hyper vulnerable

the inner reality
of one who is hyper vulnerable
is full of questions that push pull thrust violently
with an urgency to be answered, problems that may have
no solution
screaming to be answered
put yourself to the task of fixing what begs to be fixed
but perhaps cannot be
at least
not quickly
not easily
and not by you alone
though the person who acts
in the hyper vulnerable manner
will make it appear that it must be you
that fixes this issue whatever it may be
whatever it is that is creating conditions
for hyper vulnerability

"they say that love means to let go
but still you should know
you are the truth you are the light
you are the spirit  the reason why I shine"

pressed against the wall of her own silence
she begins to re build
inside herself
reconstruct
from the ground up
 all that has happened up until this point
taught her strength
whatever she sets her mind to will bring
desired results
deciding ways to channel devotional tendencies
that arise
without provocation
arise no matter where
what who when
arise
with urgency
not unlike
all those questions
pushing
pulling
thrusting
she is not above lusting
and the direction for
this devotion
must be carefully cautiously determined
every
conscious step
of the way.

tangled mess: two pieces. 2002.

1.

Moving the constant debris
of mind emotion clutter out of the way
I listen for a calm
I listen for a storm
these legs are tired of being touched
by your lovingly told lies
my words have been drained now
of their original power
my unrehearsed lines are like
cries sent out to already thunderous skies
that mirror a discontent you cannot imagine
my arms reach out into a hopeful arch
then I am leaning back into temporary retreat
and a form of defeat
so many private moments
locked away from you

and why do I call this tangled mess of strong feelings "love?"
and why do you always seem to respond with the same twisted longing?

I become familiar with making Everything Fine

yes, Everything is Fine.

2.

If I love you
I will be with you
If I trust you
I will be spreading my heart thin
around the razor edge of these decisions
If I give you more of my truth
I will suffer, maybe grow stronger
If I love you I will share my body, my bed, my fears
all the precious intangibles

And if you love me, you will honor what I am offering
not with your words
but through your actions
I learn quickly to swallow the ferocious thoughts
and become new again
If I love you
I become new again.

cloak of fears

she wore a cloak of fears from her ankles to her ears
breathing anxious solitude

she had moments of unity with all that is good
but anger welled up inside no matter how hard she denied

she drank from the carved out empty fossils of memory
aching for a long ago past

she refused offerings from the moon
turning into a hungry traveler
upon weary roads drenched by drought

she was so rich
with diamonds for breakfast
emeralds for tea

she had questions and could never sit still
She had questions and could never get her fill

she wore that cloak of fears from her
ankles to her ears

breathing anxious solitude.

fight or flight. from 2003

I was hoping there would be some
really easy
way out
I was hoping time
would grant me a miracle
my passion is broken
and this wound re -opened
then that spirit that has been helping me through
heaved a great sigh
so loudly that this time
I was sure it was her.
no mistake.
I could no longer fight
I could never really fly
the poems are stories, the stories are
unfinished thoughts
the task is always uncompleted
never done
how many ways can I say it?
fantasy builds on strange enough reality and
the skeletal remains of hope
reading between the lines to the truth of the matter
which will inevitably
prove my innocence, erase my guilt
deep down guilt
something about original sin
revealing certain mysteries
punishment, salvation, delivery from suffering
I had been hoping for some easy way out
of this tainted and distorted labyrinth
this ongoing maze of nights and days
celebrating and bouncing off the walls
of the uterus or galaxy as it were
I was hoping time would grant me a miracle

and if time should grant this miracle, what would I do
but take it in my unclenched fists, open palm to the sky
whispering for a different reprieve
since the miracle was not spoken of
in certain circles
and those circles would be broken
by the light of day
and the motives of the people within them
exposed for the lessons to be learned
the people individually would be
revealed from their core
and that would make those decisions that much easier
those decisions about who to trust, who to let in
closer than the kind of fire we can truly identify

professor of social work-- an excerpt from a lecture

Biological psychiatry, in an unholy symbiosis with the drug industry, has actively
promoted the view that people’s emotional problems are symptoms of diseases of the
body (brain), usually resulting from genetic abnormalities. The number of social,
economic, spiritual, psychological, and educational problems considered to be or treated
as diseases has, needless to say, increased dramatically over the last quarter century —
a trend commonly referred to as medicalization (e.g., Conrad & Schneider, 1992).
The unchecked medicalization of distress of course cannot have only positive
implications: it also carries its share of intellectual mystification, iatrogenic injury, and
sociocultural decline. Fully a quarter of the population is implied to be genetically
deficient because affected with “diagnosable” or “treatable disorders” (Mental Health,
1999). In one of history’s strangest social experiments, up to 15% of children in North
America are given stimulants and other drugs to make them conform to schools’
expectations. Long term psychotropic drug use can be shown to be detrimental for
individual brains. Will it be shown to be detrimental for the species’ evolutionary
capacity? (Fukuyama, 2002; Nesse & Berridge, 1997) In human bodies, families, and
groups, drugs only seem to blunt people’s responses to stress — drugs neither banish
stress or the sources of stress, nor do they enhance people’s capacity to cope with
stress (Mirowsky & Ross, 2003).
It goes without saying that people suffer and undoubtedly, ways exist for people
whose lives have been disrupted by the slings and arrows of fate to benefit from the
psychological and behavioral alterations produced by psychotropic drugs. However, the
all-too-commonly-accepted views that medication can solve distressed people’s
problems, or that medication should be the most easily and widely available
intervention, need urgently to be re-evaluated and contextualized. In particular, it hardly
seems possible today to use the findings of countless clinical trials in
psychopharmacology to enlighten us about the potential benefits and psychological
effects of drugs, or to inform us accurately about drugs’ potential risks, and certainly not
to suggest what might be “ideal” conditions for drug use in helping relationships.
In sum, the experts have failed the public and no one wishes to be held
accountable. It is almost as if the entire edifice of psychopharmacotherapy must be torn
down and rebuilt from scratch, with participation from anyone who wishes, as long as
their contributions are transparent (since they cannot be guaranteed to be principled).
The implications are numerous and enormous. Here is just one implication: it is time for
more social workers to become seriously engaged in the critical evaluation and the
reconstruction of the psychotropic drug treatment enterprise.

which part human?

I dreamed of you
before I ever saw you
shining and broken
lips holding words unspoken
emotion coiled like snakes full of venom
on its way out

I dreamed of you
before we even met
and before I knew what was happening
there you were
glowing
wounded and untouchable
scars stretch across the impersonal night sky
I run my fingers over them
encouraging healing

I dreamed you
part God, part human
wretched and aching
cannot sit still, the force of you
unparalleled by anything
in the known universe

slip through my fingers

"According to the DSM, human life is a form of mental illness."

holding many truths at once
all of a sudden
the faith I was developing
is called into question
I am standing in the shadows
until light pours in from the sky
visibility and obscured views
this pattern repeats
grasping at truths
trying to hold just one of them
while hundreds slip through my fingers
resisting dogma yet craving answers
this shadow is comfortable
but light reveals my surroundings
exposing the craving for consistency
wanting to be free from need
 is in itself a desire
dreams and truth wrap around your mind
so tightly you forget other possibilities
and what I experience
in equilibrium
one foot in truth shadow
the other in light
mind is an illusion
heart longing for spirit
to take me home

foggy spring day- follow up about Miley and Sinead

I am not always one to take the temperature of the toxic bullshit that makes up the majority of our media outlets but since I am also familiar with progressive radio stations I am hoping that we can clear up at least one of the recent incidents between two people who are known for what many consider deviant behavior. Others may not even register anything out of the ordinary. In fact, in pop culture and to a more subtle extent in subcultures the norm is to paint people into a corner when they have seemingly spoken out of turn as Sinead did by writing an open letter.

My main problem with what happened is that we are using totally archaic images and language when it comes to female artists, nudity, youth fixation and all of that.  We hear pimp, whore and prostitute over and over, when in fact it would serve us all well to abandon those terms in favor of language that really suits the situation, and we could use that language in such a way that we make it a solid practice to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable, until there are less who are constantly disturbed and more people who act less out of fear and pain and more out of intelligence and keen observation.

We have never had such a world and I do not expect it to happen instantly but the more people who see how much more that they would get out of living in such a world, the closer we will incrementally step toward such a world, externally and of course it will at some point be able to match up more naturally with our inner world.

For all the consciousness that has supposedly been raised over the past decades, it seems that the covert nature of these ills have not gone away, they have become insidious. Rather than rant against it, I choose to offer up suggestions of how to change it if you are interested in actually getting to songs, art and dialogue that can keep your interest and inspire you. I, for one, am more than ready for that to happen on a Massive scale!!

1. Stop instantly comparing one artist to another before you have a good sense of their intended message or messages

2. Stop focusing so much on their appearance, and I suggest this because if the celebrity or politician's public is not obsessed with their image and how their image is changing, they will be forced to have more of a reason to be in the public eye, and more and more those will be good reasons and then we will wean off of worshiping celebrities in general.

3. Perhaps doing these things will lead to more of a social conscience for some of them and an ability to take a stand publically and courageously on pressing matters in this world we all share! What a breath of fresh air that would be for a huge part of the American public and for people who live abroad who feel that we are incredibly wasteful and arrogant. Just like a stage of diabetes that is not full blown yet, we can reverse this damaging trend.

to my faithful readers on this hot spring day

Update for freedom-- empowerment and friendship...on the theme of women in the music industry as it is currently in 2014.

Applying concepts such as friendliness toward yourself will take time for folks like Miley. This does not mean she will never master the act of right thought and right speech, but I do understand that if she feels her career hinges upon behaving in a way that shocks people and does not uplift them, she will only be her own worst enemy. And that most certainly is not her fault. At all. she like so many of us were born and raised in the clutches of very sick American culture, and this sickness infiltrated our music inevitably. and we are having growing pains because we all have to live with our actions, live with our treatment of ourselves, our bodies, each other, our lives, our work. what is our work? what are we here to do?

This is a great turning point for both Artists, and for American popular music in general.

Miley and Sinead and Amanda Bynes and Lauryn Hill and countless others who have been persecuted for whatever perceived deviant behavior or unpopular opinions deserve to be in control of their labor and should be taxed according only to the extent that they can produce the songs and art and contributions to theatre that they can offer up to the global community in whatever time frame is healthy for them. They can choose to learn from mistakes they made and keep their heads up in the future as they move forward into better days.

We need democracy to be restored, and in some senses in this country we have never really fully had it depending on who you are and who you are descended from. We the people need an amendment to the constitution that protects a woman's right to choose about whether or not she is to give birth,  we need universal health care, which Barack Obama has been seen working on, putting it down the books for good, just as abortion should be.

It is time for civil rights to be addressed even more through music and any artist stepping up to participate in this will help the cause of true freedom, empowerment and sincere friendship flourish.

Miley does not deserve more enemies. She does not deserve to be treated unfairly. I see why Sinead wrote what she did and I see why Miley reacted the way she did.