Fighting and Melting
August and September Poems

Two Sky Poems
from 2001 & 2002

        -oops, there’s one

Heaven and Hell in Me

Heaven and Hell
Everything in me is Heaven and Hell

If the cells beneath my skin could talk
They would surely speak of incredible colors from Heaven and of fires from Hell
            -but it is so much more than that-

Streaks and shrieks and stars falling from the Heavens
A fair weather blue, a peachless yellow,
A dragon eating red, blood red, fire red -in the veins-
In my heart, my finger tips and toes and my newly analyzed hair
            -and all through and through me.

And it is beautiful
And it is ugly too
And it is horrifying and peaceful and hopeful –all the same-

Heaven is Here within. But truly
        Heaven is without too,
What I mean to say is that Heaven is right here on Earth,
        in its Ever-Glorious state.
We can create it here, we can make Heaven a part of our lives
        every minute that we remember.
When we remember to breathe with love and hope and faith,
        then we are in Heaven.
When we help ourselves and others to live better in any way,
        that is Heaven.
When we truly see the colors of the sky and the flowers and the trees
        and the smile on each others’ faces,
When we know that that is God reflecting His limitless love
        to us through those smiles,
Then we remember Heaven, we are in Heaven.

And when we recognize the unique being-ness of family and friends
        and of the animals, that is Heaven inside and out.
When we remember that inside our breath and inside our heart
        is the longing for God, for love, then we remember Heaven.
No matter what Hell and torture we go through,
        there is still the possibility of Heaven within.

This is love, hope and faith.
This is the Journey toward Becoming.
This is You and Me.
This is the Blessed Earth, all people, everywhere.
Love, Hope, Faith;
        It is possible to remember that we are in Heaven.

July 15, 2002

A picture unfolds with phantoms at play
        streaking down the tiles and the clouded mirror,
                stripes reveal a brooding countenance
                        and as hot-running water fills the tub
                                a smile teases each ear.

A clown’s face on my bedroom wall
        from dusty old France of long ago.

I pry into it -adamant in my lethargic goal-
To find answers as fragments and colors fade in and out:
        orange hair, brown-triangled shirt, blue slopey eyes
        yellow-bright face and a red-ball-nose
           -all in a cracked wooden frame.

Fighting & Melting
(To All on the Path toward Healing)

Tears stream from my heart after the green pill from yesterday.
Earlier I ranted and raved and yet I am melting now.
Melting is good, it is what I need to do-
        Melt Away: all the obstacles, the aggravations,
        the fury in my heart and lungs and arms
        and the fire burning in my legs,
        the angry buzz in my right hand that sends a message of fear and rage
        through to Heaven and Hell
                -it is so loud under the skin.

Tears stream from my heart,
        But they only come to my cheeks in slow motion like the last bits of
                lava over the lip of a volcano. It is slow movement because the rocky
                        crags of the past and the icy fear of the future have to crack and melt away
                                before they can move,
                                        before they disperse and can be set free,
        to flow their rightful course towards freedom.

The heart is huge -it holds everything- underneath and through the anger
            and terror is love always
                -but how to get there when you are scared, when everything is so hard, cemented in?
How to get through the obstacle-ridden-patterns of a life time
            and from eons before that?
                How?

The only way is through love.

Feel the earth support you.
Know that the Heavens and the sky and all the angels encourage you.
They want you to take wings to your soul and legs to your body:
            walk, run, skip and climb and crawl.
Do what ever it takes to rouse yourself and scrapple
            toward your goal.

And let the tears flow,
            their melting is your freedom-wings taking flight.
Believe that you are one with goodness;
            that you deserve to heal.
And you deserve love and you are love.
This is your healing.

When I worked further with this Haiku it transformed into more of a tribute to others than a         
complaint on my condition…          

Still -A Tribute to 9/11

Still and seemingly endless pain
Brought by Sacred Sunlight hours
        -before only dim consciousness –
--Still, a multitude waking from long deep sleep

Red and hotter than red inside and all around,
On every horrific side of the mind’s disbeliefs
        -hollow spaces in the front, cold deeper in the eyes
Is this death?

Green leaves sway in the wind– not yet yellow-turned
            And the wind keeps blowing, spirals, ups and downs
Stars and stripes forever looted do not comfort either

In the time of September -while it is still August–
We think of many things blowing up in the sky
            -people are never enough-
                        weeping and running –their folly, greatly teeming,
                                blackening -uncontained terrorizing in the sky

In this time the well of grief is still orchestrating;
Something unsettling is growing under the skin
The seeds of peace have not scattered widely enough
                        -weeping and being
Together mixed with ever darkening hearts,
            and minds cluttered with debris
                        -all in this morning’s bleak haze