Time by Janet Muirhead Hill

Time

 

When all is said and all is done

and when the race is over,

Will we be happy that we’ve run?

Will we wish to do it over?

 

Time marches on without a care

about what we are doing.

It bothers not with when or where

or what trouble is ensuing.

 

We may be bored; we may be stressed.

We may be steeped in sorrow

But time keeps plodding as if pressed

to reach the next tomorrow.

 

If in the end we have regret

for the things we didn’t do

we’ll be reminded if we forget

that there’s no use to rue

 

the time that’s gone will not return

and useless are excuses.

For if nothing else we learn,

know time bears no abuses.

 

Every second, minute, hour

is the same to every man.

It is within each person’s power

to do with as she can.

More Poetry by Michael Lee Johnson

Raindrop Baby

 

I’m a raindrop baby

silhouetted in the night,

single-ringed single person

minus the 24 carat gold.

A harvester of night life,

star crystal,

a gather of sluts in my imagination,

a wild driver of the

anal sinful products of sex.

I run the highways drunk

as a skunk with his anus high in the air

in search of what I wished

or dream wild factual fantasy about.

Offended I simply piss somewhere.

Where does the highway buckle up:

DUI,DUI?

Are these your initials lover

on my driver’s license

or just a pained memory

the morning after my dream

turned to real piss?

-2008-

 

I Am Old Frustrated Thought

 

I am old frustrated thought

I look into my once eagle eyes

and find them dim before my dead mother,

I see through clouded egg whites with days

passing by like fog feathers.

I trip over old experiences and expressions,

try hard to suppress them or revisit them;

I’m a fool in my damn recollections,

not knowing what to keep and what to toss out–

but the dreams flow like white flour and deceive

me till they capture the nightmare of the past images

in a black blanket wrapped up

and wake me before my psychiatrist.

I only see this nut once every three months.

It is at times like these I know not where I walk

or venture.  I trip over my piety and spill my coffee cup.

I seek sanctuary in the common place of my nowhere life.

It is here the days pass and the years slip like ice cubes–

solid footing is a struggle in the socks of depression.

I am old frustrated thought;

passing by like fog feathers.

-2007

 

Mindful, Mindless, October Date

 

Mindful of my lover

running late, as common

as tying your shoestrings;

I’m battered as an armadillos shell;

I put my bands around my emotional body

armor native to myself and walk like a stud

in darkness.

Everything in October has a shade of orange you know–

a hint of witch and goblin.

In the leaves between my naked feet

and toes, as I pace my walk in the parking lot,

I count them–

I count them color chart fragments and bites:

oranges, reds, still mostly greens.

Barefooted the time of the tears, the year fragmented.

 

I am male battered in a relationship

tested without my testosterone

no sexual rectification or recharging

of my batteries needed.

 

I lie limp.

Native to myself–

mindless of my lover running late.

 

Then she arrives.

-2007

 

 

Forked in Itasca

 

I am so frustrated

I want to chew

the dandruff

out of the internet hair implant

and dislodge it,

for a lost love affair I never cared

about and hardly knew.

Don’t tell me about my sentence structure,

I am human in these simple words.

I swear to you I curse.

Then the ram of my affair falls short

frustrating my approach to the world

at my fingertips.

No Yellow Pages here my love.

The dial up of my local connection

is wretched, stuck unincorporated

in the land I approved to live in,

monopolized by Comcast the

robbers of the poor and the humbled.

All I hear is the rambling of the railroad tracks.

I grow numb in my deafness faint with my hearing.

Did I ask for your opinion?

I am a frustrated foreign camper

in my own community.

Of a village I don’t live in,

but I love this local village I lie about.

I am estranged.

I tie knots in contradictions

when I travel light and far,

visit home I long for a journey

past where I have never been.

Is this the reason I am lost

forked in between

the poet I think I am

and the working man

my bills dictate?

-2007- 

Poetry by Michael Lee Johnson

Hanging Together in Minnesota

Two thousand men on death row

in the state of Texas.  I’ve never

been here, still I’m worrying

myself  to death.

 

Webs of worry travel fast,

scan over my memory bank

back and forth like a copy machine.

 

I refuse to get out of my bed

I’m covered with burnt dream ashes

held in custody my cobwebbed anxiety

sheets waiting for the on looking armed

system of justice to take me away.

 

Their loud speakers keep screaming channeled

commands through vibrating my eardrums;

their messages keep cross-firing against my own desires.

 

There must be a warrant out for my arrest.

I will not listen period.  I will shut out the sounds period.

Insanity echoes with stressed sounds.

 

It’s Sunday morning, prayer time, I swear I will block out

the church bells ringing on Franklin Avenue, ringing

at St. Paul’s Baptist Church. 

 

Religion confuses me like poetry or prose.

 

I curse I will hang where Christ used to dangle;

wooden cross-post in a Roman Catholic hole,

or was it protestant reformation?

 

I’m the thief, not the Savior.

 

I don’t want to die in my worry, my words, stranger in this world alone.

I want to resurrect the dream before the wounds came, and placed me in exile.

 

Long before the sounds of cell phones came ringing.

There must be a warrant out for my arrest.

Mixed in war, thunder, and sentence fragment.

 

-2007-

Writing to overcome fear

If an author is not passionate about his or her book or story, people will not be passionate about reading it.  All my favorite books were written by authors with a purpose and a passion for a cause. Khaled Hosseini’s passion for the plight of Afghanistan and compassion for Afghani women  fill his book, A Thousand Splendid Suns, and take the reader into the hearts, minds, and  emotional upheaval of the characters. He makes the reader care about them on a gut level. 

 

Barbara Kingsolver in each of her books, has a cause—and a passion for it—that is conveyed by the characters who lead the author and then us through the African jungle, the Cherokee nation, the Appalachian hills and valleys. In Prodigal Summer, we care about Deanna and the animal predators she wants to protect, about the dying mother, her children, the young widow, and each of the other characters as we learn what it is that drives them to be who they are. 

 

Marcus Stevens has us caring not only about a young white girl in love with an Indian, but also, the history of the Cheyenne girl whose body is accidentally exhumed.  

 

In Jana McBurney-Lin’s My Half of the Sky, we empathize with the young Chinese woman whose life is controlled and mismanaged by her father who arranges a marriage in order to pay off gambling debts that threaten to get him killed.  Millions of books by authors who care about the plight of his or her characters, allow the reader to share their passions and convictions vicariously.

 

If you grew up in an age and similar culture as I did, you probably achieved the ability to mask and subdue emotions. Keep it all inside. Don’t let anyone see how you feel. Don’t cry. Don’t get mad! Be nice. Always. No matter how you feel. Never ever hurt anyone’s feelings. Feelings? Feelings became so taboo for me, that I grew up without the tools needed to identify any kind of emotion. And without emotion, it was very difficult to know what I wanted, or even who I was. As I grew older, I learned that it was easier for me to get in touch with how I felt about anything, and to express those feelings by writing, than it was by speaking. I was so afraid of emotion, that the more I felt, the less I could speak. The stronger the emotion, the more mute I became. That caused some very embarrassing situations. 

 

The first date I ever had was to  a hay ride put on by the FHA. Girls had to ask boys. I had a terrible, almost painful crush on a very cute boy in my class named Tad. I admired him from afar, never speaking two words to him. My older brother, determined to “help” me, insisted that I just call the guy and ask if he would go with me. “What’s the worst he can say?”  He initiated the call for me, and as soon as he had Tad on the line, stuck the phone to my ear. I gulped and somehow muttered the question. “Will you go to the FHA hayride with me?”  To my horror, he said, “Yes.” 

 

I was in no way prepared to deal with this situation. Fear paralyzed my vocal cords for the whole evening. Tad tried to start a few conversations. I wanted to answer but terror kept me from responding with more that a nod, a head-shake, a squeeze of the hand or a hug. Oh, yes. I wasn’t afraid to put my arms around him and hold on tight in a desperate effort to say, I’m sorry I can’t talk, but please love me anyway. 

 

It was our only date. I still idolized him from afar, knowing I had blown any chance that he would ever want to go out with me again. A few years later, I was informed that a car crash had taken his life. To this day I don’t understand my reaction. I giggled, an embarrassed and uncontrollable giggle. I was sad, shocked——and I laughed——an example of the confused emotional state I lived in then. 

 

I can think of dozens of other face-burning, spine-crawling, wishing-to-disappear-through-the-cracks-in-the-floor moments throughout my lifetime that resulted from my inability to say the right thing at the right time. The more I admired people, the harder it was to speak to them. The more I hated something, the more I avoided any subject that might require me to speak of it. The sadder I felt, the more I isolated myself. And if I couldn’t physically hide, I mentally withdrew, escaping behind a wall in my mind where no one could peek. 

 

Written words became a vehicle for me to explore the wilderness of my confused inner life. Words on paper took me places forbidden to my tongue. Through poetry and prose, I could begin to taste and try the suppressed emotions that haunted me. I could begin to find out what I valued; what disturbed me, what was important to me, and what was not. Why do I like to write fiction? I think it’s because a fictional character can take the passions and convictions and emotions that I hold deeply, and portray them in a real and meaningful way— a way in which I am still not capable of verbalizing orally, or fully understanding beyond the written page.

Overcoming Fear, by Janet Muirhead Hill

When overwhelmed with projects needing attention, and discouraged from not seeing the results one wants, it’s easy to feel discouraged. Maybe more than discouraged—depressed and immobilized. When that happens, STOP. Take a look at where you are versus where you want to be. What do you need to do to get there? It could be a new outlook, a change of pace, and an inspiration that you are not going to get sitting in front of the computer monitor, thinking, “what’s the use?” Get to the root of the problem; the real cause of the inability to function.   (Please note that I am talking to myself. I don’t know if other writers and/or publishers have the same experience, but I do, at times, and breaking out of it is a joyous experience.) 

And how do I break out of it? In trying to pinpoint the moment of Epiphany in recent days, I realize it started with an e-mail I read about fear blocking the way to accomplishment. As I worked through that fear, I experienced the building excitement that comes from believing in oneself.

  

“Fear, it paralyzes us. It keeps us from doing the things we dream about. It prevents us from sharing our gifts,” said Janet Attwood, author of The Passion Test.  Hmm. Me, Afraid? Well, yes, there is one thing I have always been afraid of. One thing that I have worked hard to overcome. It is the fear of success….No, really. It’s a close kin to the fear of failure, probably disguised as such. But why should I fear failure? Through various incidents in my past as a child, some trauma as a teen, and a long and mentally oppressive relationship as an adult, I was conditioned to believe that failure was my lot, and I grew comfortable in that role. 

 

I was an incorrigible tomboy, growing up. I had no fear of bears, snakes, spiders, or risky adventures. I have, however, for as long as I can remember, had an overwhelming, paralyzing, debilitating fear of speaking in public or even conversing with people I didn’t know well. (Especially talking to the male classmates that I really liked.) I was afraid to make phone calls. I was afraid to ask or answer questions in class. I could not without extreme pain, panic, and illness get up in front of an audience. Why? It’s hard to analyze, let alone explain, but I believe it is a fear of success. A fear of breaking out of the internally held beliefs and the voices in my head that scold, “You’ll make a fool of yourself. You cannot succeed. Do you really think anyone wants to listen to you?” And the most pervasive, “Who do you think you are?” in that scornful accusing tone.  So over and over I proved those voices right. 

 

In recent years, I’ve taken steps to prove them wrong. It isn’t easy. But gets easier as time goes by, easier with each risk taken, easier when I realize that the fear that keeps me prisoner is unfounded. Then I realize that the biggest fear comes from the question, not “what if I fail?” but “what if I succeed?” There is a certain security in the expectation of failure. If I don’t expect myself to succeed in certain areas, I am exempt from responsibility. “Everyone knows I can’t do that.”  But what if I can? Then I must. I have a responsibility. Now that’s scary! 

 

I have presented seminars and school visits, have read passages from my book to audiences enough that I know that I can. But the old ghost of fear hovers nearby, always ready to take advantage of any personal or financial setback or any other cause for discouragement. How quickly the Old Ghost moves in and takes over, once again paralyzing me, preventing any effort to take back control of my life. He whispers, “Who do you think you are? You know you can’t expect success. You are a failure.” And I settle back into the familiar zone of inactivity and despair; my good intentions naturally failing, and loathing myself at the end of the day. So, upon reading Janet Attwood’s e-mail, I looked at what the Old Ghost of Fear was preventing me from doing. The answer? Things that are very important to me. I have book ideas that need written. I have books written that need published. I have books published that need promotion. 

 

“But you don’t have money to do any of it.”

 

I have the ability to make money. I have skills and knowledge that I can share. 

 

“No way!” Old Ghost shouts, “Who do you think you are?” (You see how strong those old, erroneous beliefs are?)

 

Yes, they are erroneous. I have proven I can. Just as I proved I could climb the highest tree, jump off the highest point of the roof of the machine shed into the snow, pick up the longest snake, or, without anything to hang onto, attempt to ride a 1000 pound bull. (If you wonder, ask me for my poem about that.) —just as I proved I could do those things when I was a child, just as I completely overcame my fear of the dark by walking through it night after night when I was 11,  so I have proven that I can overcome this “fear of success” as an adult. Yet, because of Old Ghost’s persistence, it seems I have to keep proving it over and over. 

 

“Who do I think I am?” I think I am the lady who wrote and published the books that thousands of children love to read. I think I am the lady of whom students in my seminars and school visits spoke so highly, saying my classes were both enjoyable and helpful. I think I am the poet who perched in front of an audience in front of a Chatauqua, last night. and confidently read her old poems; the one who received many compliments afterward. I think, that like everyone else in the world, I was born with certain gifts; potential talents, and with a purpose for being here. I really shouldn’t have to rehearse these accomplishments, which, to those without fear must seem simple, in order to hush the ghost of fear so I can get some work done. Yet, I guess it’s okay to think and talk about them, if that’s what it takes to send Old Ghost away. 

 

I’ve long considered, discussed, and intended to schedule more workshops and seminars. It’s even been on by “tudu” list. For far too long, I’ve avoided doing so. Why? Because Old Ghost whispered, and, unconsciously, I listened. Well, Old Ghost, back off. Realizing what you are up to has allowed me to show you a thing or two. I am not only going to host a workshop, I am going to write a workbook to go with it so that participants can take it home with them and use the exercises again and again, so that they can get the benefit of any lessons we don’t have adequate time to cover in class. Take that, Old Ghost. This is just the first of many. With the proceeds, I can better promote the books I have. I can finance the illustration and printing of the books I still need to publish. With this renewed confidence, I can write more, and take on and complete more projects. 

 

Best of all, with Old Ghost’s lies once again rejected, I am no longer prevented from sharing with others the innate talents I never used to allow myself to experience, let alone admit I possess. 

 

More Poetry by Patricia Roche

Living In a Fish Bowl

 

Looking out the window

Nature has its own disguise

 

Trapped behind four walls of glass

No one knows who I am?

Or my past!

Faceless is the lonely souls

Behind the reflection of glass

 

Time has just evolved

Shadows, reflections

Looking through the window

Where no doors pass

 

Like a flower blossoms in a vase

Stands still in a crowd

No one notices!

 

The world is so crowded

Streets are full of traffic

The side walks of cyber technology

Communications so vast!

Why so many faces of the lonely?

Behind the reflection of glass!

Poetry by Michael Lee Johnson

A poet, and freelance writer, Michael Lee Johnson is self-employed in advertising, and selling custom promotional products.  He is the author of The Lost American:  From Exile to Freedom, http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-46091-7.  He has published two chapbooks of poetry.   A contributor in the Silver Boomers poetry anthology about aging baby boomers, by Silver Boomer Books,  he resides in Itasca,  Illinois, United States.   He lived in Canada during the Vietnam era and will be published as a contributor poet in the anthology Crossing Lines: Poets Who Came toCanada in the Vietnam War Era publication scheduled for early 2008.  His literary work has been published in many countries aroud the globe. 

Visit his website at: http://poetryman.mysite.com/.   He is now the publisher, editor of Poetic Legacy,  http://www.poetriclegacy.mysite.com/ ; Birds By My Window: Willow Tree Poems , http://birdsbywindow.blogspot.com/; A Tender Touch & A Shade of Blue, http://atendertouch.blogspot.com/; and Wizards Of The Wind,  http://wizardsofthewind.blogspot.com/.  All  publications are now open for submissions.  Audio MP3 of poems, of Mr. Johnson, are available on request.

 

 

Manic is the Dark Night

By Michael Lee Johnson

 

 

Deep into the forest

the trees have turned

black, and the sun

has disappeared in

the distance beneath

the earth line, leaving

the sky a palette of grays

sheltering the pine trees

with pitch-tar shadows.

It is here in this black

and sky gray the mind

turns psycho

tosses norms and pathos

into a ground cellar of hell,

tosses words out through the teeth.

“Don’t smile or act funny,

try to be cute with me;

how can I help you today

out of your depression?”

I feel jubilant, I feel over the moon

with euphoric gaiety.

Damn I just feel happy!

Back into the wood of somberness

back into the twigs,

sedated the psychiatrist

scribbles, notes, nonsense on a pad of yellow paper:

“mania, oh yes, mania, I prescribe

lithium, do I need to call the police?”

No sir, back into the dark woods I go.

Controlled, to get my meds. I

twist and rearrange my smile,

crooked, to fit the immediate need.

Deep in my forest

the trees have turned black again,

to satisfy the conveyer–

the Lord of the dark wood.

 

-2007-

 

Bird Feeder

By Michael Lee Johnson

 

Baby,

born

just

a

sparrow-

first flight

from balcony

to tree limb.

A chip of corn falls

from the feeder

to the ground.

 

-2007-

 

 

Mother, Edith, at 98

(Version #3 Nov. 27^th 2007)

By Michael Lee Johnson

Edith, in this nursing home
blinded with macular degeneration,

I come to you with your blurry

eyes, crystal sharp mind,

your countenance of grace–

as yesterday’s winds

I have chosen to consume you

and take you away.

 

“Oh, where did Jesus disappear

to, she murmured,

over and over again,”

in a low voice

dripping words

like a leaking faucet:

“Oh, there He is my my

Angel of the coming.”

 

-2007-

 

I Brew in Broth

By Michael Lee Johnson

 

When the silence of my

life tickles in darkness

delves into my daily routine

caught in my melancholy music

at times, not exact;

then exuberant auto racing playing

at times, not exact;

(a new poem published or a kick in the ass)

kick smacks like tornado alley

in the tomato can

left over-paste

of my emotions

at times, not exact;

I realize the split of legacy,

of loyalty on its knees fractured

like a comma or sentence fragment,

naked like a broken egg

between friendship and hatred,

I stew like beef then broth

simmering

sort of liked, sort of hated,

not exact.

 

-2007-

 

Art by Jorie Jenkins

 “The drawing ‘legacy’ is meant to represent how we attempt to be fruitful and grow after someone hurts us and leaves a ‘vacancy’ or damage in our growth.” Jorie Jenkins

Poetry by Patricia Roche

Poem by Patricia Roche:

RESCUE ME

 

From myself!

Living in a 9 by 10 room

Blinds shut by an umbilical cord

 

Papers on the windows

Castrated by life

Cut off from my parents

Discipline was their sword

 

It is hard to believe

My life was trapped

Behind the thickness of a door

 

No one would knock

No one would talk

I was completely ignored

 

Days turned into years

Birthdays & holidays

Never existed behind closed doors

 

Empty chair at the table

What was their reward?

TV, shows & conversations

I was excluded from

 

Faceless child, invisible spirit

Where did I come from?

 

I no longer lived in a house

A home with no family

Or entertaining friends

 

I dropped off

The face of the earth

It was hell, I was living in

Completely alienated

From love & affection

No one to speak to

No one would listen

To a word I said

But the searching of a child will never end.

  

Annual edition now in the mail

What was to be our final edition of the printed version of Alone Together is finally in the mail, almost a year after it was laid out and some copies printed. Before getting it mailed and changing it’s title to 2008 Annual Edition, we made the decision that in addition to this online blog version of Alone Together, we will continue to produce a print version once a year, mailing it to contributors and current subscribers. Rather than charging a subscription rate in the future, since there will only be one edition per year, we will sell it individually.  The price will be determined by length and binding and quality of paper and number of color graphics. Don’t hesitate to add your comments to any blog posts. Submit your art, poetry, and articles etc. via e-mail to AT@ravenpublishing.net or rachelgrieves@yahoo.com.  Lisa Bri, a regular contributor to Alone Together has  a new website that is also accepting articles etc. pertaining to surviving abuse. Check it out here.