The only way to change is to embrace truth, and if you are able to do so it might help with your recovery. Sit in a safe place with all your guilt and shame. Be brave, allow it to breathe. Don’t try to smother it with drugs; it only comes back, stronger and more fuelled every time. If you have courage enough for that, you will become a better human being, finally able to make amends and move forward.
In Peace
When my parting breath
has exhaled all etchings of pleasure and gain,
releasing them to the blind breeze -
when the milled shards of speckled pain
have quit my cooling heart, my leaden limbs, my stale brain -
when no trace of shame or self remain -
build a pyre, pile it high,
roll my remains in a reclaimed sheet.
Weep if you will. but not for me:
when you kindle the fire my ashes will fly:
let them go as, barren, they float away:
think only of my freed soul
as it traces a trail along a veiled lane
between river and trees
home of our long-gone cloaked roams.
In the dip where our arms reached,
there shall I settle,
there shall I lie,
and there, in peace
shall I rest for a while.
©Jane Paterson Basil
Ghost
In long-gone days, the wraith came at my beckoning, materialising clear as a leaf in a clean running stream brightly clad in nature's hues With wings of light she'd flitter through fields greeting trees, spinning in whirling dervish twirls till balance failed and she fell helpless with glee revelling in endless freedom I watched her mount the Oak, childish fingers clutching ever slimmer limbs climbing high higher Taunting a fleeting theory of God challenging death placing her feet on the flimsiest twig willing the wood to take her weight even as she dared it to defy her credence that her breath would never cease Frozen in time, the child remains forever nine When the world growls and bites I call her and she arrives. She always shows consoling me through the years with her reminder of joy Time breathes mist over my eyes and leads my senses toward a vacuum, yet still from time to time my wraith twists through the claws of time lending me memories of crowning days. Her margins have long since blended into the landscape, her flesh faded to grey evaporating into smoke Her diaphanous wisp floats over fields and streams beside my childhood home; the ghost of the child who was me and I recall that once upon a time I felt immortal and believed I was free ©Jane Paterson Basil
Fracture
He said the cracks admit the light, yet the fissure in my mind e x p a n d e d and as the split widened dusk dismissed the sun. -------------------- ©Jane Paterson Basil
One Bright Hue
You twist the cube, try for one bright hue to fill your eyes, fumbling to build a blue wall that shines like a clean childhood sky, but the fingers fail and the cube bleeds, refusing to comply, its fuming patches bragging bitter truth, describing the sickness that grins between the seams. You drop the cube, close your eyes and dream. ©Jane Paterson Basil
Written for Reena‘s Xploration challenge #196. Sorry, Reena, my WP editor has a glitch: hard as I try, I can’t get it to highlight the whole name of your post when creating a pingback.
Come into Oxfam (re-hashed)
Don't diss me sister; I'm a cool fashionista, running with the times, an Eco A lister. Dressed by Oxfam from my head to my toes, elegant in every stitch of pre-cherished clothes and feeling pretty nifty in my vintage hat --- fifty years more stylish than this season's tat. I never understood; it's always been a mystery why people steer clear of raiment with a history, but the world is changing and the wise understand it's grand to to be strutting in second-hand. Our over-production will suck the planet dry --- we cannot halt the damage unless we all try. . If you buy less new, it'll slow production down, saving precious energy the world around, so come on into Oxfam and rummage with me, you never can tell what treasures you'll see. It's better than the High Street shops in town --- come with me to Oxfam and look around. Labels lack soul and the prices are steep, those showy little tags make folks look like sheep or mannequins standing in a window display trailing the fashion victims rags of the day. Change your look, show your personality --- come into the Oxfam shop with me. When you learn about the projects that Oxfam holds dear I hope that you will sign up to volunteer, giving up a portion of your time for free, learning new skills while you work with me or any of the members of our friendly crew who'd surely be delighted to get to know you. If you ain't got the confidence I'll hold your hand, and when you walk out the door you will understand the reasons I spend my time like I do, and buy pre-used instead of brand new: I'm runnin' with the times, I'm a cool fashionista, don't diss me sister, I'm an Eco A lister. ©Jane Paterson Basil
Seems I’m all out of poetry. so I’ve been messing about with this one, which I wrote a few years ago... still not entirely happy with it.
Fairer Sex
A beautifully crafted poem penned by my guest poet, PW.
Abuse can take so many forms the worst of which a bitch that's scorned who shoots untruths from lips not hip each time her man takes stand or slips. Her hands hold grip around your throat and with her words she bounds and chokes. No room to breathe, your freedom gone and with it youth, the truth along with peace of mind and decent times - deceit then reaps to beat you blind. So blind in fact your tragic eyes can't see the traps or magic die. Imagine why, I can't, can you? She kills the thrill of love so true then blues come back with blackness too to swallow up and hollow you. On borrowed time, the signs were clear as years of tears had disappeared the hope you held so very tight to live and love and bury spite. My plight can't end, my friends are hers to bend and break, my mates dispersed and curse me now just how she likes while I bleed red on beds of spikes. She fed them lies and tied them well while hellish bouts of shouts and yells consume me still and fill my mind, an ever-growing hill to climb. So now I know, I start to grow and leave behind the crime and crows and start out fresh the best I can but torn, I warn the rest of man - don't be a sap, this patterns old. Be bold and brave, don't slave or fold and hold your head up high and cope, don't mope, just mend. I'm sending hope. ©PW
PW’s heartrending verse highlights the sad fact that men – as well as women – are sometimes subjected to repeated acts of abuse… yet their voices are rarely heard or listened to.
Kensington, Philadelphia
They stutter and creep along filth-ridden streets, tattered sleeves hiding the blood as it seeps, far from the arms of mothers who weep. Turn away, cover your eyes, blind to the shame of the crimes you perceive as you hurry away from the flesh-eating streets. They wade through the scud of society's greed, shuffling their feet, hungry for succour then numbed by fulfilment of lethal need. Turn away pretend you don't see, blind to the shame of the streets of pain or blaming the victim for all our mistakes. They're slipping through cracks between fleshly paving; our brothers and sisters struggle and bleed and end on those streets. Who finds the dead and where are they buried? Do we really not notice? How can we not care? How can we not weep as they slip between the cracks created from selfish greed. Few of us focus and few of us see that there but for fortune or luck of the genes go him and her and you and me. There but for fortune go we. ©Jane Paterson Basil
Butterfly Kyodai
You can't think straight. The reins were always slack. They slipped from your hands again. You can't remember when; could've been in your sleep or while you escaped into butterfly flight, clicking: once, twice, watching colourful wings flit... as if they could save you... anyway you let go or maybe those reins were stolen and now there is no escape from the claw that clamps your flesh, forcing you back into the cold of an echoing cave.
©Jane Paterson Basil
Everything In Its Place
My father was a talented man. He drew, painted, pressed clay, carved stone into naked feminine shapes with big bums and tiny waists. He was practical, too. When my family moved to Devon, he mastered the art of plant husbandry, and grew much of our food. He pulled nails from reclaimed wood, saved metal scraps and screws, used them to build, to make tools. When I was eight, I helped him create a two-room caravan from waste. This space became a base for his creations. Wood, chisel and clay lived at the front end with his workbench. Hammers, drills and related accoutrements were neatly arranged on shelves. Beyond lay his photographic studio, complete with convenient divan and blankets. Everything had its place -- cameras, hammers and home-made pottery wheel of his design, powered by peddling a recycled bicycle -- all neatly in reach. When one of his scented women came -- her waist not that thin, her bum not that big, and her painted face never as pretty as in his imagery -- we knew The Artist Was At Work and we must turn away. When they left, some made a quick getaway, while others played innocent, dripping into the kitchen for a quick visit. My mother was friendly, polite, never accused, never raged or complained, ostensibly dismissing his sickening betrayals, gently raising them on the pedestal of art. No-one could have seen her pain, or known she was afraid. Yes, my father was a gifted man. Every possession was kept in its place. As an innocent child, I worshiped him. Then my breasts grew, and I began to understand the depth of his despot views: e-v-e-r-y woman's place was pressed in the palm of his grasping hand. ©Jane Paterson Basil Written for Word Of The Day Challenge: Practical
Making it write 