Writing As A Form Of Therapy

Oh yes, indeed we are, @Appleblossom

Thank you so much...

Our words are as important as our actions in defining us... how else could we define anything at all without words, and how else could we back up those words without action?

Much love and respect as always...

Hello, dear sweet people. I hope this post finds you well...

As the pandemic crisis worsened around the world in March, reality became measured more in terms of fear...

An 83 year old father with 20% heart function... fear...

A bricks and mortar retail shop which we closed preemptively to honour our social contract... fear...

The potential of losing everything... fear...

And the harsh reality of death and suffering, normally filtered out but now no longer so... fear...

For me, not so much fear as another chance to cast myself in the role of Cassandra, ever the voice of dire warning, ever derided and ignored...

Here are some snippets of poetry I wrote in March, in order to process and cope...

--------------------

Once In A Lifetime Opportunity

Every 75-odd years
Halley's comet
Visible to the naked eye
Visits our sky
For several months.

I was 14 years old
In nineteen eighty-six;
I cast my roving eye
To the night sky
Often in those months.

There were lots of clouds
And distractions.

I didn't see
The f****r once.

6th March, 2020.

Transformation

When did health and wellbeing
Become wealth and hellbeing?

9th March, 2020.

Bookworm

What a glorious childhood memory!

My mum sold
World Book encyclopedias
Door to door.

Part of the ante
The buy-in
Was we had to buy a set ourselves.

Oh my!
Decades before the Internet,
A volume laid out
On the dining room table,
A heavy tome slid
From the musty bookcase.

Then a cross-reference!
Another tome slid!
At the end of it,
Fifteen or more volumes
Open on the table!

10th March, 2020.

Wing Beats

The difference between
The left wing and the right wing
Lies in the answer to the question:

"Would you allow a person to starve?"

12th March, 2020.

Cold Hard Cash

For decades we have been
Destroying the planet,
And world leaders do nothing.

The economy catches a cold,
And world leaders leap
Into instant action.

I wish we cared half as much
About the globe
As we do
About the global economy.

12th March, 2020.

Clickety Clack

The domino's lesson
Is one of the journey
From order to chaos
And back to order..

Watch and listen
As all the dominoes fall...

Is the beauty at the start
When all the complexity
Is balanced and ordered?

Or is the beauty early on
When the infotainment
Of the news titillates
And the first dominoes fall?

Or is the beauty soon after
When the first outbreaks
Of panic and violence break out
And the dominoes crawl?

Or is the beauty slightly later
When panic and shortages cause
A windfall of losses for us all
And the tumbling of the domino wall?

Or is the beauty at the start of the peak
When everything is cancelled
And everyone is isolated
Amid the clickety clack of the dominoes' fall?

Or is the beauty at the cruel peak
When the triage in crowded corridors
Points at life and death by the thousands
As the dominoes cruelly crash and crawl?

Or is the beauty at that awful point
When reality finally sinks in
And the pattern of falling dominoes
Is brought home to us all?

16th March, 2020.

The Adults Don't Know Either

All the children want to hear
Is that it will be okay...

17th March, 2020.

The Spectre of Spectras

I must be autistic,
For nearly all your normal ways
Seem strange and wrong to me.

18th March, 2020.

Apples and Oranges

You can compare
Apples and oranges
As much as you want.

But they both hurt
Just as much as the other
When some bastard
Is throwing them at you.

18th March, 2020.

Growth

I am glad that my parents broke me
So that I could learn to remake me.

18th March, 2020.

Justified Rage

The space between
The potential of the human race
And the actual reality of the human race
Is the place where
My rage resides.

20th March, 2020.

Dang

Get out of Dodge
Before it gets dodgy.

Oops. Too late.

20th March, 2020.

Inertia Beats Momentum

If you look
For win-wins
Rather than losses
Even if you lose
You will win.

20th March, 2020.

Covid-20

We will be both
More loving
And more callous
When all this is over...

As the numbers climb
In exponential time
Dissociation and fatigue
Will inure us for a while.

This viral paradigm
Must be met with love sublime,
In quite another league
For those who survive this trial.

23rd March, 2020.

Hey everyone,

March was a big month of change here in the Land of Oz. From about mid-March onwards (Beware the Ides of March!) increasing awareness of self-isolation and limits to our civil liberties started to creep into our very bones...

At this stage, I was deeply concerned about how this pandemic was going to evolve in Australia. As with most people, we have beloved elders that are vulnerable and all-too-human... getting my dear old dad to stay inside and let me do the shopping for him has been quite a struggle... he is so damn stubborn... and he wants to keep his independence...

I understand all of that, but oh my, it doesn't make it easy to keep him safe... he is 83 years old, and has had several heart attacks over the years, with a heart function around 20%...

Vulnerable... as are we all...

It makes a much-needed connection between the human race and the natural world we live in... for too long, we have been disconnected, much to the detriment of ourselves and all life on this planet...

As we float in the wombs of our own isolation, what will be born when we emerge, blinking, into the light, equal parts fearful and hopeful? Interesting times...

My hypomania was starting to really peak during mid to late March... my writing was going nuts... I am only sharing the tip of the iceberg of my writings here in these snippets... I was writing poetry in a vast torrent, as my ObSeSsIvE cOmPuLsIvE dIsOrDeR kicked into overdrive and I started thinking compulsively in forced rhyme... it happens when I get driven to those heights... great for my poetry-writing, not so great for my peace of mind (or that of my long-suffering partner as she puts up with my increasing torrents of words)...

Here are a few more poems and snippets I wrote during March of this crazy lockdown crisis...

--------------------------------

A life with bipolar brought chaos, disorder, pain, fear and uncertainty every day of my life... this is all very familiar to me, this "new normal", because it is my every day... from weakness comes strength, and from experience comes a growing confidence in the face of adversity...

23rd March, 2020.

Human Beans

I never bought into the stigma... society is less than it should be when it tries to impose "normality" on all of the abnormal extremes I and others experience every day... and in these terribly abnormal times, the failings of our societies in matters of head and heart and common sense must surely lead to an awakening and expansion of our consciousness... please please please, wake up human beans... the time to grow and turn our faces to the sun is now... 🙏💕

23rd March, 2020.

Schadenfreudian Slip

There's no schadenfreude on my part,
But perhaps just a little hope
For a new and growing awareness
From the superficial surface-skimming stones
(extroverts)...

23rd March, 2020.

A New Religion

It is all ours to deify or destroy...

23rd March, 2020.

It's Nothing Personal

World events
Do not require
Trust and faith.

They just happen
And sweep you away
With their power.

It's nothing personal.
Disasters don't even know
That you're there.

23rd March, 2020.

Dance Sing

Our hearts speak simple truths...
We need but listen to their loving beat
And learn to dance to it...

23rd March, 2020.

Whiteout

I miss seasonal snow - I was born in Denmark and spent my first 8 years there... fun times, sledding, making snowmen and snow angels, getting into (powdery not icy) snowball fights... sigh... nostalgia... that wonderful squeaky crunching sound as you roll a ball larger and larger...

Ooooh... I forgot homemade igloos... and walks on frozen lakes... and snowflakes (the non-political kind)... and icycles hanging from the gutters... and the sudden snapping sound as a branch gives way to the weight of ice and snow in the forest... and falling over on the ice and not being able to get up again because of all the laughter... and the white beauty everywhere, dulling sound and sight (the glare!)... and the storms that meant school was out... and the snow ploughs throwing snow on the driveway you had just shovelled... and the big storm of 1978, where the snow was above the eaves...

...and watching your breath steam... and watching your pee steam...

Fun times...

24th March, 2020.

Perspective

Epochs come and go...
Humans never really mattered,
Other than to locally and ferociously
Recycle stardust for not even
A blink of the cosmological eye...

And yet we still find ways
To individually weave
Worth and meaning
Into our everyday...

It is magnificent in the face of it all,
A testament to spirit,
To self-conscious and aware intelligence,
To the vibrant pulsing gift of life
That made possible the entire human race
Just so much as it made possible this coronavirus...

On planet Earth, life does not choose sides...
It just happens, and the consequences spread around...
Such is life...
Such is the human impact on the world...

24th March, 2020.

Democracy

That nervousness when
The votes are being tallied
Yeah, well...
You should feel that all the time.

24th March, 2020.

Family Values

As the reality of Covid-19 hits home
Quarantine at home will create a zone
For families to come together and share
Each others lives in loving care.

It will be a rediscovery much needed
Of long-lost family values lovingly seeded.

25th March, 2020.

Mixed Feelings

Everyone will be partying
When the virus is no longer spawning.

So much pent up party
Will be mixing with the mourning...

25th March, 2020.

Truth Served

The mother served deliberately bad meals
Because she didn't like liars.

If they said it was good
They were shown the door.

25th March, 2020.

Viral

This is exactly the reality check
The human race needed...

25th March, 2020.

I Me Mine

Amongst all the collateral damage,
All the human death and suffering
Yet to come, I have but one hope:

That the virus kills once and for all
The global ideology of "I Me Mine".

26th March, 2020.

Kool-Aid

Trump is
Jim Jones
America is
Jonestown

Do not
I repeat
Do not
Drink the
Kool-Aid

26th March, 2020.

Touched

We will be alright,
Most of us...

But none of us
Will be untouched...

27th March, 2020.

The Interconnectedness of it All

We will remember this once it is all over;
Those who have treated us kindly and treated us poorly;
Those who have kept their promises and those who have not...

We are all in this together, and it is obvious to see
Those who callously pass the full cost of this crisis
Down the supply chain to the detriment of all...

We will remember this once it is all over;
Those who have treated us kindly and treated us poorly;
Those who have kept their promises and those who have not...

There are no winners in this,
When divided we stood
And united we fell.

27th March, 2020.

Trumpet of the Apocalypse

In the land of milk and honey
They chose to side with money
As the four men unhitched their horses
And rode throughout the land.

They rode harder than Paul Revere
Only outpaced by galloping fear
As the wh.ore of Babylon hid in golf courses
And the Apocalypse proceeded as planned.

28th March, 2020.

His Job Is To Punish

I am no Devil's Advocate.
I am the judge in His pocket.

29th March, 2020.

The Magic of Populism

Magic
Is all about...

Twbjaabiiisaahaaaiwtuianrbhaifhaibs

... distraction...

29th March, 2020.

The Knowledge of Death Gave Birth to Religion

As he blew the dust from a bible rarely touched
A cough rattled in his throat, as if to remind him
Of his own mortality and the need to believe...

29th March, 2020.

Covid Conversations

"What did you
Give up
For Lent?"

"Oh, nothing
Much, just
Civilization."

29th March, 2020.

Differences

Depression is the weight of the anchor
Dragging you down to the depths;
Bipolar is being cast adrift in the storm
In a ship made of newspaper.

30th March, 2020.

There Is A Certain Something...

I feel
Nostalgia
For my
Lost
Naivety

30th March, 2020.

Arrow

Allow compassion
To be your compass
And your passion...

It will guide you true...

30th March, 2020.

Progress

I was once as innocent as it was possible to be...
Now I am the current me...

31st March, 2020.

sometimes it's the depths

that make me wonder

the seduction of darkness
its intricacies and traps

sometimes instead i look up

i mean physically face up

to the blessed sky

for any glimmer

of star in the night or

cloud in blue day

even when i feel

nothing and think

too much

i seek to see

though starlight doesn't

reach the bottom

or even make it

as far as skin deep

sometimes

and I am

far too far away

to touch clouds

tangent upon tangent

string over string

knot to knot

in the possible infinity

of everything and us all

the night sky
gave me this
as i looked up
just for that

small shiny synaptic
moment.

Hi everyone.

Great to see you back @Silenus.

Must say buenas noches but just wanted to send love to all.

Love it @Mazarita and @Silenus I particularly love Third Eye Blind and Mixed Feelings. Keep on keeping on both of you xx

Who is this God after all?

Does He hear me when I call?

Is He is the songs of praise?

In church, mosques, temples where voices raise

Who has found the great Devine ?

For every church says “ He is mine”

Is He found in prayer well said?

Or in faces that are unfed

Does He favour black or white?

Does He hear the sobs at night

What of conversations shared

A listening heart, someone who cared

Or laughter that rings with great delight

Joy is shared, a moment bright

Does He live above the sky

Or in each one who would pass by

Is He found in temples tall

Or in all things so very small.

Thankyou @Silenus . I’ve been pondering on your words of wisdom. Very deep and meaningful. Hugs and hugs back to you. 💜💜💜