Poem – she left

Posted on February 5, 2015 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

She left years ago.
She didn’t walk out.
There were no bags.

She left his comic books and cartoons.
She left his callused hands and callous ways.

He was thin skinned
and thick headed.

He never saw it. He never saw her leave.
He never saw her as anything
other
than a roommate, a prop, a support.

Her accomplishments rendered him speechless,
more impotent than he already was,
self-depreciating, self loathing.

A man isn’t a man just because of his age.
A husband is more than someone who is married.

She left him,
left him in her heart,
sad for his emptiness
his neediness,
his brokenness.
To try to fix him was to take away his power.

She left him
to his own devices –
Playstation, computer, and tablet. Action figures too.
Maybe they will help him to grow up.
Maybe one day he will learn from his
mistakes
instead of celebrating them, sickly
by repeating them,
over and over and over and over
and wondering why nothing ever goes his way.

She left him,
because she woke up,
and kept waking up
next to him.
His daily drunkenness on his own failure,
his addiction to his own pathology,
sickened her.

It threatened her.
It threatened her.

Like an alcoholic fresh out of rehab,
his ways threatened her
sobriety,
her awakening.

She left, because he threatened her,
not with words, not with fists
but with his very being.

Poem – I stand in the presence of God

Posted on February 5, 2015 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

When the angel Gabriel told Zachariah
“I am Gabriel,
who stands
in the presence
of God”
(Luke 1:19)
what he meant was
that while
he was talking to Zachariah
he was
at the same time
in the presence
of God.

Angels do not experience
our reality
in the same way
that we do.

Angels are multi dimensional.
Angels are quantum.
They are not in the same phase
of the space-time continuum
as we are.

When Gabriel is reporting
what God is saying,
he is hearing
it at the same time
God is saying it
and then
reporting it
to the person.

He is there with God
and here
with us
at the same time.
There isn’t far away.
There is right here
– we just cannot see God
because our senses
cannot usually
perceive something
that overwhelming.

God blows our fuses.

God is like trying
to play a CD
on a record player.

The angel is able
to take shape
in our dimension
and relate to us
the words of God
in a way
that we can hear
and understand.

However,
even though we need angels
to hear God,
(sometimes),
God can always hear us,
and always does.

Poem “Fat”

Posted on February 4, 2015 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

These days,
the fastest way
to discredit
a woman
is to call her “fat”.

Years back,
it was “mentally ill”.
Years before that,
the word was
“witch”.

Remember?

You can silence people with these words.
But people
only silence
the ones
who
make noise.

Being called a name like
fat,
or mentally ill,
or witch
means you are onto something
means they are scared of you,
of what you have to say.

Don’t be silent,
and don’t be
scared,
afraid,
angry
at those words.

Those words are a sign
that you are
on the right track.

Poem – old lady smell

Posted on January 30, 2015 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

She arrives, shaggy
shambling, shuffling
shopping bag in tow,
big enough for a child.
Barely able to lift it,
it contains all the cares in the world
and a bakers’ dozen of romance books.

She’s
dressed in flowers and lace
a bag-like shroud
big enough to cover
almost everything,
large, shapeless
stitched from ten thousand days
of regret and disappointments.

Her aroma arrives before she does.

A dance of cat
marking territory
relieving, discharge
doing a tango with her own
urine
soaked through, layered
and a third partner,
waiting for the dance –
flowery perfume to match
cadence
with the other two
sometimes stepping on their feet.

Any one
would be enough
to stop me

but all three
arrest me, full stop
like a police officer
like a spike strip
like a strip search.

The day is over
from that point onwards.

Poem – God is understood as dual

Posted on January 27, 2015 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

The alpha and the omega –
there you go.
Yin and Yang.
(this completely ignores the trinity
– the holy spirit is the Force)

God made us to be
God’s agents in this world.
We are part of
creation,
and part of
the creating force.
We are God’s hands
and eyes
and feet
in this world
(quote Teresa of Avila)

We are more than just physical beings.
We are souls,
created by God,
housed in these vessels.

God is the sculptor, we are the clay
(quote Isaiah)

These bodies are like cars –
they get our souls where they need to be.
They are like “avatars”
Our souls can be sorry that someone is suffering.
But because we are physical,
we can do something about it.
We can offer a shoulder
to cry on.
We can cook a meal for them.
We can hold their hand.
We can listen to them when they complain.
We can use our bodies to share the love
and compassion of God in a real sense.
No empty words here.

We have the kingdom of heaven within us
(quote Jesus).
That kingdom is our soul – created by God.

Part of that kingdom is that we have the ability
to do good in this world,
and to be a force for good.
We have the ability
to make this world better
– to bring about the kingdom here,
and now.
We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
(quote the Hopis)

We have the choice to use it
for good
or bad.
To use our days mindfully
or mindlessly.
Sometimes it is hard to choose good
(quote st. paul – I don’t do what I want to do).

So we pray.
We pray for advice, for will, for strength.
Just praying for these things is good –
it is a sign that we are reaching for God.
And it is essential that we not see ourselves
as God.
We are created – not the creator.
(quote Beowulf’s reference to hubris)

There is a fine balance here.

We need to wake up
to our full potential.
(quote quantum physics)
But we need to also remember that we are dust,
(quote Carl Sagan, Genesis 3:19)

We aren’t omnipotent or omniscient.
Nor are we an island
(quote John Donne)
We need to work together,
and know that we were put here,
each one of us,
for a reason.
And live up to that.

Poem – Plates

Posted on January 26, 2015 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I opened the box
from my mother in law,
the heavy brown cardboard, the crisp pale paper inside.
She’d been dead a month by this time
but she knew it was coming
so there’d been time to prepare.

Every plate
every bowl
every cup
even the gravy boat
she had wrapped
herself
one
by
one

and placed carefully in this box.

She knew
that this was the last time
she would see these dishes,
these dishes that we had used
as a family
for Christmas
for Easter
for Thanksgiving
every year.

She knew
this was the end
that there would be no more holidays
for her.

We’ll continue
in our fashion
in our own new way
without her
but with her plates
so lovingly
and so carefully
wrapped.

Poem – What if AIDS is a WMD?

Posted on January 26, 2015 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

What if AIDS is
A weapon of mass destruction?
What if it is a created thing,
a biological weapon?
What if it was created
to destroy the world,
one person at a time?

What greater way to
destroy
us than to use one of our
basic impulses
– sex?

But it isn’t done to us.
We do it.
We have control,
right?
It isn’t caused by a gas in the air,
poison in our food.
We know the risk and yet,
and yet.

How else are we destroying ourselves
though impulses
– food?
Certainly.
We are like animals.

Diabetes, heart attacks,
obesity that renders
a person
immobile, incapable,
impotent
in more ways than one,
powerless.

Mindlessly
with our habits, unthinking
we are killing ourselves,
never really alive
in the first place.
If all we do
is have sex
and eat
and nothing more,
we are no better than worms.

With our mindless habits,
we become
food
for them.

Poem- What is Your name?

Posted on January 25, 2015 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

What is Your name?
Not the name of Your disease
not the name others have called You.

Your name that is
Special and star-like
Blessed and beautiful,
Your name
for You alone?

It might have been a long time
since You have heard it.
It might have been never.

The names others have given You
might not be true
might not fit
in the same way that
hand me down clothes
Don’t.

In the same way that
sometimes You have to
make Your own clothes
stitch
by
stitch
to have something
that fits
sometimes You have to
Discover
Uncover
Recover
Your name.

You might not be the name
You were given at birth.

You might not be
mother, brother,
day labor, CEO,
friend, failure
gambler, penny pincher
mentally ill, stable
ex con, confidante.

The names that stick to You
(or are stuck on You)
out of relationship
or habit
or job
or history
or health
might be a part of Your name
or Your name might be
Entirely apart
from them.

What is Your name
Your true name
deep inside Your heart
small and bright and solid
And beautiful?
Immovable
Unchanging
Eternal
like the stars
like the sea.

The vastness of forever is inside you.

Find Your name
And You find Yourself
again
or for
the first time.

Poem – water on the stone

Posted on January 23, 2015 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

You know how
if a bit of water
drops on a stone
every single day,
the stone wears away?

There’s nothing left.

It isn’t something hard,
chipping away.
It is something soft
and it wears away
something hard
drop
by
drop.

Good habits done daily
are like water.
They wear away
our hard outer shells
and make us
softer
and yet
stronger
at the same time.

Everything we do every day
towards our goal
builds us up
and makes us stronger.
The efforts don’t seem like much
when we do them.
But every day
they add up
more
and
more.