Tag Archives: enemy

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Enemy

A friend and I are talking this morning and he is talking about praying daily. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”. That turns into a discussion of enemies and ourselves. It’s easier to have an external enemy identified than to deal with ourselves, isn’t it? Here is today’s poem.

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Enemy

Do you have an enemy?

Do I have an enemy?

maybe I have no enemy
I have people I have forgiven
I have people who I have asked to forgive me
I have people I have forgiven
but keep distanced
no reconciliation
possible if they continue abuse
blind and deaf
saying “We are righteous!”
over and over to each other

A book teaches me
asks what are you most proud of
in yourself?
Three things:
strong, smart, tough.
The mirror is what you fear the most
weak, foolish, vulnerable
I shy back, hate the author
and he is correct
at least for me

Like the sutra
sometimes I am weak
sometimes I am foolish
sometimes I am vulnerable

When there is a person
or people
I want to hate
What aspect of myself
of my past
of my psyche
are they bringing up?
Are they stronger, smarter, tougher?
Are they weaker, foolish, more vulnerable?
Why do I want to hate them?

It’s easier, I see
to hate another person
and cast them out like a demon
then to look in the mirror
and see the aspect of myself
that I long so much
to hate

That demon
once cast out
will return with seven more

Mirror mirror
on the wall
tell my why
the angels fall

if an angel gets it’s wings
every time a bell rings
each time we hate another, as well
an angel falls heaven to hell

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The uninhabitable spaces between us

still in my heart

why are you there?

you have sold me out
more than once
disappeared when I was sick
returning when I was better
long after I stopped being contagious
and noted when the news caught up
with what I’d been saying about opiates

she’s been talking about this
you say to others
I realize that you did not believe me
until the news agreed

another with words
“If you make me choose
I will choose her.”

I think “you just did.”
do you hear?
that is a threat
to shut me down
to shut me up
to shut me out

you won’t choose
I choose now
I walk away from your threat

another tells me to visit
and talk about her dead

she has refused to talk about
my dead
to me
for five years

how can she ask me
to talk about hers?

I walk away
kicking the falling leaves

I carry each of you
in my heart

as the space between us

widens

 

For Mindlove’sMisery’s Sunday Writing Prompt #288.

Over the Rhine: All of my favorite people.

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Choosing love

My sister and another writer posted essays under the title Choosing Love here: http://everything2.com/title/Choosing+Love. My sister’s was written in 2002. I posted mine there last November.

Choosing Love

I choose love
I have no enemies
I hold you close in my heart
and hug you close if I can
and if you hurt me over and over
I can still love you
I choose love
I have no enemies
I hold you close in my heart
from far far extremely far away
I choose love
I have no enemies
I hold you close in my heart
I hug you from a safe distance
I choose love
I have no enemies
I hold you close in my heart
even if I will not allow contact again
I choose love

The photograph was on the beach. The gull and the crow were interacting. After I watched for a while it was clear that the gull was following the crow and trying to take things from the crow. They were not friends.

 

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The enemy

SoFarSoStu has tagged me for the three days, three quotations and tag three other people.

“The rules are to post 3 quotes over 3 days and nominate 3 bloggers each time to carry on with the challenge.”

I have to say quotation because I can hear my sister scolding me for “verbing” words.

My quotation is from Walt Kelly: “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Pogo Possum says this while he is looking out over the dump, and all the trash that humans have created and thrown away. This was a late strip in the series and earlier other swamp characters were complaining about the dump: then trash is identified from each character.

Last night I hoped I would remember a dream. I dream that I am in flowing water and I keep seeing creatures in the water. I pass over one at last that is huge and black. I think, a whale? But it is a gigantic crow, in the water, waiting to rise. A crow, a trickster, a giant black bird. It is not dead or drowned, it is awake and watching.

Three bloggers to continue quotations if they wish:

trablogger

ompong

Amanuensis Sobriquet-Reverie

I took the picture from the top of the mountain, skiing last week. I suspect skiing is not the best activity for my carbon footprint, but I do love it… and the world is so beautiful, isn’t it?