Category Archives: Falling angels: dream poetry

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Comfortable with angles

I am thinking about monsters
That I am comfortable with the monsters
in my dreams
but terrified by the angels.
Though I type angles.

But I also dream that all the angels fall
all are made to fall
they fall down then back up
when they fall down they burn
if they fall here
burn in the atmosphere
then they are red or black and burnt
and we think they are devils: monsters.

If angels are monsters
and monsters are angels
and they go back and forth
and I type angles
because everyone makes mistakes
even angels
and to make something perfect
is an offense to the Beloved
because only the Beloved is perfect
and ineffable.

Still the angels.
I am afraid.
So was Mary, sore afraid.
Monsters are easy: at worst they can kill me
and they never have
in my dreams.
And they are sad and alone and weep.
I comfort them. Which makes them afraid,
because they are not used to being loved.
I wonder if I frighten them
like the angels frighten me.

And then I can understand
a little
of why the angels frighten me so much.
I too am not used
to feeling loved.

written September 13, 2023

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: bread winner. But I can’t eat gluten any more and my lungs are too vulnerable for the work I love. So how bread and how winner? Maybe the angels and angles and monsters will tell me.

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In deep

Time to return
again

Human, pfaugh
I give up
I don’t want to be one
I can be anything I want to be
I want to be a mermaid
again

I sink into the sea
and down to the depths
scales and tail and breathe the sea
the water cools the burns
my charred burnt skin
and lungs

Such a fail again
every time I try
to be human
yes, legs, I can do that
it always makes my voice hurt
but those damn wings
come with the legs

It’s hard to hide the wings.

I don’t know how
but they sense them
even when I hide them

It really pisses me off.
It’s the broken ones that show up
though now I think maybe
they are all broken
they all wander around
pretending they are ok
using lies to try to appear nice
hating parts of themselves
calling those parts unclean spirits
and casting them out
DEMON! DEVIL!
over and over

I try to pretend they aren’t there
the cast out
and I am human too
but the demons kneel and lay their monstrous heads
in my lap
crying
cluster round me
begging for my help

I always fail.

I try to stay present
with the person and the cast out
but eventually I can’t stand it
and I say something wrong
and the stupid human thinks I am the demon
and casts me out too.

I wait and hope.

I wait and hope with the monsters
with the rough beasts.
“You have wings,” say the demons, “Help us!”
“I can’t.” I say, “The humans must help themselves.”
The monsters weep and wail.
Finally I am sick of it again.
I send them home
and I go home too.
I have failed again
and must endure falling through the atmosphere
my feathers and skin a burning star

I am sick of it.
I give up, Beloved.
I am a failure.
I can’t do this.
I must go to the sea again.

Here is the trench, the deepest part of the ocean
I stop swimming and let myself sink
Slowly the light disappears
I am in the ink black

Slowly the others appear
glowing
in the deep

_________________________

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: liquid.

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low dudgeon

I think of how you treat me with low dudgeon.
Rarely and when fatigued I think of you.
You hide away, a hermit like curmudgeon
pusillanimous liar, unfaithful and untrue.
We share a childhood full of trauma
I work hard to heal from all the strife
but you choose to elevate the drama
and excise protestations from your life.
I ask Beloved what I am assigned to do.
You don’t believe in angels nor in me.
The mystery of angels leads me here to you;
like a bear you hide up in the trees.
I find the change the loved Beloved grants.
You refusing change, I ban you from my pants.

_________________

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: dudgeon.

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My mom loved me

I struggled after my mother died of ovarian cancer in 2000. She was 61 and our love was complicated. Two years after she died I hit an emotional wall and had to go find help. My marriage was showing cracks too. I have written about Adverse Childhood Experiences, but there can be love too, even in a difficult household. I wrote this poem during that time.

My mom loved me

It’s herself she didn’t love
She didn’t love her anger
She didn’t love her fear
She didn’t love her sorrow
She didn’t love her shadows

She packed all her troubles in her saddlebags
and rode forth singing

When I was angry
she felt her anger
When I was scared
she felt her fear
When I was sad
she felt her sorrow
When I felt my shadows
she felt hers
I hid my shadows

I hid my shadows for many years
and then my saddlebags were full
They called me

I dove in the sea
I rescued my anger
I rescued my fear
I rescued my sorrows
I rescued my shadows

At first I couldn’t love them
My mom didn’t; how could I?

But I loved my mom
I loved all of her
Her anger
Her fear
Her sorrow
Her shadows
Her singing and courage

I thought if I could love her shadows
I could love my own

It was hard
It took months
I looked in the mirror at my own face
And slowly I was able to have
Compassion for myself

I am sad that my mom is not
where I can touch her warmth
and tell her I love all of her

I tell her anyway

I’m finding many things as I surface from my dive
Sometimes I feel the presence of angels
I was looking for something else
I found a valentine
that she made me
No date
Many hearts cut out and glued
to red paper

I am so surprised

My mom loves me
shadows and all
now and forever.

__________________________

My mother used to quote “Pack all your troubles in your saddlebags and ride forth singing.” Does anyone know where this if from? I have not found the source. It could be her mother or her mother’s parents.

The photograph is my father, the year my sister died of cancer, 2012. He died in 2013.

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pink sea

In my world with the dreamy pink sea
no humans at all, my world loves me
I wander and wonder at the beauty I see
I am safe and entirely free

Good night, pink sea.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: dream world.

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angels

The Ragtag Daily Prompt is halo, and I wrote this yesterday, after a discussion with a new friend about angels and my angel dream.

______________________________

angels

light angels fall into dark

dark angels fall into light

there is no separation

we are longing for the Beloved

we are longing to be reunited with the Beloved

we have never been separate

we are one

light falling in to dark

dark falling in to light

seeing both is grace

no separation

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peace me

peace me, loves
peace me, strangers
peace me, Beloved
free us from dangers

peace as a river
peace as a wave
peace as a verb
peace saves

peace my heart
peace all of ours
peace all the friends
peace the wars

peace a gift
peace a joy
peace fearless always
no war toys

peace apparent
peace dove
peace triumphant
peace love

peace me, loves
peace me, strangers
peace me, Beloved
free us from danger

I kept the paper cup in the picture, because the cup is animals and plants, but the cup also is a pair of lungs. Breathe peace. And breathe for all the people recovering from covid-19, short haul and long haul. And breathe love and shelter and support to all those grieving for our dead and let us grieve too.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: apparent. And for peace.

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making peace

denise levertov writes making peace
that it is an active process
it is not the absence of war
but a process in itself: how do we make it?
Make Peace

how do we wage peace?
wage is not the word
we do not do it for money
we must be more active than hoping
engender peace?
spread peace: like a pandemic
a pandemic of peace

the comfort of peace
the joy of peace
the love of peace

the peace of the grave
the peace of sleep
the peace of heaven
peace here now
peace not distant nor below the earth
peace conscious, aware and present
peace alive, breathing, welling up in everyone
peace here now

a pandemic of peace
a river of peace
peace flowing through and around, above and below us
peace full, peace out, peaced
let us verb it
I am peaced today
I peace you
I peace Russia
I peace the soldiers
I peace the Ukraine
I peace the entire world

I peace you
please, will you peace me?
peace me now, then there will be two
and everyone else
peace the world now
a pandemic of peace
make peace

___________________

I taped a conversation with a wren one morning in Wisconsin. I never saw my wren and clearly I have not got the language down, but she kept talking to me anyhow.

Conversation with a wren.

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Feathers

This is the final poem in my Falling Angels Dream Poetry series.

Some people say there are

Angels among us

I have faith in birds
I search for a nest
Hummingbird nest
the size of a nut
tiny, lined with spiderwebs
I love the herons too
great blue heron
flying lands in a tree
above me
I look through my mechanical eye
zoom in click click
and there is another
at the tree top
two in a tree
I move around
and there – one drops down
one flies
I am not distracted
a nest
a six foot nest
blessed
I move away gently

I wander back by the tree
gently
in the morning
in the evening
not one
not two
two in this tree
two in that
one in another
as many as five in a tree
six foot wing spans
a rookery of winged beings

angels among us
and why would we think
they would look like us?