taking care of personal business
So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years–
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l’entre deux guerres
Trying to learn to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it, and so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate–but there is no competition–
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.
💫
East Coker by T.S. Eliot
The only way down is down, leaving the
light for the dark, allowing the surface to sink,
under the shimmering deepness, to the depths
where float our desires, to the things that the
world and our minds made, where all of
them no longer are.
A round black ball, an obsidian sphere,
rolls in my hand, turns on my fingertips, as
body and mind roll around it, slide like a serpent’s
coil over the deep black eye of the egg: fixed and
immovable, immense, around which the
universe turns, the world silently glides.
The Silence shimmers under the new snow;
the cat watches from the window as slow flakes
wind their way down. Whiteness covers the
upper edge of everything as darkness peeks
out from below—the light’s support, the
unformedness under it all.
I am a weaver casting his shuttle, a fisherman
casting his line. Each throw my soul sails
out into Emptiness. Someone invisible tosses
it back. All day and night we play this game:
Life breathing life in and out, weaving our warm
black blanket, a universe wrapped in stars.
Winter Solstice from The Book of the Garden, © 2014 by Richard Wehrman
disappointment dangles precariously on edges of lofty hearts
filled with misguided expectations of what another can do us
Spreads out over days, weeks, years
leaving love dead and sadness
as large as that blubbery shell of a whale
washed up on this sandy beach
tides rising high as ink blobs staining fingers
from fresh pens enclosed in the failed promises they hold on their sleeves
the year of noble men proclaiming their innocence even as they lash the truly innocent with their whips of misdirected anger
misogyny takes its place among all our bookshelves lined with classic literature
what a woman wants has never mattered much
will this fine New Year usher in a brand new thing?
today begins the year of the duckbilled platypus
followed in short order by the year of the dodo bird beginning tomorrow at 5:53 am
ending a hot minute later
with National Donut Hole Day
nothing makes sense in a world where common sense is not common practice
I watch karma unfold right in front of me
in complete recognition of what was going to happen as it played
starting with the old joke…
a drunk lady walks into a bar…
the beginning line of the rest of the night
In my memories I find her delightfully sincere
I smile as I feel her love of the music
I will always sing Annie’s Song just for her
I have more than a sneaking sensation she was Jesus…
Just sayin’ I’ve seen him act like this before
life steps out of time into eternity for unguarded moments
which become so much more than just moments
then they begin again as we take a new breath
start a new year
watch the glittery ball drop
light a fresh dry match
and watch the old –
plays, stories, loves and bridges –
explode
into the adventurous new
the future is always coming
brighter than the sun
shining like a star
stronger than the wind
ready to begin again and again
and again and again
always and forever
I am here
Thank God,
I have arrived
right here
now
💫
Amy Lloyd
life: acoustic & amplified 