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The Penitent (2004)

My God, I relent.

What did I not do right?

Which t’s did I not cross? Which i’s left I undotted?

Was I too haughty, ambitious, proud?

Please tell me, Lord.

I might have erred in ignorance.

For my errors I want to atone,

so that the pain will cease.

I hate myself for being weak,

for being pain’s unrelenting prey.

Shine forth your light in the valley

of this approaching death

that masks true faith

in the circularity of its jagged labyrinth.

Is there no absolution,

no healing for the penitent?

Why are wounds still raw,

routinely reopened,

exposing pink flesh to fresh infections?

 

This poem can be found in my book Splendor from Ashes

 

Sometimes life and love comes with painful, shaping disappointments. However we can idealize away from pain into resilience and strength.

This is an excerpt from the opening poem “Scripting” found in my book Splendor from Ashes

 

 

I  use the words of the famous poet William Blake to inspire hope in all such victims: “Little Lamb God bless thee”

She became pregnant in adolescence, a victim of a trusted adult.  Like Persephone another maiden was snatched from innocence by a death inflicting figure. Was she another victim doomed to become a prisoner of the underworld of life? Research shows that victims of childhood sexual abuse are set up to be long term victims. Some even become prone to sexual re-victimization (Fergusson, Howard and Lynky, 1997). High rates of depression thoughts of suicide, and dependence on drugs or alcohol become some of the scars of their world. It is my prayer that the gates that imprison of this little lamb are broken.

Generally, there seems to be no one to bless Blake’s “Little Lambs” for Justice seems to have abdicated this duty for which it was enthroned.  Justice has abdicated  even from the highest courts of our land when our teenage victims are not believed, and their tale deemed less credible than those of Hades even when “Hecate” and “Helios” support  Persephone/ the victim’s tale. Consistently, the report of the death inflicting figure is believed thus positioning the darker side of our society as inviolable. To  maintain a  facade that all is well society makes the choice to ignore its underbelly of rottenness. Humanity  must save face and so it chooses to err on the side of the loudest speaker and those with political influence.

The issue of child abuse is remote phenomena until it comes home to roost . When it happened to a childhood friend’s daughter the remoteness of the phenomena  evaporated,  and it hurt like crazy. My pain gave birth to the poem, “I Did not Know” .

“I Did not Know” and similar poems can be found in my book Splendor from Ashes

 

As obtained under the system of colonialism, an abuser aims to violently take control of another person. Both systems act to break and exploit a person in order to bolster some distorted sense of glory. An abuser, whether in full awareness or not, operates a system that is aimed at destroying   another’s courage to hope, as well as to foster deficiencies in one’s pride and self-esteem. Like colonialism, systematic abuse places a stronghold on the person subjected to its ministrations whether or not the perpetrator intends to do so.

Often – times the abuser justifies the status quo treatment of the subject. An apathetic society then becomes complicit in this justification of such subjugation by being mum on the subject or by not openly addressing it. The persistence of such a system tells of certain structures deeply embedded in our socialization system that allows for the perpetuation of this evil generation after generation. We need to identify and annihilate those pertinatious structures from among us.

As alluded to the poem “I don’t Break, I Bend  a postcolonial renaming is called for as identity rediscovery and reclamation must be realized for recovery and transcendence. To allow for this, colonialist implants of the abuser in the psyche that reconditions a person into thinking he/she is not enough, must be rejected. Simultaneously there must also be a rejection of the attendant subjugation that overtime causes the subject person to become settled into the unacceptable positions. To escape the stranglehold- the accustomed prison- and neuter the impact of the abuser, the wounded must rename herself. In the process with God’s help that person would achieve ascendance to transform her/his point of breaking into her/his point of making

I Don’t Break; I Bend

Just where you broke her,

that’s where she did grow,

herself for to know.

 

Just where you finished her,

there she famously died,

but her eyes opened wide.

 

First cowering and stumbling,

she learned to stymie fear.

Then rising from her tomb of clay,

her truth she came to bear.

 

Watery tears nourished.

Her life’s garden flourished;

towering flowers in reds and blues,

choirs blossoming in every hue.

 

She’d outwitted the battering,

the identity confusing and a future so uncertain,

to roar upon high mountains.

By rejecting the guile,

brokenness she did foil,

and astutely stronger grew,

offering comfort to the broken new.

 

The recovering fatalist now

chronicles a phoenix’s dusty rise

out of dreary brokenness upon unbroken wings.

 

Celebrates the shattering,

the fueled postcolonial renaming

and shrewd neutering

of the colonizer’s deadly renderings

This and similar poems can be found in my book Splendor from Ashes

 

 

 

 

The Returning Soldier

Many a time we face the battle of life like untried soldiers. And, like untried soldiers we are never fully prepared for the sometimes-dramatic consequences of warfare. Then when we confront life’s amoral demands for conformism we become stunned like deer caught in the headlights.

But having taken institutional vows we feel we are under moral obligation to act the part to keep up appearances. Oftentimes this may come at a cost. It may come at the cost of a slow and painful death of core values, of dreams and of self.

Yes, we kill off our dreams and other aspects of self for appearances because we are mindful of the oath taken.

At times as returning and rebounding soldiers we are so broken that it is quite challenging – near impossible to make the psychosocial adjustments required. Yet we soldiers return to wherever home is, to face ridicule after having sacrificed a part of ourselves for that which was judged as valuable, or for some other – perceived greater good. So, did I.

This short exposition is hopefully a guide to the understanding of the poem “The Returning Soldier” which follows:                     

The Returning Soldier

Soldier, did you kill a man?   

 How did it feel?                                                                                                                 

Woman, did you leave your man?                                                                                        

How did it feel?

This woman did kill a man—

Soldier, did you kill a man?

How did it feel?

Woman, did you leave your man?

How did it feel?

This woman did kill a man—

not that man, this inner man, in partial suicides,

in sneaky, slow dyings

with the technology of sharp-shooting inner snipers

configured by the Cain of conservatism.

She was a terrorist against herself,

blowing body parts to bits,

soul and blood raining down upon a tortured landscape

to join those of Abel in post-Edenic torpor.

Be a self-preserving surgeon like this woman.

Amputate the amalgam of selves that anesthetizes

and forces you to choose another’s interest over your own.

But don’t you dare sit in your sterile towers

and politicize and sensationalize her cracks at survival.

 

The Returning Soldier is taken from my book Splendor from Ashes

 

 

 

The Writer as Conscience

Last week I posed this question to my students: “What is the role of the writer in society?” One particularly bright student said. “The role of the writer is to inform upper class people of what is going on in society so that they could bring change”.  I restated the student’s response in this manner: “So then one could infer that the storyteller/ writer is the conscience of the people”. He concurred. The writer Karl Keating writing on the role of the conscience says, “Conscience is the faculty which warns you that you’re doing something wrong — or neglecting to do something right that should be undertaken”.  My hope is that in some small way I could be a tiny conscience to others on the issue of domestic violence.

 

In the role of society’s conscience of sorts, I try to accurately describe issues experienced so that at the end of a poem or anthology a reader can at least say that the writer understands what I am experiencing. In my anthology/memoir I try to portray myself as a real person in a quest just like my readers so that my dilemma becomes theirs. At the forefront of my mind is to portray the universality of the issue at hand, and the dilemma of being human.  Thus as conscience the writer begins by being a mirror reflector.

As a metaphoric conscience I aim not to be a mirror that reflects to distort and sensationalize but one that brings clarity to the human condition. I reveal my life with an authenticity that makes me vulnerable to be misinterpreted, misunderstood or frowned upon. Yet I feel compelled to chronicle my experience with a fidelity that has the potential to convincingly expose the dark underbelly of the society and of the self. You see it is my belief that one only has what one gives away. In giving myself away like this and leaving myself open and vulnerable it is my hope that I could persuade others to make psychological investments in human kind. It is my hope to inspire others to bring the change that the student spoke of or at least to agitate to make that change happen. Certainly, I want to spur them not to neglect to do something right or to undertake that which should be done to address the situation

 

In the poem below I reveal how my life was shaken in the aftermath of domestic violence. In the process not only do I leave myself open to the criticism of others, but I become my own worst critic. Because I try to write with honesty and sincerity at the end of the process I see myself and examine my thoughts and become self-critical. Here is where writing becomes a painful experience as it is hard to face your truth. Even though you may want to take back what was written it is already written and taking it back does not make it less of the truth. Ultimately, I resolve the matter by admitting that it was my truth at the time, but I have grown away from that position.

In honesty I try to show the pain that was my life. As I look back on this poem I see the pain that was my life. I see the ugliness in me that caused me to question my faith- which is my center, and I feel ashamed. I see my weakness and I am critical of myself for allowing circumstances to move me like this. I am still trying to forgive myself for this error.

I hope the poem that follows touches hearts and minds, causes you to have opinions and inspires you to make a difference.

Crossroads

My God! My God!

Why hast thou dealt so harshly with me?

Why hast thou forsaken me?

Why? Why?

O God of my childhood,

sweet gentle Jesus,

I had not known you thus.

Why are pain and unhappiness

constant residents of my being?

God, remember how we were

intimate once, You and I?

I was the lamb frisking

in the green pastures of your presence.

We communed then,

You and I,

while all heaven looked on.

It was good then, so good, Lord.

Now visions of the grave rise

before my eyes and scare me.

Every moment I fear the end,

for in the menace’s eye

is the ominous presence of death.

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And what is left?

A God who seems absent,

abuse from within and without

at the hand of a stranger—lover and brother.

Oh, my God, it never stops.

I’m the cornered fawn,

forever retreating

before the heinous hounds of hell.

I’ll be good, I say to the menace,

but that’s not enough—

nothing I do is ever enough.

I weep in the shackling gloom

Crossroads and similar poems can be found in my book Splendor from Ashes

Aggressive Ethnicities (2013)

Aggressive ethnicities,

not race but class,

jump-starts this vendetta.

Cain-envy, that’s the story.

Crying shame, Abel’s not to blame.

You are your own fierce pain.

Cataclysmic sounds

scream from your underworld;

guttural cultural sounds

destroy, in any event

stifle the great.

Camaraderie linguistics,

collaborative putrefying hums

imminent birth abort, distort,

noblesse threat to crush.

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Ghetto halo winging it,

competencies unimpressive,

etymologies of insecurity—

unquestionably, Mafioso eccezionale.

As Narcissus, prostituting other love for self-love,

your reflection in the pool must see,

else soulless gaze transforms to worthless stones.

I, Perseus, have you pegged.

This and similar poems found in my book Splendor from Ashes