tho there will come a day when tomorrow comes no more

and all life goes far away in this three dimensional way

of having hands & feet, a mouth to kiss, hair to comb

a life to help others & put things away

all the ordinary events of the day

spent like coins of the Old Realm

to buy dreams in the New.

Do you think I should have refused?

was there a way to do things otherwise?

I came here to do this: to live as I have

alone & halfway water

belonging nowhere but where I am

and that only scantily.

it was a way to pay it off early

any debt I owed, any fault repaired

so I slipped between the bars & the barriers

to awaken here, my eyes wise with birth

soon clouded with living in so small a space

as a body – enlarged now tho it may be…

I complain no more

I tuck myself into a ball & keep rolling

I move because I can & because there is no other way to live.

And in the unexpected, ordinary morning

I catch myself looking up at a ragged sky

edged & egged in blue with the hoarse clouds ballooning

higher than life itself, the fragile bridges to a firm & total God

the creation in which I am as secure as individuality can make me.

I live now after dying to myself in so many spaces

And who I am is all I am, the wild paths fraught with winds

snatching my words & my blinking my eyes.

this is what counts: the here & now of forever

at which I stare, an idiot believing in sanity

not to be had here or now but only imagined.

With No Time to Consider Her Life

she did so anyway, the thoughts slowing her more

tangling her feet & tugging her ears

those old songs of faraway

no closer than before.

the now crowded about her

spilling into the future, disparaging the past

yet still she clung to what have you, to what might have been

as she clings to this now, knowing nothing else.

“I Was Alone, But That’s Not the Same as Being Lonely“

They spoke of families to visit, of grandchildren & sons,

nieces & daughters, of turkeys waiting to be carved

by the man of the house

while all the women know exactly how to use a knife.

a best-kept secret, that of life & death

where-over the women rule, washing the dead,

touching the wounds with aching fingers

mourning is the same as rejoicing

when death chooses another & calls out its hooting cry.

we women shudder & move aside for we are not the targets

we are only life symbolic & whole, uncommonly bested by life or time or tide

until we say “Basta!” Enough! Until we hold up a right hand to stop the tide no man can ever claim

the secrets all live inside of us & even cutting us open will not these reveal

their seclusion is their elation

their joy is that of all of nature resplendent in the sun.

Got a threesome that’s awesome & just needed someone to write them, I think, somehow they chose me for the word juggle. I read these with fish-lips, open & moist. Where? Who? So raw a fork would not stand up in them. 

It’s hot again. Back in my bathing suit flower coverup with the fan white noising. 

This morning the blog entry caught me by the shoulder & spun me around tho I told it I didn’t have time for this, I had to be out & away soon & still with a shower to take & a forelock to tug to Powers but it pushed me back down & I wrote, putting on this song to write by: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3wKzyIN1yk     Seems it needed a specific sound track. I still made it in time to unlock the door correctly & put up the coffee. 

Tonight I wrote the following – another lashing with the lonesome whip but again, just the words climbing up & oozing out from some deep well I thought covered, locked down, inaccessible. No longer needed as a proof of life. So I lay no claim to these: they are kitewords pushing past everything else to fly & I have found the strings in my hands. 

Something is breaking loose here, I run about picking up pieces with no way of putting anything together. 

It gets no better… 

I DIDN’T KNOW

I would live my life alone

Becoming existential

Hovering on non-existent

How could I

Why would I?

How do I not pass a razor over my wrists

Being so?

Were I truly alive

I might be made of memories,

I might have a love or, God be praised!, a lover

I might have been a woman someone could take by the hand

To an altar or a bedroom

To be made holy.

I am not stupid

These words will say it so.

I am too wise over time & experience.

But I sit in the middle of a road

Going both ways

To wonder at direction.

I did not know life could be this way

Or that mine would.

That my hands would be the only caress

Of time over me, that

My words would be my mirror

My reflection growing old with me

Mapping new arcs, new trails to play.

I did not know life could become a lump in the throat

A deceased cat, wounds that never heal

I would not have laid good money across the table

For a deal so rank as this.

For the numinous moments

I have paid. For the wonder of miracles

Experienced on beaches or in backyards

For love dancing always beyond reach

Always an admiration with the space in between

An uncrossable moat, an inaccessible moment

Where someone would love me in return.

Ah yes, I know about God & angels & I have

Talked with the elementals who grew roots on cuttings

For me, on plants I gave away to accommodate

That which walked alive around my life.

This has been the place where I’ve learned independence

From all else, over all else, above all.

This is the location I have reached

Where the familiar & the strange

Suffer each other in a silence broad & unbroken.

Here, of the here & now, this place

Where a heart breaks once again, but there is no blood

Only a sound unuttered.

The Gift Refused

Still trembles, being laid down

Walked away from.

Still holds its own elbows

Twice broken & crooked.

Weak with incomplete repairs

For some wholeness is never achieved.

The trick is to make it not matter

To find that sweet place where it no longer matters:

This imperfection, where a cup never reaches the lips

Held in that hand, where a blessing given from it

Is still whole, still love, from which light

May emanate, inexorable.

And of course, it does

Of course, this hand passes through the walls

I have built with it, the crooked holds with just

A rhyme of leaking.

I have grown into my imperfections,

My incompletions.

I have lost the idea of flawlessness

I think I tripped over it in darkness, an absence of light.

I did not turn it off myself,

Nor did I protest its dimming-out.

It does not matter to no longer be strong

To not care when my sins turn inside out & show to all

Faint, devoid of grace.

I have none of this & all of that & still am clean

As my God made me.

FAME WALKS AWAY

Fading like wallpaper in the sun

Dim & unremembered; it never was

Let alone did it crowd my doors

No paparazzi smoke outside the house

Awaiting my emergence

They are long away on wings of molten fame

Where everything happens to anything

Just like they were told it would.

It’s okay, I’m still friendly

I haven’t bitten any hands offering me food

Nor snarled at those who forget & forgive

With whom I’d be more comfortable should they now.

The old feelings do not abate

Nor fade

They just distance.

But when brought ‘round again

Show up my imitation absolution

For what it is: I am still that

Creature of sin & imperfect reparation

Bewildered separation

Losing light as if it never was.

And that’s okay, after all.

This was never supposed to be the ultimate 24/7

But it was good as it gets

Up to here & that will return.

The ineffable joy of my being

Will refill on the next high tide

At some point, I will no longer notice

What never was.

THE FOUNTAIN & THE FEATHER

I saw the angel from four blocks away

I hesitated, trembling: I heard him say,

“I know you from among the stars –

You’re one of them, you’re wholly ours.”

But somewhere his voice became a song.

He held out a hand I shakily took

He pulled me in closer, he gave me a look

Not one word aloud, but a music arose

He tugged me forward, I stood on his toes.

We danced together down an empty street

That led to a fountain so cool in the heat.

He trailed his wingtips, I soaked my feet.

No words were needed, nor did we say

Together, invisible to all on the way…

When a kid popped between us, tossing a dime

And grinned at each of us, one at a time.

At sunset we parted. I watched him fade

One feather remained; one only had stayed.

I reached for it slowly, glowing & white –

When a small hand quick-snatched it into the night!

That child again! Not home in his bed?

“It’s just what I wished for!” He hollered & fled.

Carol Borsello

July 1, 2022

Each time I return

It is as a Stranger

Earning again through unfamiliar lands

Knowing not the traps & triggers

Of permissible behavior.

But a good grasp of generalities

Keeps me fed.

I came here for the Greatest Adventure of All Time

When time was not real, but a construct in the minds of eager energies

Spinning on what started as an intoxicating play of light & shadow:

Hide n seek: we hid God: Now we seek.  

Ah what fools! What mortals we turned out to be!

—-

One Eternal Day

Life stalks me somehow. Even when I shave my head & hide,

I look out to see Life peering in, making sure I live in this kingdom.

Life needs me – yeah that’s what I tell myself, when each path

Leads me right around into the fray;

When each stream by which I meander empties into

An ocean where I’ve stood many times

Watching myself set sail

On the voyage of this

One Eternal Day.

I know now the drama happened

When I wandered into a fractal

Seduced by a happier ending.

I moved through much & into many –

Lifetime by lifetime, like stones across moving water

Each an enactment of what I’d learned in the past.

That’s why they began to stick together…

The rowhomes in my mind,

Each with a ghost in the attic.

The closer I am to sunset

The more I see in the also-familiar darkness.

—

BREAKAWAY CIVILIZATION

If you believe in monsters, they’ll devour you

If you do not, are you incautious?

Unconscious?

Incurious?

I believed in monsters more before

Than now.

I was concerned once upon a time for myself

But now I really want to avoid the collateral damage.

Knowing how we’re all connected, & that.

I haven’t run away for years now.

It’s time.

There is no connection.

Every haircut is a rebirth, a do-over.

Then I look in mirrors to say, “Still not you!”

“You’re that Universal Kelly Girl with a new ticket down on Market Street.

Get your gloves on, girl, we leave soon.”

—

There is only a real world when you start divesting from it.

The world clings … a scarf … a stone.

Set these aside; the NWO is right in wording if not intent:

          You will own nothing & be  happy.

                    It’s not a threat, they don’t own that.

                    What happens with birds of the air who own nothing

                              Yet to whom all is given?

                    So are we meant to be.

Source tickles us with Light, sudden flashes,

          Snapshots well-laden with memory –

                    An afternoon in a fall of light to camera

That moment the wave became particle

A paint-ball from your pineal to mine, so tenderly awakening

From its dream of light to our Reality.