The End of The Fall

Okay, here are the last 3 poems in the 22 poem cycle of "The Fall". Next post will NOT be poetry! I hope to start discussing living with chronic pain by then. Thanks for sticking with me through "The Fall"!

TWENTY: Second Cut

Is it the Abyss I see
reflected on your faces;
my own disbelief echoed
off your hearts?
How strong you are not to weep --
how brave you make me feel.
I am older now --
these years have worn me well;
I do not harden to granite
nor do I compact to lava or ice.
Your faith now warms me,
fades ancient resentments
to transparencies.
You are opaque and strong;
this time you believe the myth.
I will be Herculean in
my motion,
I will not tremble or quake
as the wound is cunningly
reopened and, once more,
the tremendous length of
healing is set to begin.

TWENTY-ONE: Facing It

On the walls,
my past watches as I
remain upright for
weeks on end;
rich colors keep vigil
from canvases I
can no longer touch.
This is a new loss;
the sacrifice of the sun.
Against the colors I
remain helpless;
I rely on time and
gravity to move me.
As I sit
encased in filaments
of sand and gauze,
I dream of brushes
and paint;
only in dreams am i
what I was.
Supported,
I walk the halls,
venture into the light.
But even now I know
what change is.
On the walls,
my paintings weep.

TWENTY-TWO: The Present

And now I walk upright,
flowing with the days,
allowing gravity to haunt me,
nightly taking measure of each step.
The Abyss looms to my right,
never quite out of reach,
out of sight.
In the Hellish wind
nightmares walk beside me;
I am falling most of all.
I breathe,
respect the placement of
each foot in the new Paris Smoke rug,
admire the pain that lingers
as pungent as fresh
garlic on my window sills.
Nothing is forgotten.
Tonight I sleep with furious dreams.
In the morning
I will wake,
I will stand,
and I will applaud each
turn of toe,
each arabesque that dusts
my careful path
along the devious trench
at my feet.

And more of The Fall

Moving on with "The Fall":

SIXTEEN: Upon Return (for my mother and father)

Your eyes are
brown and red,
mixing to a stunning
shade of sepia;
relief is the color of your vision.
From my view point
you are beautiful;
I tell you my body moves.
I remember your smiles,
imagine tears.
Later, you bring me
coolness with your joined voice;
a choir of angels
singing in my head.
For now
I will live,
for now, you will
keep me --
safe, as always,
from the edge of
the Abyss.

SEVENTEEN: Three Years

How angry I become
at this prophesied reawakening;
I am incensed at the
spinning of the Earth.
Helpless against gravity,
I buckle,
easily fold to the drag
and pressure that
adheres me to this life.
I am weary.
For several twists
I stand still,
petrified,
afraid to move,
to breathe.
For a moment I remember
stone and long to run,
to hide, to fade into
the stuff of the soil
beneath my frozen feet.
Shrugging, I sigh.
This is a well-trod path
I once again walk.
Loathing does not begin
to explain
nor despair come near
to defining resignation.

EIGHTEEN: For Granted

Shift of light,
shadow chasing bend
of back,
turn of shoulder,
sweep of arm.
Motion unfocused,
action unthought;
the body in natural splendor
parting molecules of air
in graceful dance.
Sensuous slide of
muscle over bone,
glorious extension of leg,
comforting contraction
of spine --
fetal, rest settles
perfectly in
strong sinew.
Body in simple movement --
memory's play a delight;
tease of yesterday
in wishful
musing in the midst
of exhausted night.

NINETEEN: Faltering

In starts and stops,
jerks and halts,
clumsy lurches
on rebellious limbs
move me;
no longer in the running,
I keep pace with myself now.
Ungainly,
I fall to one side,
remain hidden to watch
your glorious ballets,
graceful waltzes,
smooth salty tangos.
I walk as you dance,
shuffling steadily behind;
sorrowful bird-child,
regretting my accidental
loss of wings.

Continuing The Fall

More from the 22 part poem: The Fall. Even as I sit here, having just spoken to my doctor's office, waiting to schedule a fourth surgery to address the on-going problems with my neck. And, eventually, possibly a fifth. The reason for my physical limitations is what I'm addressing so far in the blog, how it felt to live though the injury, the long period of having no idea what was wrong with me, and past the second surgery into the dawn of the third. So much angst! But, hey, the thoughts of a fourteen year-old, even filtered through the eyes of my adult Self, the trauma was still very, very real. Now it's more of a distant happenstance that I don't think about. I'm so busy dealing with the results of the accident, that the original cause has slipped away into antique thoughts. Maybe there's still some words inside me that need expressing on the subject. But, for now, I'll leave this Long Poem to continue to tel the story:

TWELVE: One Hundred Years of War

Winding yarn in my arms
keeps the hours at bay;
casting skeins like nets only
to draw the multi-hued strands
back to my heart.
Gentle inanity to bide my time,
to keep my flinching soul rooted
to a body that rejects it every
strike of the hour.
Day.
Night.
Shifting to the left only to
jerk suddenly backward,
throwing me off balance,
trying to catch me asleep.
Day --
walking through tar and sand
to keep pace with the sun,
I drag my feet forward
refusing to rest, refusing...
Acres of yard piled at my feet
keeps the pain at bay;
a trick good only as long
as it lasts.

THIRTEEN: The Pit

How black can darkness be:
Sun burns my shoulders,
my face
as I in ch my way carefully
along the rim of the Abyss;
one shuffled step after another,
one lonely stride.
Blackness is within me --
I cannot feel the sun.
Heart strikes me down,
dragging at my mind,
biting bits of ice
from my lips,
sucking the frozen emeralds
from my eyes.
How black and emeralds see
the pit,
how deep my ind years to fall.
Sun burns the salt from my skin,
jumps harmlessly from the rim
plummeting downward,
downward to search the
bottomless cavern
from my heart.

FOURTEEN: Pills

Carousels of color
dance in your hand --
blue red yellow white
bullets of comfort
and oblivion,
lockets of salvation,
cages of despair.
Liquid flows from
your empty mouth
more easily than words;
I am deaf as well as blind.
Can't you see my hollowness
resting on the bed?
Can't you hear the hate
in my heart?
Giver of rest and illusion,
you walk these scented halls
in deviant awareness
of nothing but your cause,
your gift of lies.

FIFTEEN: First Cut

The deepest slice
touches my throat
just above my heart;
the incision is a miracle
from which I will never wake.
I know the face of finality
when its icy kiss
brushes my hair;
I will dance with angels
this night --
gladly.
The stench of antique ether clings
to my cells as strongly
as my conviction:
I am determined to die;
evil thoughts washed down
with gulps of filtered air
Valium has claimed and
maimed me;
I float through corridors
the color of mint ice.
I am the walrus...
I am a rock...
I am dying as they
strap me down and
feed me dreams.
Time is nothing of importance here,
it has no power,
no gravity holds it,
no inertia keeps it still.
All is a thick emptiness
as hours increase,
as planets spin,
as surgeons cut the poison
from my throat,
my brain,
my life.
I am determined to die
When I wake
the world is changed;
the sleeper jerks
harshly, rejoining the day.
In my confusion
a new life is born.
I am stunned
when my body revives
long withheld motion.

Happy New Year

I wish everyone a happy, healthy, prosperous new year. 2015. How'd that happen? 2014 was a wildly busy year with both blessings and more unfortunate goings on but, looking back, I will remember the beautiful wedding of my niece and her husband, Michelle and Michael and the birth of my great-great-nephew, Greyson, my nephew's oldest daughter's baby! I also moved to my lovely little bungalow last June. 2015 promises help for my health and and loads and loads of forward moving events for the family. I hope, with improved health, to get back to writing and painting. I'm loving the little drawings I've been doing but I do miss painting... and I have a commission waiting to be done (I promise to get to it, Susan B!). I also hope to get more into depth on the subject of chronic pain and how to deal with it, well, my experiences of dealing with it. It's been a long -- 41 years -- road so I think I have a few stories to tell.

But for now, back to the falling poem, there are, after all, 22 parts; if I don't continue I'll never reach the end. So, here we are, half-way through "The Fall":

EIGHT: The Second Step of Pain

Like an evil double
pain astounds me,
surrounds and engulfs me
and casts me toward stone.
I am granite and lava;
at once cold and aflame,
my core boils with ice.
Blue is the skin at my shoulder,
blue are my lips...
hewn from lapis,
my heart struggles to beat.
Opal are my eyes,
Mother,
changing, unreadable;
in water I separate into
triplets --
a double to double
my pain.
Above me, the keystone,
the burden of proof;
beside me rest rubies
and diamonds,
emeralds to replace
my disillusioned eyes.

NINE: The Battle Begins

From the high ground
cannons sound,
fro the valley
the clash of steel;
battles lost on the
killing ground of
these antiseptic corridors.
The scent of iodine
and paper gowns
rattles the pale green walls;
chrome-wheeled tables
glint florescently,
blinding me as I wait.
From the high ground
a stalemate:
no prisoners, no surrender.
In the valley,
one refugee lies
defeated at the foot of this
institutionalized mountain.

TEN: Another rejection

Time holds its breath
while the dumb rumbles
our anticipation:
how many songs have
repeated this worn theme?
Music jolts my too-still
limbs as I limp from
mirror to mirror,
finding only my
twisted twin staring back
in horror;
stone is encroaching --
I am half-gone gray.

ELEVEN: Fighting Back

Do you think me demented --
some warped child of an
isolated mind trapped
within a net of my own design?
Truly --
do you find me shaken,
twisted from my frame by
mere desire for your doting?
Better I should find my name
but dust,
blown to some lost corner
of your Hell;
better I should remain frozen in
silent fury.
Your faulty judgements
land poison on my tongue,
lay my mind exposed
to parch in the sun
Your folly is my pain,
your error, my death.

I Am No Longer Denied!

Just a quick entry here -- and jumping back to the subject of my first blog: being denied the right to vote in last month's election.

Saturday, I received a postcard from the Registrar of Voters informing me that my "case" has been decided and I am now a registered voter in Riverside County. Wow, what a mess I created by simply trying to pick up my voting material!

So, that little drama is over. More poetry posted in the next day or so!

Continuing to Fall

More of my 22 part poem, "The Fall". It's amazing that it was so long after my accident that I wrote this. It was as though I was possessed. And it felt like a huge burden had lightened when I was finished with the fevered writing.

To complete the profile -- and give you information that might explain more of why I continue to write about chronic pain -- the history of my injury:
1-I fell while skinning in Mammoth California in 1973;
2-First surgery to repair damage to my neck was in 1984;
3-Second surgery to repair more damage was in 1988;
4-Third surgery was in 2004;
5-Forth surgery is on the horizon in a few weeks, 2015;
6-Fifth surgery may be needed in the near future.

Hope you find some insight in the following parts of the larger poem... or at least enjoy the poetry! The next four parts:

FOUR: Initial Withdrawal

From fear
new life is born,
from breach
fragmented spirit
lurches to awareness.
No longer the fallen,
now the one who watched
breathes and trembles
in confused silence
as the broken shell
is brought back to life.

     Inside the familiar,
     a changeling squirms,
     adjusting the new cloth
     to its pink & wet form,
     finding its place of comfort
     in unfamiliar skin.

Healed and whole
the guise is mounted,
the task begun,
the charade set forth.

FIVE: Living It

And when the sun shines
   it smiles;
When its cold it frowns;
When hunger calls
   it whimpers...
   fine imitation of life.

It's skin tastes of harshness,
It's tears smell of fear,
It's voice goes unanswered,
It's needs unheard.

And when it smiles it
   feels nothing;
When pain calls it hides;
When questioned it
   flashes intelligence
   in frightened, shuttered eyes.

It's days taste of horror,
It's nights smell of ice,
It's heart is emptied,
It's mind focused grace.

It's numb in vacuum now,
It's days finely honed,
It's faults black-edged patches,
It's intent obscured by stone.

SIX: Disbelief

Animation of limbs
by pulleys and gears
creaking and grinding
in mechanical response.
Prescision tuned
to jup and spin,
balanced for normalcy;
programmed intelligence
shines in diode-eyes.
Aluminum skin insulates internal strife,
cushions the churning
of organic wheels,
tempers the carbolic
scent of friction --
padded disk burning
slowly against metallic
firmness of bone.
Alloy comprised of
blood and steel
seeps like oil
from frozen joints;
the winding screech
of tortured metal
resounds in the
hollow mechanism.

SEVEN: The First Step of Pain

Awaken slowly,
     child of mine,
You've slept too long;
     the day is well begun.
Wake from your
     thousand-year rest,
Your prince has come;
     look quickly before he's gone.
So long you've remained
     encased in metal,
Hidden from this life;
     hidden fro yourself.
Fear flows from you
     like tears, child,
Like rain in spring;
     sustenance for what will come.
Awaken quickly,
     daughter, my child,
And taste this new sound;
     the weight and pain of grief.

And So It Began

As part of The Story of Why I'm Writing About Chronic Pain, I present to you a twenty-two part poem, which many of you may have already read, called "The Fall". It took me eighteen years to find words to describe the day I had a life-altering snow skiing accident when I was fourteen and then it came pouring out of me in one night... the middle of the night of October 12, 1991.

I hope this explains a bit about the journey I've been on all my life. At the very least, I hope you enjoy the poems! And, so as not to deaden your eyes or brains, I post here the first three of the group.

ONE: Skirting The Edge

Crystal day --
blue wind whispering
scent of snow,
warmth of ice,
calling, calling my name.

From the top,
the world was held
in terrible silence,
the beating rush
of blood in my limbs
the one constant --
and the bitter blueness
of winter sky
free of storms,
free to hwol
in frigid welcome.

Crystal day --
blue and white and
so very, very high;
such moments we danced,
such arabesques
the white blueness
promised with it's
frozen kiss.

[][][][][]

TWO: Losing Balance

Soft.
Smooth and soft
and terribly wrong;
eternity held in my hand,
a fractured second split.
Suspended on the moment,
on the sloping razor-edge,
the high-wire snapped
beneath my feet and
Earth mated blindly with Sky.

     And the stone sank
     slowly to the bottom
     of the frozen well
     and tubled quicker
     than gravity would perceive
     and plummeted from
     the edge of the world,
     drifting slowly
     (so unbearably fast)
     into the Abyss...
     into the maw of the Dragon...
     and was swallowed whole.

Soft.
Too soft and smooth.
For an eternity
a scream echoed denial--
then was silenced
by the sudden spin.

[][][][][]

THREE: Falling

Carnage
in mind
melts from
ice to skin
to churning blueness --
sulfur the only scent,
copper and rust
cloy to bitten lips.
Death in a whirlwind
of silence;
only the heat
of lost breath
crashed from brutalized lungs,
only the swallowed
scream of fear
tumbling like
a lost galaxy
in paralyzed throat.
Carnage
from quiet --
a broken morning
claws bits of
the whole onto sheets
of pure white.
What was whole is sundered;
the one who lived is lost.