Anger, My Love, Protector, Enemy

Anger, my love, protector, enemy:
Did you force yourself on me
or was it I who chose you
while blind drunk on my weakness,
wishing to replace my dread,
pain, guilt, shame, to stop feeling sad?
You, shielding me from the pain of abuse,
from malice, unpredictability,
neglect, incompetence, stupidity,
and universe's cool indifference.
When you take my hands to dance
the fire around your heart scorches my skin
and the ice at your center freezes mine.
How my heart burns! I sometimes
wonder if this is what love must feel like.

Name

My restless feather-picking cockatoo,
Can you tell why denial veils my ire
(In turn cloaking my fears; and those my shame)
And shame's shrouding my rusting grief? But you,
Confined inside a mesh—of metal wire—
Just raise your crest, that sulphur-yellow flame,

Lift up your wings, then start to pace your cell,
And squawk in bursts, as though your bill’s on fire;
My pet, enough! I care for you the same….
Perhaps beneath my grief some geysers spell
Love’s name!

Confessions of a Survivor

They say that shame is a global judgment
On the bad self which devalued now shrinks,
Or wishing to at least hide from the eyes,
Powerless to veil its bared worthlessness.
Thus shame's debilitating beyond words,
While guilt's a judgment on actions only;
Discomfort thus much easier to bear,
The good self freed should it choose to repent,
Sacrifice, pay the cost, repair the harm....
Oh how foolishly assuring must be
To make distinctions in his fancy ink
For one whose boiling blood is a bright red,
Not curdling darkness lurching forth blindly,
Unconsciously circling, somehow feeding
Mindless machinery and all aiming
To keep alive this thinking squishy thing
Where souls in solitary confinement
Ask why me and not him, why him not me?
Why this and not that, why now and not then?
Why breathe this air and take up this space-time
When each single hour the lives of all kind
End mid-breath without a reason or rhyme?
Oh what do scientists in lab coats know,
What do therapists, what do preachers know....
What does anybody know about survival guilt!
When they all know nothing in the first place
Of why they're born and living anyway.
Only the criminals must feel guilty,
Or they should, they say, but nobody else.
How easy it must be if you fear no
Punishment for living your random lives.
How many cold dead hands are caressing your thick throat?

It's Not Easy at All to Give Thanks

It's not easy at all
To give thanks.  You recall
I'm sure the day you sent
Me, this heavy present
You wrapped in skin and woe—
With nerves you'd tied the bow!
The day you sent this I:
Unknown, unasked, from high;
With fury, fear, and shame;
With grief, torment, and blame....

The vacuum cleaner drones
And fills the emptiness
With dead skin cells and waste.
This old vacation home
Is where we'll house the guests
This Thanksgiving. What's more,
A child who coughs and spits
Who laughs for no reason
Looks up at me, says thanks.
I don't understand you!

It's Humid Out Here

It's humid out here
Economies always collapse
We smoke to pass the time
Far away lion cubs practice their growl
High above vultures hissing and they grunt
I can almost feel the fire ant's leer
guiding my bike faster past the tents
When the vultures land guerillas come out
It's the sun or shame inviting me to melt?
It's an aged cacao tree that I've hid behind
I think I taste a bitter kindness near

Disgraceful

Sex
An exercise
In disgraceful pleasure

Horizontal calculus
Integrating the area that pulsates
Beneath folds of sensitive skin

Myriad sweat drops that march
To the sound of heartbeat drums
And sultry gusts of breath

The hoarse-voiced commander
Again and again shouting orders:
Pleasure!  Pleasure!  Pleasure!

Aidos looked away from her body
Her teary eyes had just glimmered
In the cracked blood-soaked mirror

The Law of Conservation of Love

My eyes rained upon the sheet last night,

smudged my formula of Xs, Ys.
Emotions make a shameful mess of things,
I thought, exhausted cried myself to sleep.

This morning I upped and killed a lost fly.
I don’t care, I don’t believe in karma.
Life’s unfair, I’ve nothing left to lose.
My heart sleeps, my eyes are red but dry.

Tomorrow I may wake and slowly rise
and desire to, or consciously choose
to believe in the conservation of love,
to trust that love is never truly lost.

And later when my hair is grey and white
I may kiss an adrift fly, apologize
to life at large and my own injured heart,
that I doubted the invisible formula.

Protecting Pain

Her wrinkled ground of psyche bears
the throbbing spoor of savage wills

She seeks to gather fearless strength
and build from hate a bed of spikes

It's not the light but shades she wears
reposing on protecting pain

Her skin was charred and she was shamed 
for all and naught and for her weight

She sighs as though an offshore wind
and arches faced with faceless void

She loathes herself as storm the breeze
and dies at sea as squalls abate

So fear and hate coordinate
in a harrowing harmony

At Times

So if it's all your fault   
Then I am in the right
But then the world's unfair 

But if it's my failure 
It seems the world is fair
But I'm the one to blame 

If no one is at fault 
Nobody is to blame 
But world's no less unfair

At times the anguish wanes
The fearful guard relents
The world and I are one

At times I breathe the air
The air breathes me in turn
And pain forgets its shame