Sad But True (a small-stone & ekphrastik poem)

Aye!
Yes, yes I do.
Ain’t it sad? Sad but true.
So what we gonna,
what we gonna do?

© paz

Positive Affirmations 2

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I feel frantic tonight, as I have the last few nights this week. Tonight, well, I don’t know quite how to explain this feeling. It’s like the PLDs (Pretty Little Demons) came back from vacation, hung over and strung out on cocaine, and are throwing a party in my honor. What am I trying to fuckin’ say…

Well, shit… I’m frantic but not angry. I’m excited; I’m thrilled with life and can’t wait for the next second to come. Everything is much to slow or much too fast. I’m over stimulated. I want it to speed up to my level. Confidence has soared and roared. I’m a social butterfly, not a wallflower. I am everyone–everyone is ME. Loud and outspoken, but agreeable to. I start a fight, but then I’ll make the peace. Pacify me and i’ll pacify you.

But an a storm of instability seems to approach. I hope I’m wrong. I HOPE THE WEATHER MAN IS WRONG!

That’s how I feel, only I can’t seem to pacify myself at night. In the days, yes. Nights, not so much. I’m caught in a tangle of thoughts.

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This morning I woke up screaming. I was yelling at my mother in a dream, though I don’t know or remember what the dream was about or what I said to her. All I know is my own voice woke me. It’s odd. It it happens a lot to me; it happens more when I’m frantic, or hypomanic or whatever.

****

Friday night was terrible. I couldn’t sleep. Thoughts were racing. My body wanted rest but my brain was running a marathon. I wrote yet another ramble on my iPhone (note the bad grammar). You can’t write at light-speed while tapping tiny keys on a little screen.

Rambles ©paz 2013

I jump from tangent to tangent. And I’m anxious. These days there’s so much anxiety that is coursing through my body that my hands are shaky again.

****

I went from writing on my phone to writing on my sketchbook. I don’t know when I finally fell asleep.

But here’s more of what I wrote. I’ll call them my positive affirmations, for now.

© paz 2013

Positive Affirmations

iphone rambles ©paz 2013

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My 5 a.m. rambles from last night’s hypomanic induced sleeplessness.

Howl – A Haiku

Open moon sighs high.
Howling trees behind the mist.
Clouds beckoning me.

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Open moon sighs high.
Howling trees behind the mist.
I feel all alone.

****

(c) paz
Taken with my phone last night.

How Many Lives Has She Lived?

An uncanny grace surrounds her.
Insurmountable,
her saturated eyes pierce
pregnant with what is silenced.

How many lives has she lived?

 

2012 © paz

Youth’s Resilience

Calcutta’s red light district is a cluster of buzzing clatter.
Kochi races down its streets to catch her friend.
Hair waving behind her; tears falling on hot pavement,
leaving a trail of charm.

Pedaling on a stolen bikes, the two friends fly
past police men, merchants with tents,
beggars and pimps.
Mothers are bathing babies on sidewalk steps,
while others count their tips.

In arousing admiration, men consume their liquor.
the suffocating lot now growing thicker.
Behind the two, still, lies a path of charm.

People seem impenetrable, but
the two weave in and out of open spaces,
between haggard faces
like two hands knitting a dress.
A sweet caress of light,

her camera’s flash reflecting passerby’s frozen eyes,
eyes forever seized in her film. Imprinted they’ll
lie on that path of charm.

Her mother, blocks behind, is reapplying lipstick.
She attends the next man to make a meager living
the only way she’s known. “Kochi, it’s the only way you can”.

Words ingrained, questions that stain the children of this alley’s main–
Still clinging her camera, still giggling brilliance,
Kochi, remains unwavering–propelled into significance.

A path, she’s left behind.
She is the power of art, of resilience.
This is her avenue to hope and dream.

2012 © paz

9.21.12, an afterthought

Seeds
of ambivalence and ambiguity
planted in my memory;
thoughts grow deep–
roots, sinew-ed long,
crooked and heavy–
blossoming illustrious illusions.

2012 © paz

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This one popped in my head the other day when I was sketching out some of my PLDs since my PLDs (Pretty Little Demons) and the Mouse always seem to contradict each other.

9.18.2012

When we have to break down walls and windows
To get through to what’s in front of us, because
The panes of glass are too damn dirty, damped and foggy,
We begin to see with clarity.

When we drop the ammo, purge the stones
We held in our mouths,
And mince virulent words,
We are relieved.

When the mind’s eye stretches
Past the fields of cultivated despair,
And is eager to plow down those insanities,
We are refined.

When we discern the trees with their
Outstretched arms and incessant prayers,
the heirs of the Sun’s eye, their god,
We begin to bask in
A little more hope.

When we breathe in life’s scenic ambience,
Our sacrifices were worth the scarred tissue.
And the turbulence that makes
Life colorful, sprouts a fruit of
Succulent, iridescent hues.

When we stand like porters at the
Gate of our consciousness,
Not letting in false prejudice,
We begin to understand.

© paz

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I’m not too happy with the way this one worked out. I think I need to tweak it some.