the horizon and try to navigate the shit storm that is my life or so I imagine her lot,
Sometimes.
Forecast’s based upon trust, an old school remedy tried and tested over centuries of trial and error, almost on the doorstep of my abandonment. I have to want to choose my life over my life, play with fire or die in vain — seek some sort of comfort hold that pulls me close (safe), that doesn’t strangle me in my sleep.
Demeters demise.
Comes as no surprise then. Her return from the underworld fraught with danger, shed the All, her only hope of salvation and ascension coming to light; Zeus rumbling his desires expects nothing less than a fathers love in return.
I think I am forsaken.
You think I am like Poppy, offer me a chance to be apart of a real family, show me another way to heal, to find warmth and trust that I am genuinely loved where I can thrive, in time. Something I have too much of and not enough to squander.
I want to give it all away.
My job, my friend, my life in exchange for something worth fighting for, yet I am bereft, devoid and damaged beyond repair and you cannot reach me. I need more time to get over you.
Another, will begin another end
to wear me down to char. Somehow my destiny taunts me, forces me to watch and become nothing but a burdon I still have to carry when I can no longer fight and I don’t have what it takes to push through, for you.
Trust no one.
Bravery has always been a strong fulcrum point, an internal compass that leaps toward faith, a little too close for comfort in the end. My judgement will come as swiftly as Hera came forward to claim what was rightfully hers, tearing out her own heart for the sake of her enemies!
You don’t want me.
My demons are telling me I have to die a bit more in order to live but it still hurts to say goodbye. Either way, I am lost right now and there’s nothing anyone can do. You’re all in for a hell ride while I deconstruct and I make no guarantees that I will survive intact this time.
Evolution.
My head is trying to cling to straws while my heart is breaking and I have no where left to go, except home. The secret to survival is balancing hope and despair. I am doing my best and I am so tired.
Guflydktskyl vg j jkhlhc. Khhc khckhc. Uclhfflh. Yxjrekh. Kyeekgxkyggl. It all makes no sense to me. Just empty words in hollow spaces
A heart-throbbing beat to a rhythm only Demeter knows, her secrets etched into her bones. Intricate carvings honed into marrow, and stem cells multiply like a plague of disgruntled wasps.
Anger.
That sudden rush of indignation, followed by a concoction of vengeance and vindication – abdication and a refusal to surrender. Hades infiltrates Persephone, her abduction an embodiment of everything war, consumed in his indifference.
People.
All that is love and all that is hate, two halves of the same coin and no one escapes joy, ecstasy, grief and pain. You can run but you can’t hide – everyone has to pay Charon to get into the after life.
Temperance.
Biting tongues, letting go, being the better person, swallowing those hard lumps and walking away relatively unscathed by comparison. There will always be someone who offends and someone who is offended. Which came first?
Balance.
Good and bad, black and white, up and down, left or right. Choices and free will all come at a cost. Pros and cons, rights and wrongs; there is only compromise, but that middle ground remains as grey as the ghost it inhabits. A visceral, haunting entity.
Atonement.
As elusive as the Holy Grail, hidden inside Pandoras Box in a chapel somewhere in Africa. Peace is not what Hades is about, his warmongering lust for grandiose self-entitlement takes no prisoners. Still, Zeus brokered a deal for his part in Demeters wrath and Persephones demise.
Death
and rebirth – the Fates will have their way and so the cycle continues.
The three Fates furiously pull Demeters hair / dragging resistance, weaving fistfuls of slate grey strands into knots through gnarled fingers. She struggles to break free.
Their mummers puppet, refusing to stay a decision, deciding that nothing can be done that hasn’t been done before.
Demeter in her craven mind, reluctantly resigns & begins her inevitable descent into death / succubus airs sliding down around those slippery steps like a mortal wound.
What terrible unknown awaits?
Letting go, becoming a ghoulish nightmare / a back-lashing monologue of regret that terrifies her waking hours leaving nothing else to be desired.
Oh the fury!
How ill-equipped her gaze, stripped bare of stippled ends & brushed strokes / all hope is lost, perished in the long-black-abyss of eternal sleep.
She remembers Persephone, in her full bodied beauty & wails at the indignity of brittle bones & a peeling river of flesh falling from her ancient body, with every maudlin step.
Demeter stumbles. Trips. Her fall from grace crash landing at her own feet / anything is better than another mask, in the pantomime of lifes abomination.
She finally meets Persephones gaze / a ravaged maniacal stare, steady amongst the carnage of after-birth strewn all about her.
There is no escape.
It’s here her malicious appendages thrash / manipulating moans & pathetic misery, chaos finally falling on deaf ears.
If the end must come, make it swift!
/
A hard, fast jolt into the after-life, where the ambrosia of a ravaged soul is drained from existence / that rancid elixir of a life less loved, can finally be laid to rest
Poetry Out West 