Tag: pain

Stormy heart


When the windows shattered
And the splinters flew in
He just made for the back door
And left me
not knowing where to begin.
When the shards of glass hit me
And pierced my vulnerable skin
He was already going
Leaving me
feeling he was an inhuman being.
When I fell down covered in glass and bleeding,
And the storm raged on,
I didn’t look round because
I knew,I knew,I knew,
I knew he would be gone.
Suddenly peace came, the storm had quite
disappeared..
It was all over so quickly
Not as murderous as I feared.
My wounds were bad,I have to confess.
I had no bandage
Nothing with which to dress.
With an old towel I cleaned my blood
Then I lay me down to pray.
Since that day,no storms come this way.
My wounds are healing
I have just one thing to say.
When the storm was so bad
He left me all alone…
but strangely since then
all is peace and calm.
His absence has become
almost a balm.
But I hear stories of fierce storms rising up
In towns and villages
Not too far from here, where a wandering man appears.
Seems like he’s running to get away
From some storm
But he takes it with him
He gives it form.
So when the windows crashed in
glass flew at my face
he left me all alone
In what he thought
was a very dangerous place.
Did he not pick me up
and carry me outside?
No,my daughter,he left me alone;.
But since then
I lost a great burden…
And I lost a great feeling of shame.
Rise up,you women,bleeding and torn.
For on days like this,a new resolve is born.
While you live don’t accept all the blame.
Don’t live so long as I did,in fear and in shame.
Rise up and find that calm
In the eye of the storm…
On days like this
a new woman is born

Old roses and their thorns

Could  any be more frenemial then a rose

For as we reach to sniff its fragrant scent

It digs its thorns into  our hands and clothes

And tetanus is a menace where we’re rent.

And yet this flower is   judged to be the queen,

As fragrantly it opens in the sun.

And for a while, we enjoy what we’re seeing

Until its time and purposes are done.

May it be so for people whom we know?

The more they grace, more the harm  that’s done.

Attracted by a sweet and charming glow

Our heart  is torn and we then  beauty  shun .

And yet we would not banish flowers like these.

The pain is offset by the ways they please.

PS I invented the word frenemial based on the word frenemy which I posted on yesterday

Solace

The comfort of another’s kindly glance

The solace of a writer”s l voice.

These may arrive as if    by chance.

To be responsive   is in part our  choice.

Some days our shell is closed,  and all rebuts.

Not even  loving arms   or lips are felt.

So little on this earth will bring comfort

Until  this hardness wants itself to melt.

Be wary as  it may not  yet be  time

Far better hide until right days are born.

To let our soul reject the dagger fine.

We  needs respect a fear of  ruinous scorn.

Though  isolated,lost, uncertain we  may feel,

These  dream wrought symbols make the soul to heal

Accepting that perfection is remote,

What love and friendship must at least entail

Are boundaries both elastic and firm.

Yet even that is but a mere detail

Less subtle is the need to do .no harm

For in the flush of youthful spirits strong

We do not like to know that all love fades

For when it does we lovers may do wrong

To wickedness we may find we’ve paid

And with the stone faced demons we belong.

Thus friendship love and joy involve the will

To take the other as she comes to be

For such allowing there’s a constant bill

Acknowledging such truth we’ll  surely see.

Accepting that perfection is remote,

We’ll play our tunes and suffer every note

What stops us from forgetting ourselves?

2 my leg

From a photo of my leg after a bite from a mosquito

I was writing yesterday that we enjoy losing ourself in work,creation and other ways. But sometimes we can’t do it so easily.One reason is that we may be experiencing grief or pain and however we try we can’t forget the aching heart we have within.And maybe we should not do so;grief,sorrow,pain take energy and we may need to lie about and allow ourselves to feel these emotions for a time. Another reason may be that we are filled with anger,rage,distress because of someone’s behaviour to us.Sometimes  we will just have to endure this.Ideally we shouldn’t dwell on it overmuch and begin to plan revenge or cruel words to say back.Retaliation may feel good but it can perpetuate a cycle which or other action may be needed but  it never ends as we can see in some countries now. We can decide to avoid the people who have hurt us and that is good. We may say something in the fullness of time..We should not deliberately dwell on their wrongdoing and allow it to take over our mental space.We can still carry on our own work even though it may be hard to start.Eventually we forget it for most of the time.Maybe when we are low in comes back.Then we need to know it happens to everyone,probably.not many folk escape some emotional sufffering in life.

Like the best things in life are free so are the worst but don’t cultivate them in your personal garden… they are weeds,  noxious ones  too

The sacred images within

When first I saw your soulful face,
Then wished I most to you embrace.
I wished as well to clothe you in
The sacred images within.

To find a home for love without;
To fold my dreams all round about
Your loving body and your face
Were covered in such joy and grace.

But now my dreams are cast aside
The world of meaning denied life.
What seemed most precious now is fled…
And I lie sleepless in my bed.

What is the world when unadorned
With all that in my heart I’ve formed?
There is no meaning I can trace,
As in a mother’s empty face.

On these grey rocks my path is hard.
From paradise, my soul is barred;
To struggle or to grief succumb
When this dark day of mourning’s done?

Into His dazzling darkness dart
My dreams and love like dying sparks.
Into His Mystery so fair
I’ll cast both hope and my despair.

Thus my dreams will be transformed
To show themselves in other forms.
What feels a loss may foretell growth.
On my hope,I’ll take an oath:

That nothing in my life is waste,
That I have not for phantasms chased.
And you are human,as am I.
Let’s live once more until we die

Now there is no vertical

When you struck me,I vibrated like a kettle drum,
then as smaller percussions and repercussions
echoing from all the glassy surfaces
creating a balletic geometry of sound tracks
in space and time.

When you knocked me down,
I fell against her and her and her;
we were like a row of skittles
and we all went down with the lifeboat;
The infinite chain of being is.

When you hit me,the Fall spread across the world
Now there is no Vertical
All is undivine and graceless.
By the Rod it’s ruled

When you left me,I left myself,the world,the rocks,dry land
I weighed down sank to the ocean bed
with coral eyes
gazing.

When you struck my mind
I became an instrument of a foreign power
Singing a song I didn’t know.

When the glass was smashed
the splinters flew into all our hearts.
You didn’t know what we couldn’t see.

I lay on barren ground and gave birth
To my own Creator in the desert.

When thinking hurts us

descartes

My title has two meanings.One is that sometimes we have to think about a painful event or a person who has hurt us.Or even some past events…I recall pain when  I was told about Hitler and Stalin

On the other hand some of us  use thinking in words as a way of blocking painful emotions.whilst this  may work for a time,it may give  a lot of trouble when we need to deal with pain.Essentially we do not wish to “know” the truth in the full sense… we deceive ourselves and maybe others too

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201110/the-essential-guide-defense-mechanisms

William Blake wrote this poem

Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine,
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.
It is right it should be so;
Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Through the world we safely go.

IM000484.JPG

I’ve been reading Sylvia Plath recently.I see that after her husband left her she went into a frenzy of activity.She had two very young children.was often i ll with flu but she wrote all her most famous poems at this time;then she moved to London antd socialised a lot to prove she was not just a deserted wife.After this she became more, ill,there was a severe winter….then she crashed into the depths…I feel that  her frenzied writing was a way of not admitting her grief… and she got worn out and decided death was better.

Some of us who are quite cerebral are not in touch with  our bodies.We don’t feel that knife in the heart,the tears unshed,the anger that threatens… and eventually this cam lead to problems.,sometimes flu sometimes a breakdown,sometimes a broken marriage.

and also the thinking can take on a life of its own so  it keeps us awake at night… and the feelings can come out in nightmares.

So thinking can  be a curse.We all need defences at times but too much cuts us of from our own lives.

And brooding and ruminating are very damaging to the mind and soul.Thinking is not wisdom

.11257109-old-mosaic

A lovely poem that i am fond of

O sweet spontaneous

by: e.e. cummings (1894-1962)

sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the
doting

fingers of
prurient philosophers pinched
and
poked

thee
, has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy

beauty, how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and

buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
(but
true

to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover

thou answerest

them only with

spring)

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Knotted

Image[Art by author]

Suddenly, blindly
She punched my solar plexus,
Never saw my fall.

How a deathly hush
Hung over the small room
Like a cloud of ash.

I saw his face scream.
His eyes shrank and shivered.
His sweet tongue knotted.

Behind glass… a defense

Have you ever felt you were behind a pane of glass? I did once many years ago after a friend committed  suicide.It must be a protective  condition but it is painful and odd.Everyone else seems ok ,you imagine,but you are not a part..In reality many people may be feeling like you do and putting on a performance while out at work or socialising.We are probably wiser as we grow older as we know more people better and see we are not  unique in our suffering and pain; we know that feelings pass,even the worst ones and we may have become better at judging others and knowing if friends die  by suicide it’s probably not our fault

When one feels that way it has to be accepted for the time being, like all feelings,I found reading poetry helped me and also being with others in a group where I could sit and listen without pressure to speak.I like this poem from then.It was a favorite  of Simone Weil,the mystic.

LOVE BADE ME WELCOME  by George Herbert

 

 Love Bade Me Welcome – from Love (III)

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back.
Guiltie of dust and sinne.
But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack’d anything.

A guest, I answer’d, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkinde, ungrateful? Ah, my deare,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, but I have marr’d them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, sayes Love, who bore the blame?
My deare, then I will serve.
You must sit down, sayes Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.

My heart is apart

Love blinkered my eyes until my ears rang

A dove made off with with an ear ring I was wearing one night.Was it getting wed?

I love to crumple all the bees stings for tea
I can not meet your eye until it meets mine.
More than words can express, I love  your coffee coloured face
My head is winning for my heart is a bum….Blaze away,Pascal
My art  is baked daily
My heart clangs near you like a dungeon door shutting
My heart cries out Not you!
my heart is a lonely punter
My heart is a flame and you are the wood
My heart is a haughty book noone has read
My heart is drowning  tomorrow.Save me!
My heart is  on an island and I am on the shore.If you do not love me they are split for ever more
My heart is on the  fire as coal is too dear to me to burn.I
My heart is weary  of  numbers and letters.Am I cazy?
My heart laid bare your lies and then you read the riot with tact
She longs for your underpants to be washed and ironed,say nothing please
My hand reached out and stole a kissing couple’s  picnic
My heart sings to your i tunes
My heart waits for your passing daily.Please worry now.
My heart will always be in my shoes,I fear no evil,just the booze
My heart will never be a free payer
My heart dithered like a leaf in the storm and all for losing his arms
My lonely tart needs cream to annoint it
 Oh,where is my one shoed love?
my open soul shut down
My soul is a shadow in a passage in your book
My soul is a lone spirit looking for a bottle to enter… like those ships
My soul is on the high wire dancing madly but it’s too late
My soul was degraded to flare up and die but I defy!
My soul reached out with its own hands and touched him where no bee e’er stang
My soul took a  flight to California
My stomach is writhing in knots and loopd
My tears fell like trains colliding in a tunnel in the Alps
my wandering soul got lost in the mist
my weary soul is dying of sorrow
no man is an island and neither is a woman

Writing as therapy? Is writing or talking always good?

We hear now of more and more ways of living healthy lives.But I think it’s important to live a life of worth.What does it mean,to be of worth ? We must live first of all in a way that suits our nature and since we are part of a whole we must also live in ways that do not harm others and hopefully helps some of them.One problem is increasing in the affluent West and the USA and similar countries.This is the well known fact that more and more of us suffer from stress,worry and depression.Maybe the more serious psychic disturbances are also increasing.This can lead to violence

I have heard my friends say that writing poetry or keeping a journal is therapeutic.But is it not true that some forms of talking or conversing are therapeutic and some are harmful or maybe just pointless? A good friend whom we trust is a person with whom conversing may be beneficial,whereas “dumping” your problems on someone  may give only momentary relief.I feel real friend listens and may comment,may even criticize.Someone you  know less well  may react badly.You must not blame them for you are ignorant of their personal life and difficulties.
Conversation of course has the advantage that you are with the person to whom you talk and can stop or adapt your talking in the light of their nonverbal responses.To a lesser extent it is also true on the phone if you know someone well.

Just as gazing into the lighted front window of a large home filled with people and pictures and lovely furniture may make you envious so may your fantasied views of others around you.And yet it is likely they feel pain just like you ;we operate often from a view of life which is a poor fit with reality [whatever that is]
Since conversation may be good,bad or meaningless so it is with writing.
Writing comes from .your experience but must convey it in a manner by which others can feel the truth of what you are saying.As with music, poetry can say certain things not possible in other ways.And as in music there are forms developed down the centuries in which others have expressed their feelings. I have read that writing poetry in a structured form is therapeutic,But writing in free verse may not be.In either case poetry can stir up deep feelings.

Fiona Sampson, author of,The Expert Guide to writing poetry, advises that you keep the phone number of the Samaritans near when writing poetry but prose may be less stirring

I read about the value of structured writing in an article about Sylvia Plath.I am sorry I cannot find the reference as yet.Some people say writing prolonged her life,others that the kind of writing she got into at the end may have precipitated her suicide.We cannot know the answer but we should be aware that it may not be “letting it all out” that helps but the shaping and sculpting of the material into a form which pleases us and others
Alternatively writing about Nature ,other people,love, may turn our minds in a new direction away from our obsessive thoughts

The line of your lips

Big Love
Big Love (Photo credit: UMTAD)

The line of your lips is finely made,
as suffering accepted has transmuted pain
into a sculptor who
has given you much beauty;
yet the pain has shaped too
the eyes setting,
as if a slight question waits
in the back of your mind
asking,is this right?
and I perceive this and how you may suddenly tremble
with a memory too piercing;
yet how you love
the world so broken,
so humane
so vulnerable
so strong.
what are you saying to me?
I gather you ask me this of me:
Tell me it’s good to be alive.

And I do.

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Hypnosis and meditation for pain

In addition to my previous post if you are in pain look here:It is a good website.And it helps migraine,I found.And some dentists use it

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Some write,some have rites and some have OCD

Photo0274

I may have put a jokey title but I know OCD is nothing to joke about…… it is  hard for sufferers and their families

Yet all rites and rituals are cousins to OCD.I suppose the distinction may  come  if you find that you grow fearful and distraught when, by some chance, you cannot carry out your usual rites and rituals like washing your hands ten times or avoiding cracks in the sidewalk or pavement……many children fear that but most forget as they grow more confident

I certainly hate to see my early morning tea if it’s in the wrong cup but not enough to stop me from drinking 5 mugfuls of it.I am a tea lady ..one drink I cannot live without

Religion has, as one important aspect, a way of attempting to create order in a frightening world.We make offerings to placate the gods who cause storms and fires and epidemic diseases.Though by now we ourselves  have created even worse darker gods, like nuclear bombs

I think the value of rellgion is the coming together and getting strength through that.

It unites people in a helpful way [ except for the other people who have different rites.]

People with OCD often have rituals which are private… and if they can’t do them they are agitated  almost beyond endurance…But if they can do them they feel safer… And sometimes they can  take  over  a life and then the person needs help or courage to face the hidden fear and outface it.

The same way,if your religion takes over your life  I think you need help.Religion is to encourage you live a better life not cause you excessive misery and pain… or not too much…we all do wrong,we all make mistakes… we do penance.We are forgiven,we forgive….  some people don’t, so avoid such people if you can.They even frighten God!

Whatever God is. he accepts us…. that’s my firm belief.. and ….if He won’t accept me then I won’t accept Him or Her

Does God have a body…does he have a mind?

I guess we cannot conceive what God may be or not in discursive language at any rate

Do you mind,Lord?

No,not at all.. I am listening

Thank  you,God

My pleasure.

We are here, waiting patiently, despite all the trials.and the troubles..ready to listen