A pinch is a signal
Well now. It must have pinched deep in my innards, to have me writing two poems! Such a pinch is a signal to look, perchance to change. This is gouging with the pen—more painful than a scalpel! And messier.
:- Doug.
Archive for July, 2020
gravel spinach and splinter
Work poetry, work!
slash at poet’s fat and muscle!
pour in gravel spinach and splinter!
:- Doug.
Wasn’t there before
If art creates something
wasn’t there before
and if people leave a meeting
with something no one carried in
then of course meeting is art
:- Doug.
This lawyer in the fog
Often it is this lawyer in the fog
first the course of study
devise the special testing questions
What was my role in this tragedy?
Was it a tragedy? For whom?
What did I fear?
Why did I hold back?
Did I uphold my values?
Values come easily to pen
but will I?
and did I?
Wrestle with that angel
though I know he prevails
and I may get only a new name
yet I want to be aware and there
Maybe there will be
a recognizable me
on the other side
or maybe something larger something smaller
:- Doug.
Strangeness movement
Change of consciousness
is
strangeness
movement
not results but shapes
concrete juxtaposition
startler
:- Doug.
Packing a suitcase
Making memories
how sweet the sound
of packing a suitcase
when nature
is stripping you
to bone
and waning breath
:- Doug.
wafting up the flue
So much grey
so little silver
snow and deep up on the roof
but fire in the hearth?
Dare we inquire after morsels?
Old we have aplenty
elders but few
Shh who might some of us
barely notice wafting
up the flue
becoming ancestors?
:- Doug.
Arrow on a rusting sign
A poem once written
is an unreliable
arrow on a sign
rusting
telling which way you
went
but not the valuable stuff
:- Doug.
A Google lawyer
Are you Google
knowing without knowing
Are you a Google lawyer
knowing answers and hows
lively and responsive
without touching
All those years
lived without living
All those lives
you have strummed
without having the chords
reverberate to your spine
Have you watched
without watching
that sap that flows
in that family
and yours
and that richer stuff
that courses
in root system
Have you been without being
what precisely is your worth
and for how long and for whom?
:- Doug.
Footprints in the Windsm # 1970–Condor from out of nowhere
Footprints in the Windsm # 1970
But you have a much larger gift you can give, or at least offer. However it will cost you. It will be a condor from out of nowhere sinking its talons into you, carrying you away, over the abyss. You have not found this gift if you do not scream.
This offering is called reflexivity.
This is where you turn the view upon yourself. You eviscerate yourself. Reflection is seeing the event from a distance, from an overview, recounting history and prediction.
Reflexivity is working on and being worked by how this event changes you and you it; and how your client is changed, and changes the event. It is a circle where cause produces an effect, and the effect produces cause. A spiral. You and your client caught up in it together. Caught up in life together.
This is poetry. This is making.
You may think I have been speaking prose with you this afternoon. Yet the language is somehow more. There is a hint of the lyrical. You too can speak and write poetry.
Please pass it on.
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Looking glass room
As elder caring lawyers we are privileged witnesses. We also may find a profound responsibility to witness for our people. To mirror. To open. Maybe there is a different room over there on the other side of the looking glass.
:- Doug.
felt change reflexive?
Wonder how felt change in consciousness relates to reflexive writing?
:- Doug.
