April 17, 2004
SWIFT! Going Postal?
This was me...teenage cynic or teenager about to go postal, you pick. Ouch!
Cynical Poem #1
You'll have to show me the right steps.
I've never danced with a hero before.
Cynical Poem #2
I've been drifting too long
On the sea of opinion
Can't seem to find a thought
of my own.
(Seem to have had a problem with the media back then too.)
Cynical Poem #3
I'll love you forever
But dammit,
Don't track mud
On the carpet.
Cynical Poem #4
You' ve gained their love
Making the grade,
But when alone
You find that you've made nothing,
And it eats you
Until you're a smiling hollow.
Cynical Poem #5
I revel in your ugliness
Carefully cataloging each indescretion
Hoping that somehow
Your evil will become
My salvation.
Cynical Poem #6
You've taken the last brick
And thrown it on the rubble
That was once my sanity.
Cynical Poem #7
Your smile slaps my face
Like bright sunshine
On a hangover morning.
Posted by swift at 3:49 PM | Comments (1)
April 16, 2004
Vision - 1983?
Vision
Light
When seen
Is a fragile thing
Yet we take it
And twist it and tear it
Unil it fits our vision.
Better to leave it free
And expand our sight.
Posted by swift at 3:32 PM
April 15, 2004
Four Seasons - 1983'ish
Autumn-
There is something choice and beautiful about death. Not because the leaves give their last shout in scarlet and gold. Not because it demands faith and courage, but beause it wrenches from us our most guarded composure. It forces us to be human again - to cry, to feel, to scrape the bottom of our soul's emotion. Death is the opposite of much that we hold sacred, much that we have erected to worship.
Winter-
I've passed through this canyon hundreds of time but this time I've stopped because the landscpe that I've know so well has dressed itself in snow and become another person. The face of the mountain is new and it calls to me and questions me. Why do I live under the belief that I must always wear the same face? It is not necessary to change the base, for the mountain underneath is still the same, but the surface should be changing, reflecting, and learning.
Spring-
As I rode, the hazy green mixed with old buildings and I felt joy. Not because there were masses of beauty out there but because I suddenly realized that I was alive and my soul wanted to open up and soak up the essence of the life that I saw. There was an old man with a crummy old cowboy hat and his shirt half tucked being followed by a mongrel dog. I wanted to reach out as we sped by and touch his arm and look into his eyes and say, "See me - I'm alive too."
Summer -
Well, the time frisbees and outdoor mania has returned and I'm not sure how excited I am. I miss the winter, the starkness of the season. I feel no need to burst out of the house like a butterfly from its cocoon. I am content to sit on the porch late into the evening and talk with friends about nothing much and feel the warmth of the concrete steps sink into my body.
Posted by swift at 3:26 PM
April 14, 2004
Hmmmm. Thank goodness for Stevie Nicks.
Well. Seems that much of my poetry would have made really, really bad horrible terrible not very good sappy rock love ballads. Oh my goodness. How embarrassing. WOW! Wonder what the stuff I shredded and burned was like. I think I was in love with Dan Fogelberg or something. I hope he didn't have to take out a restraining order or anything. Poor man.
Posted by swift at 4:05 PM
Once I was...
Once I was a sweet young woman. I was pure and good and hopeful. I was tender and compassionate and gifted. I had so much faith in life. I remember my chest feeling so infinite inside. That's the only way I can describe it. I felt that if I could have started pulling out the hope, compassion and love that I had down there in that infinite well I could have salved the world. I thought I was just one big old tube of Neosporin, baby. It's nice to see a little of my ligt in hindsight.
That light must have been shining straight up because, at the same time I felt surrounded by so much cold and dark. However, this is not the time for musing about my past confused wanderings. I've found things I wrote from 20-30 years ago. A sweet find. I shredded and burned so much of it in disgust. So, in my little Cedar Chest I will try to record a few things from the far past. I'm not saying it's any good. I'm just saying it brings back tender little memories and brings a few tears. You know, bad teenage poetry and naive musings. That kind of stuff. Ahh, youth.
Posted by swift at 2:40 PM
September 14, 1988
To Have Never Existed
The last few weeks (months) have been very, very difficult. I feel out of control or I have tried to relinquish control over my mind and emotions. I see my life as a range from mediocracy down to failure and I want to give up my responsibility for myself. I don't want to care anymore. I don't want to feel anymore. The strain of all of this is beginning to show on my face. I look strained and tired -- stressed. Told T that I didn't want to kill myself and I don't, because I know that doing that wouldn't eliminate me -- just move me to somewhere else with all my attitudes intact. Now that I exist there's no erasing me. What I wish is that I had never existed -- that my identity had never been formed --just nothing, nothing ever.
I know I've made personal progress, but wonder if that progress was to pull myself from one patch of quicksand to another, much larger patch that I'm too weak to get out of. I wish I knew what it was that keeps me going. Maybe I do have some of the hope that T talks about. The hope that I have that, when I wake up in the morning, something will be better. I guess if the sun comes up every morning, I can too. Somewhere in my mass of hopelessness and bitterness is something ...something.
Posted by swift at 3:05 AM
August 25, 1988
Big Cat Analogy, the 1st
I feel like a panther in a cage, trapped by my attitudes and decisions. Pacing, pacing, pacing.
Posted by swift at 2:54 AM