Heidi Spencer's music comes from a place where truth is held to light, sorrows are taken to task, and longings find the names that they were looking for. In the dark stretch of all that is innefable and always on the move in a life, songs, like bright markers in a heavy storm, reveal a bend in the road we didn't see coming, a detour through ourselves, back to what we already knew but almost forgot. "I'm on the verge of something true," Heidi sings in Sleeping Next to a Diamond, and much of her songs shimmer with the light that comes through those Leonard Cohen "cracks in the wall", the stuff of resilency, of soldiering on, both touching and touched by the world. But not everything is a metaphor, some things just are. Here Heidi talks about her childhood, the bond of sisters through song, laughter-discovery, the early sense of place and memory, kitchen tables and a journey which comes with no map, that confounding, ever evolving place between life and creativity. AHC: What has this journey, this life in music, so far, been like for you, the highs and the lows, and what life lessons do you feel you've picked up along the way? Heidi: this life in music has been a long continuing story with no finite end, and no distinct beginning. there were things that broke me, sounds that fixed me, people that kept me afloat and boxes that collected me. some magic happened. some madness passed. questions were big, answers were little. I didn't release a record til I was 27 and i made 4. highs and lows usually happen in my mind... the highest is usually immediately after a performance, the lowest is usually when i feel stuck with writing going nowhere. that's where I am now, to be honest. LIFE LESSONS: dear resilience. consistency is a myth. don't get comfortable. get a grip. I don't fit in, and that's ok. possibilities are not endless. impossibilities don't exist. opportunity doesn't knock, it slips in and out through windows now and again. the door is always open. don't get stuck in other peoples ruts. trust your instinct. your instinct sometimes burns. stay tuned. sit in the sun while it's shining. AHC: What first drew you to music and what was your early musical environment like growing up? Were there pivotal songs for you then that just floored you the moment you heard them? Heidi: Here is a picture of what my early musical environment looked like, i guess it's probably what drew me... my dad used to turn on a mic, press record on the old cassette player and let me and my sister loose... we entertained ourselves for hours. i still have many of the tapes, they are hysterical. we sing, tell stories, and i cry a lot. you can learn a lot about sibling dynamics 30 years later. early pivotal songs: dolly parton singing anything. she was my childhood idol. AHC: Do you remember the first song that you ever wrote? Heidi: no. i remember a few lines of my earliest, and they are all terrible. I do distinctly remember singing one of my sister llysa's earliest songs- she was probably 7 so i was probably 4 or 5. we were skipping along milwaukee's east side on the way to or from the "kinder cinema," one sunday late 1970's (kinder cinema was every sunday afternoon at the UWMilwaukee theater- they played all the original disney films) anyway- her song went "little bird, little bird, with your wing, and your beautiful song to sing..." you can't hear the melody by reading this, but it's still clear in my mind- I wonder if i'll be like my grandma maggie (my dad's mother) at 92. she couldn't remember details of her life clearly, but remembered verses of "oh, susana" and "oh my darling, clementine" I had never heard of. music has some amazing impact on memory, i think. AHC: Who are some of your musical inspirations? Which musicians have you learned the most from? Heidi: My biggest musical inspirations happened from 15-19 years old- (except of course Dolly). Cyndi Lauper. Edie Brickell, Tracy Chapman. Joni Mitchell. No one since those formative years has had a direct influence on me. But admittedly, I tried to emulate all 4 of those women. I still don't listen to much music, and i'm not embarrassingly not well-versed. i can tell you a FEW of MANY of who/what i love- not even my favorites, just things i love love love and could listen to 60 times in row. Martha Wainwright- Factory Townes Van Zandt- anything (especially Kathleen) Amalia Rodriques Otis Redding- anything (especially These Arms of Mine) Ruth Etting's version of Shine on Harvest Moon listening to anything on 78 records The Walkmen- While I Shovel the Snow AHC: What do you think makes for a good song, as you're writing and composing, is there a sudden moment when you know you've found the right mix, that perfect angle of light, so to speak? Heidi: As a listener, I guess it's a good song if it makes you move- be it physically, emotionally or otherwise. I have no idea what makes for a good song as far as writing one... 1/2 my songs don't even have a chorus, and my meter is strange. when I'm writing, there is sometimes a moment, and it is indeed sudden- and it is hard to explain. it's sort of like when something feels slightly different. i'm not a great guitar player, and that's how I write, so it's a random trial and error, and once in awhile there's a measure when the words, melody and meter match differently than other times, and I recognize the newness (no one else would, cause some people think my songs sound exactly alike) and that inspires me.... then there's something about the structure after that- but i can't get to the structure without that one strange measure or 2 happening out of the blue. when i'm lucky enough to finish a song, my band (the rare birds) bring it to life. i don't even know how it really happened- all those songs. AHC: Do you consider music to be a type of healing art, the perfect vehicle through which to translate a feeling, a state of rupture, hope lost and regained? Does the writing and creating of the song save you in the kinds of ways that it saves us, the listener? Heidi: "healing art" is different than "healing" or "art," to me. so i'll say no to "Do you consider music to be a type of healing art" I know music did help heal me- from what, i'm not even sure. I do consider myself an artist. how pompous. I never sought out to have a sad sound- that's just what I sound like. bill curtis (my drummer and engineer) always said that my sad songs could make a sad person well again, because after listening to one of my records, they'd say, "man, it ain't that bad." and I know it's happened. but I, personally, do not feel like my songs are sad- it's just that's the way I sound. I could sing, "whatever it is I think I see becomes a tootsie roll to me," and it just sounds sad. there is one story I love the most, and it is one of the most profound things i've experienced musically: part of one of my songs, "I slept in cars" was on "car talk with click and clack," many years ago- a man was driving in california listening to "car talk" as he did every sunday. the 8 lines or whatever from "i slept in cars" came on before a commercial break, and he pulled his car over and began to sob (I read that part on CDbaby under the 'why did you buy this record' question). anyway, years later, the man told me why he pulled over to cry- it was because the song sparked a memory of the night, years earlier, when his daughter passed away far too early, and he thought to himself, I wish I could drive you to where you need to go, but I can't... it breaks my heart to this day. a different man heard the same song, in another state, during the same episode of car talk and purchased the song because he was a mathematician, and found the meter interesting. he was not emotionally invested as the other listener, but still there was some connection. my point is you just never know how someone will or will not be impacted by something you put out there, so while you're writing or creating something, there might be someone waiting for it, and you don't know why, and neither do they. AHC: What are your fondest musical memories? In your house? In your neighborhood or town? On-tour, on-the-road? Heidi: Kitchen tables. my first show. stopping randomly in the middle of the Arizona desert and recording with my sister in the early 90's, still having those recordings. growing up in my early 20's at open mics and other early recording experiences, still tucked in a box. my first and only nashville recording experience when I was 25. meeting bill curtis. finding bill sleeping with his drums on the floor of the train in the middle of the night on the way to New York. meeting jesse thayer. watching her be lifted up by a stranger on the ferry ride to ireland. recording the shorecrest hotel records, and having the luxury of knowing all those players who came in and out. recording the boston loft record. every show- looking back, even the worst ones. my first trip to England. the show in Sweden. the show in Norway. actually- the opportunity to go to europe at all was my greatest dream come true. and it was music to get me there, and those lucky stars I will not mention here, but i hope they know how much i thank them. when rehearsals still happen. any reason to see my band in the same room. too much- 25 years- i haven't even scratched the surface on this question. repeat: kitchen tables. AHC: Do you have any words of advice for other musicians and singer-songwriters out there who are just starting out and trying to find their voice and their way in this world? Heidi: Welcome!! be yourself. be natural. be humble. be open to other songwriters and embrace them- power in numbers, not in egos. be a positive influence. no one is for everybody, so understand that some people are critical and you should not take it to heart. you are not alone in this world, even if you feel like you are. allow the sound waves you make to travel. and honestly? have a good time. music feels good. embrace it. AHC: Do you have any new projects in the works you'd like to tell people about? Heidi:I'm very idle right now, I'm afraid. but thank you for these questions, so I could sit and remember things... and maybe just when I thought I might be done, you remind me I'm still here. Visit www.heidispencerandtherarebirds.com/ Things I Remember Golden by Heidi Spencer and the Rare Birds can be purchased here www.cdbaby.com/cd/heidispencerandtherarebi
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The Politics of Poetry "Explication promotes preferred readings and normative mind-sets rather than engaging the thinking capacities of the student. Teaching reduced to explication is mere training in the modes of academia rather than an intellectual adventure, or thought freed from constraints. Jacotot saw explication at the core of the reproduction of social inequality. What he had discovered was no less than the key to emancipation from class society. He thought about the way we learn language as infants: "They hear and retain, imitate and repeat, make mistakes and correct themselves, succeed by chance and begin again methodically, and, at too young an age for an explicator to begin instructing them, they are almost all - regardless of gender, social condition, and skin colour - able to understand and speak the language of their parents." p. 5 But this general intelligence, this great primal act of self-instruction is disregarded as formal education begins. It is then assumed that the student cannot understand adult knowledge without being guided by an expert. "The revelation that came to Joseph Jacotot amounts to this: the logic of the explicative system had to be overturned. Explication is not necessary to remedy an incapacity to understand. On the contrary, that very incapacity provides the structuring fiction of the explicative conception of the world. It is the explicator who needs the incapable and not the other way round; it is he who constitutes the incapable as such." p.6 Explication produces a circle of powerlessness that is the generative principle of the social world - in other words of inequality. The whole nexus of superiority and inferiority is continually rendered by the pedagogic rituals of 900 years of Humanist education. Education as it stands does little to nurture intelligence; it actually simply trains intellectual servants; it fills brains with an ideology of superiority; it induces a submission to "the hierarchal world of intelligence". Jacotot called this the principle of enforced stultification. The role of a teacher is only to 'oblige' the student to realise his or her capacity with a mutual acceptance of the equality of intelligence of all humans. Jacotot was not interested in instruction, which he thought 'smelled of the bridle', he was interested in emancipation. "That every common person might conceive his human dignity, take the measure of his intellectual capacity, and decide how to use it." we begin to realise how radical this vision is. There is, for a start, no essential curricula. "Whoever teaches without emancipating stultifies. And whoever emancipates doesn't have to worry about what the emancipated person learns. He will learn what he wants, nothing maybe." p.18 It is easy to nit pick this argument. The readers mind goes into a flurry of 'what ifs' but what struck me through all such objections was that this was what I intuitively felt about the academic system since I learnt that universities had originally been formed nearly a thousand years ago to train cadres to manage the early European city states. It had a resonant truth that I found refreshingly articulated my inchoate feelings. The 'genius' of our school teachers and university lecturers is to "attach the creature they have rendered inferior with the strongest chains in the land of stultification - the child's consciousness of his own superiority." p.22 These chains are the feeling of superiority over those who have not yet learned such and such, those who did not get five A stars, while still feeling inferior to the Professors who sit in judgement over us. So this system of superiority /inferiority imposed by the school system is more like a mind cage than it is empowerment." -Stefan Sczelkun *** By way of a long introduction, I begin with this remarkably well written overview of Ranciere/Jacotot's ideas on intellectual equality. What does this have to do with poetry? I recently read an article about getting by in poetry without an MFA. We make do with our second hand horses, this person wrote, we do the best that we can. A knot formed in my stomach as I read the article. It seemed they had fallen prey to a passive logic of inequality. I have made no secret of my contempt and skepticism of the poetry world, I have long known that there is a level of elitism among young millennial poets, editors, (although they are only following in the footsteps of their equally pretentious elders) that in the end it is not as much about the strength of the work you submit as much as it is predicated on whether or not you are "one of them", a fellow MFA bearing wordsmith. Of course they are happy to have minority voices among them, as long as they are an institutionalized minority, acquiescing a certain degree of agency to the inegalitarian logics of stultification and the separation of classes, souls of iron, souls of gold, laborers and thinkers. But this goes back for centuries, to the principles of the Platonic republic: "Everyone in the city must see to his own business, and above all the souls of iron, destined to the labor of sustenance, must not get involved in common affairs and in the realm of thought (or poetry) which are the proper task of souls of gold." There is also a more distinctly modern worry that "these apprentices entering the terrain of literature can only be awkward imitators, sterile as far as art is concerned. They are doomed to failure (or must be made to fail) and all the seductions of despair. More profoundly, this entry into writing is not only the cause of the perdition of a few unhappy souls; it also disturbs the order that destines the men of tools for the regulated works of the tool and the men of thought (poets) to the nights of thinking." The real worry is, perhaps, that if those who shouldn't be writing poetry do, who will tend to the low and common labors needed to sustain a poetic and educated class? Those with a proclivity for creativity are better off joining a poetry share group at their local library, but they shouldn't go any further than that, after all, the real poets need their plumbers, janitors, assembly line and construction workers come morning. "The arbitrariness of language is the fact that there is no universal fixed meaning given to words and sentences, no immutable reference point of meaning. Why a particular sound gained a particular meaning cluster is most often lost in the past, but it must self-evidently be the result of a social process of oral communication. Dr Johson's 1755 dictionary and those that followed made a claim to fix language in spelling and to stabilise the meaning of words by finding the first point at which the word and its meaning at that time, first appeared in print. This was an attempted control of words by the literary class and marks a historical point of the arrogance of this class." ibid Isn't this the whole point of having an MFA? Knowing the rules and regulated approaches to using intellect in a certain way, writing poems by the sounds of a certain code? What is a good poem? Or poet? "The poet is the one who speaks the poeticity of things." But, Ranciere is quick to remind us what these things are, the prosaic, the ordinary, the everyday, and ultimately what belongs to everyone equally. "Anything can become language", and everyone enters language through that commonality by which "only an equal can understand an equal." "language was invented by humans and was in a process of continual evaluation by people like me. The dictionary gave language an illusory permanence but that was just the literary class suggesting that all words were invented by classy writers rather than on the street by mouthy yobs. Words come into use by many people adopting them. Words go out of use by people not using them. The meaning of a new word is a good decided in common. Not a precise meaning in the way that terminology can be given a precise meaning within a field of study. More of a cluster of meanings held in common, and at the same time contested, whose connotations will change with context and inflection." However, it is the common inflections, the unqualified ones that worry our modern poets. They are desperate to monopolize and patent their calling even as they make equal claims to egalitarian political struggles in which, it seems to me, the claim has always been; equality, thus far but no further. It has to end at the university door, where the janitor is then reminded of his proper name tag. Not all institutionalized poets are of this bad faith. I have met and worked with many admirable individuals, poets and editors alike, who fight against this trend. I want to acknowledge that there are no definitive, sweeping and grand ways to sum any of us up as humans. But I also want to make the much needed claim that there is a class divide within the poetry world. It is a large part of why this particular literary journal, Anti-Heroin Chic was founded. Not so much to preach and proselytize as to lead by quiet example. I have hesitated to write a manifesto for this journal for almost a year since its inception, but it seems important that I do so now. Because one thing I have learned as I get older is that it is never a good idea to ignore those knots forming in your stomach. Bio: James Diaz is the founding editor of the experiment known as Anti-Heroin Chic. His poems have appeared in various journals such as HIV Here and Now, Chronogram, Foliate Oak and others. His first book "This Someone I Call Stranger" is forthcoming from Indolent Books next year. 12/5/2016 0 Comments Three Poems by Georgia ParkVegetarian and cooked ever so carefully into a lamb I'm exploding onto the scene my hands fill with semen and he can scoff but i will not go to any free events where he might be and claim to be no, people will pay a vegetarian to see me read the chefs will say and i will see nobody bon apetit! until I'm seen they'll serve it cold and raw patrons will come it's funny to think out of the restaurant this invasive species with blood smeared lips the mint growing in my head Grinning theyll let it and choking me Dripdown their chins sprouted from the seed of an enemy I will not rest until i am made into jelly Grease Fire My mother is not at the sink not with eyes sunken or a frilly apron these are the pictures i want to paint my brother is at the stovetop aged eight frying fish while i am upstairs with the door closed i am counting all i do is practice i cant zipper zips or button buttons for the test i have coming up to get into kindergarten i am worried when the grease fire explodes i can just hear him calling get out of the house! as he runs through the back door but i can't make out the words so i ignore him the smoke makes its way to my room i dont notice until the firemen come and i dont notice that all the other kids can read until the teacher separates me from them and asks if I'm even trying Quiet No one wants to hear that I saw demons in the rainforest while a shaman sang to me that I convulsed and screamed for my mother and that she didn't come when I called her. or that the Panamanian coke dealer had a box of cigars he was "selling," long pinkie nails and 10 thick gold rings to go with the mustache he was literally twirling on one of my Christmases. -that I let him in. and remembering makes it uneasy to breathe. I like the little houses on my street. Bio: Georgia Park used to be a semi well behaved woman before she got a BA in creative writing, became a pseudonym and started wreaking all sorts of havoc. She is a contributing member of SuddenDenouement Literary Collective, among other things. She does funny, playful, dark, morbid, Trump related and non Trump related poems, with or without an emphasis on travel. So far, her poetry has been accepted by Halfway Down the Stairs literary magazine, Wraith Infirmity Muses literary magazine, Pidgeonholes Magazine, Holy Crow Art and The Scarlet Tongue Project. Find her online at privatebadthoughts.wordpress.com and facebook.com/georgiaparkpoet 12/4/2016 0 Comments Two Poems by Kate SantosWhite Red and Blue Skin What was it like there in the Winter No running water, I bet A smirk that says, no libraries either Maybe my parents voted for dubyah I show off my Granny Smith pearls No heat, we had a well My mother drove through early snow Cast ballots for females, for Mexico, for our black neighbor Ralph Libraries with unlocked basements Stashes of banned books Impressions with a belt Don’t pronounce it Ay-palachia Pawpaw was the foreman Wiggs, we were goddamn royalty And, I, the fattest girl on the Varsity cheerleading float The only one that read about babies in bell jars So tell me What was it like in the suburbs No One Feels A Sea Change Of her binds are unheard sermons Those were nation’s flags that was her skin Nothing of it that don’t fade, But may suffer a sea-change Into something poor and deranged Start from scratch but where is that Violence more common than the cold Locking herself in With a lemon bowl and an expensive vibrator Only to be shot through her window Her cat stared at the front door for days The flags burned The lemons went bad No one hears the sermons still Bio: Kate Santos is a writer and photographer living in Los Angeles 12/3/2016 0 Comments Three Poems by Scott Laudati145th & Amsterdam were you wired wrong for this kind of love? to wait tables spend your tips on wine a new haircut and a doormat for me to come in and stomp my boots? let the gray and polluted new york snow melt in, listen to me complain about the city and if you’re lucky i’ll say, “i’m happy to see you”. or on really dark nights- how beautiful you are, the only thing to blossom while the rest of the world has been dying were you wired wrong for this kind of love? where i push you out then drag you back? go home to my parents and pretend nothing happened? i guess we know you won’t put up any argument. and i guess you know i’ll expect no consequence. i never thought about you moving on. and i liked it better when i had no hope. i keep thinking i can change, that this time i’ll be worth your pain. but it’s hard for you to keep faith in me. i know all you need is someone who doesn’t feel afraid, someone who will dance with you in that tight apartment. but that someone has to dance better than me. this love wasn’t a total waste, though. at least i taught you about forever. you don’t stand under the stars anymore and pretend they’re alive. it just seems that way because they die slower than love the wooly mammoth remember back when you were young? you thought you’d get a diploma the old fashion way. the first voice of a new generation screaming “get me out of here” or “i want to go home”. i heard it down hallways before we rolled dice on the bathroom floor. i heard it like a slave hears new religion raining from the trees. from homeroom to the principals office, they tried to take it out, arrest your rage, but it stunk up every vein in your body like a clogged sewer, and you were never afraid to lose it. “in the womb”, you told me once “i was unhappy even then” and then there were the streets. the bus station in newark and the park two blocks down where the runaways raid the pigeon coops and they find dead bums and cigarette butts dragged out. it was like a vacation home right on a river under buildings like dead peaks so the sun never shined into your eyes it was so you, every move planned for the great story. those were the days you were always looking forward to, the envy of every fool you wrote your own legend and it kept me amused. i used to think that was pretty cool but now i'm invisible, i'll fade away like the wooly mammoth but you .... you'll live on forever as some kind of cinderella or the pinup girl buffalo bones an unsmoked cigarette burns for thirteen minutes without a drag, and since you’re all grown up now there must be a wedding day. the town will throw you a parade, rope off the streets where tanks have rolled and armies marched and teenagers did the honey pokey. they’ll re-introduce you to the man who baptized you, he says the “our father” often but he doesn’t look familiar the blimp banner clocks the national debt but nothing about all the i.o.u.’s for last months rent, or how fast cigarettes burn as you sit around counting hours. an arc of time is never real until your lover pulls the joker, you're all in, full ante, and one hand later the game is over. you knew it then. they lied to you but that’s ok. it just hurts real bad when the rules change and your professors still want the homework. it’s never christmas anymore just exit polls and prom kings pull out the old box of maps from under your bed. you get your revolver loaded and pick a direction, a spot on the map you’ve never been before. hitchhike to the dakotas where the weather’s colder. where strangers with no faces stand over your shoulders counting pages in your notebook. the wolves run free, no swings in the park. maybe the buffalo jumped the cliff for fun, left their bleached white skulls in the pits looking up. they’re hidden until the thaw. that’s when you’ll find them grinning with the spring bloom. don’t worry, eventually we all shiver in the sun Bio: Scott Laudati lives in NYC. He is the author of Hawaiian Shirts In The Electric Chair (Kuboa Press). Visit him on instagram @scottlaudati My Heart My heart is like a friggin’ sieve the way it loses friends like sand My insurance does not cover electives so I’ve no way to shunt it up nor shut it down, and I’ve learned taking one’s own is not as noble as the kamikazes told me. It sits upon a cutting board in a sidewalk butcher shop - Pumping sporadically with a frequency only as often as I have been able to forgive the People who have ditched me for better, more attentive friends - so naturally, it's pumping less often and honestly, quite weakly in the requisite form and vigor for a heart. And here comes the butcher what an oaf of a guy - like Adolf; steroidal. sans mustachio - but bursting with muscles a cig in an obtuse dangle from one pursed side of his slim elliptical mouth. I don't do sieves, he says and so - Sheepishly I re-enter and pack my heart into a quart-size freezer bag glancing about me for those who once knew me - A chastised mutt caught gorging meat I slink slow and low out the door. Alone now, on the sidewalk my heart in the plastic and soul agape in the shame - I wonder what now? I guess forgiveness is better than this. I walk home in the rain trying to remember her phone number which I now must call and my tight mouth will have to make shapes resembling: I'm sorry. My Hands, Vol. 2 My hands are really quite lovely. They are small, but so am I - Although they are not prone to weight gain Luckily - My belly is jealous of their tenacity; Their willpower. They type like seagulls pecking up bread on a beach The strong ones grabbing The best bits And flying away To eat them alone Away from their hungry, green eyed Sisters. Why should they share? - When they spent most of their life Slinging hash Filling coffees Making shakes For assholes. Why shouldn’t they take the best bits When For so long they hated the masturbation And they hated the typing of wills for the rich And they only wanted to hold their own baby Instead of pretending to enjoy touching other people’s babies. Hands are good at lying - Not like my mouth Which makes the dumbest smile when saying Let's get together... The mouth convinces The fingers to play along - They don't want to but The mouth has told them it would Bite them later If they do not obey - So, the other mother looks at my face With my pointed Nordic nose rotating away in profile and My shoulders shrugging as if to say - Yeah, I'm busted again. My peripheral vision is already taking note of my escape route - Keep in mind the nearest exit may be behind you. And she knows immediately That I am weird And that my kind fingers That minutes ago stroked her baby's head Do not match the guise of my mouth When it flat out lies to her Suggesting: Let's get together. That baby can have its mom. My fingers have their own keys; Their own stale rye. And my despicable mouth Keeps telling them masturbation Beats a baby anyday. My Self There is no rest for people like me. there are witch hunts happening all the time for us. If others aren’t chasing us; we are chasing our own tails at midnight. People like you haven’t known people like me - what I’m like - or how nice I really can be. You have been unnerved by me, made uncomfortable by me; understandably, you had to protect your kids from me. But what you forgot is that I am your sister, your husband, your mother, your lover. I am you in mixed acrylic on a Pollack canvas. My Chip, Metastasizing I feel it all. Like Last night when a tumor of epic proportion Erupted on my shoulder. The chip it had grown out of Had been metastasizing all day, and when my husband forgot to call - I had no way to radiate it before it Grew a bulbous head - a poisonous mushroom cloud And eyes like my Sensei’s daggers; it’s round mouth like that O - Opened and slickly spat: I’m so sick of you! I feel it all A wet worm bit in half, writhing; A small grey pancake in the road That burn in my belly when you didn't say hello. I feel my mother's lack of meds I feel my father's whiskey -up I feel your womb - wanting eggs I feel your frustration in dealing with me. I feel it all The shame of my past licking its lips As it hunts me in dreams and the fear of my future is so Frickin’ bright, that goggles are what I need To face the day - And my own ruddy face. Discolored and a-ged in the mirror Red veins my road map of pain. And all the soles that stepped on my palms As I lay prone in penance, never knew I was scheming That once they were done stepping on my soul I would drink myself silly; to forget the pattern of their tread on my skin. I feel it all Like when I write this knowing it's not going to Shrink the tumor nor remove the microchip That keeps tabs on me -when my mouth runs off, Chasing the trail of my hips. I've never been good at lying - like when I try to say I’m sorry It catches on that bone in my throat and chokes me till I give in - Then happily coalesces with my cacophony of tumors That lay in wait - Only to erupt again some other day. Bio: Elisabeth J. Ferrell-Horan is a stay at home mom in Vermont raising two young boys, feeding her animals and dreaming in poetry. When not writing, she finds peace and inspiration working with her three very special horses: Deuce, Flynnie and Bees. They speak to her without using words. Elisabeth is a survivor of many things - most recently severe postpartum depression. She wants to tell all the mothers out there suffering in pain and perhaps alone, that they are good mothers, and that it is possible to get better, if they can just hold on, and find the right help. http://ejfhoran.weebly.com/ |
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