Sit On This

What would happen
if you stopped burning and blowing smoke?
Became less
of a worker-bee/performer,
a what-if-thinkin' pepper-shaker?
Must you always be outstanding,
killing yourself by their demanding?
Barely maiming everyone near you...
Getting through the work you do.

You might have more focus
If you stopped allowing another
to set the tone, like some
over-stuffed controlling mother.
Don't hang-in there for the soup
if getting out
is the best re-coup!
Just remember:
All invitations come a-knocking,
invading your brain, when you're not looking.

Their lives, consumed,
a not-so-private chaos,
their unmanageable air,
so filled, and so innocuous,
leaves you sitting there,
the speechless guest in an uneasy chair.
Reduced to crouching like some crazy, wild cat
which knows chaos
is where it's at...
They bring it with them and it never slows!
Whatever they do it just comes and goes -
24/7 - it comes and it goes!

Lewis Carroll (AKA Charles Dodgson) was adored by the children he photographed.

From the New York Times online 2 April, 1999:

But was Carroll a pedophile? As you walk through ''Reflections in a Looking Glass: A Lewis Carroll Centenary Exhibition,'' organized by the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin to mark his death in 1898 and now at the Equitable Gallery in Manhattan, the question seems oddly irrelevant. What is most startling, and attractive, in his portraits of girls is not what he saw in them but what they saw in him.

''Lewis Carroll . . . came to our country home to photograph the children,'' wrote Dymphna Ellis, one of the children Carroll photographed. She added: ''I feel sure I was a 'favorite.' He made every child that. He developed the photographs in our cellar . . . I remember the mess and the mystery . . . We cried when he went away . . . We were absolutely fearless with him. We felt he was one of us, and on our side against all the grown-ups.''

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/
fullpage.html?res=980DE7D61439F931A35757C0A96F958260

Dignify This; for David O'Kane, 4 June, 2008

David O'Kane, Self Portrait (as Lewis Carroll), digital photograph, 2004
printed by permission
http://www.davidokane.com/photography.html

Dignify this,
how a man would resort to machine
to assemble/express his Victorian dream...
For which there was no compromise -
Demanding contemporaries
avert their eyes.
When this is left - the life-lorn photograph -
Obscuring one heart
from his passionate path
of absolved reminiscences -
fixing instead, a loving, child-mind
far, far ahead of his time...
So that we, the children
could look back in space
and know the humanity there
in his face;
where we learn to perhaps
break down such walls
that harden inside us,
steadfast, and old.

for David O'Kane, 4 June, 2008

Who is This?

Who is this
that says the things
she doesn't mean
and does the things
she's doesn't believe?
Who is the person
who hides her heart?
Who never knows where
to begin or start,
living her life as if
under a 'shroom?
As if there's no space,
as if "there's no room"?
Somehow she believes
she's been placed in a freezer;
not knowing she's a trained and
possessed people-pleaser.
She's willing and bright,
yet not able to fly,
she keeps lid on her light,
too afraid to try.

Nibble This

My challenge is to take my pleasures
in the simplest things
without imbibing
what knocks me unconscious.
There was a time in life
when being unconscious was "hip";
thus I deserted friends
who couldn't "get with it".
Still, I had my fill of cons,
jokesters and fakers.
In many ways I paid for life
by being a heart-breaker.
Now I feed myself
with that which nurtures my soul,
having learned no one else
will comfort or keep me whole.
You see, they never understood
there was a little child inside.
She's what keeps me going
beyond tolerance and pride.

Chase This

Chase This

There is no logical order to this:
The only one responsible
for your own happiness
is you.
It would be nice if we could go through life
being validated for who we are;
we expect that from our parents,
look for it from our friends
and work for it with our colleagues.
Chase the inner-most elements of
your own self-respect
in spite of men, places and doctorates.
Let your heart be filled
with all things, people, and places
you love most.
Allow them to become your pathways
of study and celebration,
but never a means to end.

Find This

Find This

We have to learn how to deal
with the different levels of chaos in our lives,
starting with ourselves.
It's a challenge to move forward
with your own chaos following
where ever you go.
It happens.

And it's not possible to prioritize

without making some sacrifice;
it's a delicate process of finding
what might let us in
to that gorgeous secret garden
we all yearn for.