(A stream of consciousness offering written from her daughter’s point of reference, at a time when the poet was both paying rent and bringing all her supplies, as well as gifting food to the household, to quietly work fifteen hour days and seven day weeks in a tent in the daughter’s backyard, setting up her first website.)

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Recorded Reading (11:51): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/j3fvt26fv62qgq5dobozr/In-and-Out-of-Her-Web.wav?rlkey=df7gidqre8zhtsjt2f8l463h2&dl=0

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In and Out of Her Web

I do not wish to say
That I have spewed out many lies
Generated so to make
Everyone I know despise

The person of all people
On Earth there present be
Who’s wished and worked and waited
Only for the best for me

I find myself, though, newly
(Though mildly) int’rested
How free from my web of untruth
(If I wished it) I could get

I’m running holding patterns
While I look at it again
What, if I make no effort,
To me, really, will remain?…

A daughter I am training
To be a lot like I have been,
To do whatever it might take
To count herself a win

And so she lies to me, of course,
As I have taught her to,
Avoids my company unless
There’s aught she might accrue

Leaves to me the expenses,
The trouble and the work
Whilst does her best the cleanup
And responsibility to shirk

So, that’s just as it should be —
And I also have a son
I unashamedly will buy
His presence only just for one

Short visit, so that he can play
With things I get him, and ignore,
As much as possible, the world and me
His departure before

As with all purchased elements
Meant to satisfy the heart
To fill this gaping inner hole
These don’t really even start

But that is the equation
I’ve made between myself
And anyone I am afraid
Will put me on the shelf,

And forget all about me,
When I fail to serve
(For that is what a purchaser
Of friendship doth deserve)

So of that source affection of,
Its scarcity may not complain,
Since it’s just my abandonment
Of those babies come back again

I have a group of young adults
Paid me delightful respect by
Just as long as I’m the one
Who’s getting everybody high

And constantly behind my back
Do exactly as they like:
That’s how I think life always goes,
So what is not to like?

And then there is my mother,
Whom I have labeled everything
Which might additional sweet scorn
Upon her innocent head bring

For a full quarter century,
Till I can’t even see
The truth, the truth of everything
That she has really been for me

I only credit selfishness ~
So she cannot be here for me,
To give to my own healing
Any possibility

No, she’s here ’cause she’s “desperate” ~
All that I’m equipped to know
Is that it looks from here
Like she’s got no place else to go

I’ve figured that before, of course,
Yet she always had —
I forget again and again
As soon as I get mad

I know that all I have to do
Is be a little smidgeon more
Unreas’nable than I have been
This entire time before

And then she will predictably
And, yes, peacefully, walk away
Leaving me at liberty
About it anything to say

Why am I even worried
That the pathway I’ve been on
Might disappear beneath my feet
And find everybody gone?

It can’t be my relationship
With that woman is the key
To everything which I don’t know
Happiness can be

There might be benefits to it
From here I cannot see
I know that when she goes away
I wish she were with me

But when my wish is granted
And once again she’s near
I instantly start acting out
To make her disappear

I’m so afraid that she will make
One tiny little call
To someone who was there as well
And watch then as would all

My lyingly built constructs come
Tumbling down right to the earth
With everybody seeing
Just exactly what they’re worth

Of course, she hasn’t made
That call — why the hell not?
It must be ’cause she’s “getting
Old and she probably forgot”

She certainly cannot still be
Concerned enough for me,
Willing to pay the price to save
My false reality

No matter how destructive
To herself those lies may be,
Until I can create a more
Healthy ability…

Let’s say that I decided
As I have done before
To eliminate a habit
I’ve grown enough to come deplore

How would I even start to solve
This puzzle I have made?
I wish when she were talking more
I’d more attention paid

I wish I’d understood
That when that one person express
Anything at all, her purpose
Is unquest’ionably to bless

Her hearer with enablement,
Wish I had given credit for
Constructive motivation
And wisdom gathered up in more

Than half a lengthy century
Her broad and deep existence of,
Wish I had focused on, instead
Of petty power, her sweet love

I’ll bet she would have had
Suggestions constructive and kind
For methods of untanglement
To which I might be blind

What advice would she have for me
(If I wished so) ~ What would she say
To open up in this dim mist
To clarity a way?

She’d tell me there are two fronts
I must pay attention to
The inner and the outer
Integral each other to

Upon the inner I must cease
To lean upon heredity —
If there might be some feelings which
Seem unavailable to me

Just like a set of muscles
Not particularly strong
I must begin to exercise
And cozen them along

Seem I lacking in empathy?
Then take myself in hand
And notice all the suffering
Ever close at hand

Then harness all the brilliancy
Of mind which until now
But to self aggrandizement
Application I’d allow

And lead myself, step by slow step,
In imagination, to
An understanding of this world
Its other creatures view

She might say all of us are born
Emotionally weak
Some lacking in aggression
So they cannot even speak

Some, upon the other hand,
So full of latent energy
They cannot the importance
Of small affections see

She’d say we can sit back
And make excuses, or we can
Do the work assigned, and make
Ourselves as shining Man

In Balance is intended be,
She’d think we can’t survive
If we for not a single thing
But that survival strive

Though, truth to tell, for someone who
Entire unrealistic be
She’s looking rather excellent
And not just to me

But, just a minute, hang on now
What am I thinking? I forget
She’s only doing well because
She’s just here for what she can get

Though never opens up my fridge
For munchables and stuff
Even though we’ve said she can
(“Long as it’s not too much.”)

But never mind, the point being
If she looks good it’s due to me
Why am I even trying
With that voice to agree

As it sounds inside my head
As I have asked it for?
Just as when asked for it outside,
I don’t want it any more.

But wait — before it melts away
(Although completely valueless)
What has it on the “outer”
Of those two fronts to profess?…

Characteristic of this voice
With which I so familiar be
Is its eternal willingness
If an intent there be

For growth, or blessing, happiness,
Relief or beauty, harmony
It will ignore all prior and
Deliberate ignominy

To offer all it has to give
To that effort, and eagerly —
One of the reasons it remains
Despicable to me!

So e’er I push it from me
This one last and final time
I’d like to scoff at words
It offers, thinking them sublime

Go ahead, voice, replace the script
Destruction my frail ego of
By some magic combination
Of syllables, turned to love

These lose-lose situations
Are, after all, my specialty
And this sure looks a lot
Like one of them to me…

And one last time, the darkness
Into which I’ve pushed it from,
Genuine, disinterested
Loving motivation come

The only voice I know for sure
Will always tell the truth
And more — the version of it
Will help my own relative youth

To navigate my highest good
The shoals of life among
As it has in my memories
As young as mem’ry can be young:

‘Here are the words, my child,
The magic words which, slowly, will
Change mountainous majesty
Back into the little hill

Misunderstandings are when
They are but firstly begun
Here are the formulae by which
Applied, may see this battle won:

“I didn’t understand, because I was so very young”
“I mostly happy was to spend my time my friends among”
“I didn’t contact Mom until something had happened wrong,
And then the notice given couldn’t even be called long”‘…

Even though I withheld from her
Every information bit ~
She showed up synchronistic’ly
And got me out of it!

A few more magic words
Paid for her same pers’nal pain by:
‘Tell them you are willing
With all your heart to try

To be the best girl you can be
And watch the blessings roll’…
And ever as, they did their job
Sprung me fast and kept me whole!’

I didn’t tell the whole truth,
So she had no way to know
The personal adventures
I had chosen through to go

And now that I’m a parent
Like everybody that I know
I find a change of attitude
To parenthood I now through go

A better understanding
Of the sacrifices made
Is mine in my maturity ~
I see what price was paid,

See the conundrums no one
A poet built so fragilely
Could ever over have prevailed
In any better way for me

Then small personal habits
Till now the object of my fun
Or scorn or wrongful labeling
Gently seem begun,

Rather than being products
Any deterioration of,
The tender marks of gen’ius
When talked of with respect and love

Before that works ~ respect and love
Must inwardly be real,
And to prepare for that
Respect and love must learn to feel…

…’Though very many things there are
At which I inadequate be
If it’s respect and love you want
Those two things you can learn from me

For though a mother’s role
Too often is to give the word
Of some needful adjustment
By yourself remain unheard

Never once have you yourself
Denigrated been by me,
Only ever addressing
Issues behaviorally

Thus leaving you perhaps the strength,
At this pivotal moment in
Your progress through this life,
To the pitched, crucial battle win

And now that I have

And now that I have had my say
I will return to silently
Your currently redemptive path
An anchoring force be

A pleasant presence, regular
Payer of rent, both clean and neat,
And always willing to respond
To aught approach sincere and sweet

As I have ever been
So completely reliably
You hold in smallest value
That sweet, strong capacity ~

But have this prime, unique
And precious opportunity
A true constructive synthesis
Of all your inner selves to see.’…

My goodness! Well, as usual
She didn’t need encouragement
To all her poor frustrations
So amusingly thoroughly vent!

I’m glad I put in the request
That last diatribe for,
And gladder will be to complain
I never see her any more

What a pathetic sap — did you
See that? She jumped again!
Just stimulate appropr’iately
Same since I just don’t know when!

And what’s her problem, anyway,
Ungrateful complaining hag!
I’ve wound it all the way out
Come completely out of my bag

To be polite to her this week
For ten seconds — not once but twice!
It’s obvious she’s hanging on
To this unsatisfied device

To keep a conflict going
Which I have clearly put to bed
Until I aim another game
At her unprotected head

Deciding newly I the path
Of falsehood much prefer —
Thank heaven I did not turn out
Anything like her!

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This poet is physically disabled. Public housing being insufficient to her medical and creative needs, she is presently living, in order to continue working, in her minivan, publishing all of her works using one thumb on the touch screen of her smartphone, surviving at an income of a fraction of her nation’s poverty level. She would treasure any donation you might care to offer ~ http://www.UgiftABLE.com ● #72D-31S.

Please be aware that it takes several days for the poet to be notified of contributions. International patrons please contact the poet via email or post a comment for the necessary numbers.

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