Petition to put egos aside elide to a place where all can save face.
Momentarily brace
No need for about-face
Racing really not helpful
To fully enjoy each other’s efforts in the race no one wants to finish- at least not I for there is so much to do before I say goodbye.
So why do we die just As we begin to understand?
Surely that’s when and why we should lead the band— or orchestra.
Let us try Let us do more good before we pass into the sky Let us enjoy each other’s worlds and good works.
Sunday, June 21, 2020A
Dadaist Father’s Day ditty for fear old dad
Bowling for Columbine Reckoning Spelunking for the princely Poulenc king “The play’s the thing”Said Dada on Juneteenth“Somber music” for theBarbershop sextetbut “Summer is a Coming in”“In other words”Neither violence nor Racism make any sense.
Friday, June 19, 2020
Do I overstep my bounds?If true this will hound but no longer tear me apart.
For a start It breaks my heart Mona, your having the pain of suicidal self-disdain. You laugh away the tears What fears of mom are mum?
From each of our own experience When the abyss of shame restrains Our better angels
Try it from others angles range full the gamut of human feeling
Healing your inner angry 😠 women So hurt you must be to treat yourself This baffling way. I feel afraid I feel your trust in yourself must be found It’s just around the corner not waylaid But paid its due. This much is true:Everyone suffersWe are all small It is all we have Till we connect with our inner atrophied over-protectors who would rather let go of that responsibility The burden of keeping us isolated
From life From Joy And the unavoidable
Pain...Now be. Now allow ourselves to grow. Let’s rejoin society. Help others
Help our suffering Self.
Allow what is innermost yearning to be expressed.
We are adults now.
Mom is just another woman.*****
Thursday, June 18, 2020
I’m in a slump. Not so bad. No net losses With my ring tosses. Not to gloss over or floss it away
But I’m not feeling boss today.
Tuesday, June 16, 2020
Why did my confidence take a hit
Or miss?I had seen myself as perfect in my projection onto Mona. I was the wise uncle, teacher, guide. Ha. Another ego trip. Not to be too flip. Ok that was easy. And?And...when Israel Hernandez winced
He resents my taking the lead
Go lead your own group he says
Maybe I willConduct my Ninth at Carnegie Hall
That would be a swell 65th 🎁 birthday ball.
Hernandez doesn’t shut Mitch down. I feel he picks on me...And we’re both bothered and bugged
To debug Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand and rancid Feelings took hold And so at a loss I sold!
Ha! Bah Humbug You dumb 🐌 slug
Not at a snail’s pace Neither glacial nor especially inter spatial rather at the speed of light did my unconscious flail into self-hate beyond the pale of reason whacking my poor little exiled Self into retreating to the dark hidden closet shelf along with hidden ancestors afraid of the day afraid of the lightProtected by gorilla, fireman and in shining but stiff, unliked, un-feeling, paranoia prone, over vigilant, unforgiving elephant memory, un-oiled hard boiled Ken recoiled and recalled the daytime overcompensating Knight. More Intro, then song Chatter, patter and refrain Clarify, explain don’t Prolong before saying so-long Verse and chorus 🛑 Refrain ✋ Get on with it Before you more bore us
Said Svetlana to Boris
Evil coconspirators from my childhood cartoon-watching days
Propaganda in the Cold War
Not far from the pain Cossack and co. Caused great grandfather family in tow. To go from the past fast to...😢 boo hoo I who traded compulsively today.
The day after returning to group. First I made little mistakes. I shut down the program, then turned off the machine. Couldn’t stay away. Couldn’t ween from lustful desperate greed. Couldn’t heed better angels. Couldn’t call Mitch, Jay, Morrie L. or Morrie D, or Hal, Ray or Ted Not even Winifred who wends to her devil worshiping wedding with Rosemary’s bastard baby half dead Not maybe I tortured myself Confidence gave way to habitual Addictive rotten cerebral Rotting ruts What the hell I was in my own personal damn the flood damage dam breached Rotterdam while something is rotten In Denmark in my own netherworld my Netherlands I deftly handled delftFinding the guts Stepped back from being nuts 🥜 Sure I’m again whole enough to return to group. First a quick reviewWith stocks stuck in my head Better had I taken to bed. Instead got back in Made winnings go thin got all uptight Into the night. I traded compulsively. A convulsive At first happy return to group. I enjoyed being with friends. But on an unconscious level On a barely noticed semi-conscious level it didn’t go well. So deeply unconscious was this Deep down in my endlessly needy abyss that I was remiss in not talking to Ira about it- as I would have wished. I wanted more from Hernandez. “The more”I need to do for myself. So getting off that ridiculously over-guarded machine gun toting bare chested gorilla of a marine man 👨rounds of ammo strung cross his powerful chest It turned out best that This writing thoughDid the trick.😊 **%%^***
Life is good. Life is great. Enjoy that which is already onmy plate. Why does that grate?
Simple. It’s too isolated.
Sampling chocolate cake in the dark.
Is no walk in the parking lot.
Got lactose and other intolerance?**#^*++****
Magic
It’s amazing how much being focused can change your life. It’s almost like magic.
Focus focus
Hocus-pocus
Monday, June 15, 2020
Prepare for group. Stay in the room - in the loop. Notice my feelings Remember the golden rule Today is an important class in the belated school I am anxious, elated and a bit titillated. ****From whence does creativity arise?No surprise A Jungian will say “the collective unconscious.”Just as a theologian will say quite unequivocally “from God.”
Some will have a mod/creative answer to which we can safely and sagaciously nod.
Sunday, June 13, 2020
Don’t get too cocky My heart is full. The pain is null. Not dull. Just not there. Just be aware For the when and where.
****
Discombobulated The body tightens. Breathing becomes shallow. Losing wisdomI become once again some callow fellow as I try to remember That eve in November When democracy was scuttled Trumped by the former USSR
Unexpected and Bizarre only because it went so far.
Friday, June 12, 2020I heard Hernandez wince when I offered my poem. Give someone else a chance to speakYou word-smithing geek. Prepare for group. Stay in the room - Stay in the loop. Notice my feelings Remember the golden rule Today is an important class in the belated school I am anxious, elated and a bit titillated. Thanks, Mitch. You are brilliant and helpful And Your anger rings an all too familiar little blue bell...What the hell...Mona Your indignation rightly arises as you proclaim you are not a girlA not lovely woman who will destroy you That’s what you said. Desperate to be seen
I sure know what you mean. You want to be heard.I am riveted by every word. Patrick are you angry? You certainly have cause Because of the way mom, grandma, sister and aunt can’t appreciate you chose uncaring girlfriends
With yourself you make amends. Your future defended in choices with possibilities of being inspired by compassionate voices. Your great compassion for others I predict will heal your own traumatic pain. You seem calm, controlled channeled into your good work- in the main. Teaching is your art. For a startWe need more of that good work as things go from bizarre to berserk. Cheyanne I missed your caring, your smarts and gentle wit, more than a bit. I look forward to hearing what you have written as a schoolboy smitten with a playful brilliant kitten tigress you freight these confluences where advanced civilization emerges if you please. From this gentle tigress I will digress. Group is good. Group helps me feel understood. Reduced my procrastination Coincidentally a fascination of Mitch’s. I related to every type of procrastinator The list was an incubator. Cheyanne says she’s the overdoing type who needs the pressure of the eleventh hour. Chayefsky and Mona were mute on the procrastination flute of champagne For Olympic training One should be refraining. But whether at Guitar 🎸 or writer’s barI forgot to apologize. Tried that on for size!
And I liked it. Just felt ok. Not to be putting myself down in any way. One can apologize with dignity. In an infinity of ways Here in our Milky Way To stay. To say“I do not yet know”Is no reason to not put the first foot in the sand or snow and go head to head Toe to toe before I go drink spiked Joe and forgo This opportunity to be calmer down below. Mitch are you angry
Mostly at yourself?
It’s not your fault.
It
Is
NOT
your fault.
Could you bring the compassion of yoga into your non-meditating moments?
Fomenting brilliant comments is not enough to calm the raging sea
Far from free you seem
Angrier than in the past if that could be. It’s irritating. But I’d rather address it out of compassion. Fashion a better way. Hernandez Please enter. Calm, diffuse and enlighten this fray. Quiet the thunderous skies. Mitch, you spoke of an early experience. What was it now?Did you speed past and disavow?
Still you make good points. As though Ira had you anointed. Pointed yes. Your comments are best When like tonight I felt the barbLived with the discomfort Gained fortitude In the interlude when IraLeft the Zoom. I have to remind him about staying in the room. Mitch, you said it’s not my expressing feelings that is the problem but my letting my feelings get out of control flying off the handle. Holding the candle to my feet 🦶 🦶isNo treat but with these newly warmed feetI ran with the advice complete.And that reduction in defensiveness is actually kind of awfully nice. So thanks, Cheyane, Mona, Chayefsky and Hernandez & Mitch.
Good night.
Thursday, June 11, 2020
Lost lots of money today. Hooray?Freed me up to donate. Great.
Monday, June 8, 2020
Here in my personal waiting room
Soon to speak with Hernandez sans Zoom
One third less gloom
As Gabapentin barely looms
Soon it’ll be Just Zoloft and Abilify for me. We were approaching my compulsive showing off last session I’ll make a confession I do it still
But catch myself once in a while and can still that needy little young voice. The part that craves attention from long gone mom and…
**^#^***
Pre-law Aaron dreamt Of being more than A Jew to Kate.
**#%*****
El Rey del NorteCounted coins all day
Against Nero’s soundtrack
Turned his back on suffering tans, browns and blacks.
Sunday, June 7, 2020
My need for expression is so greatIt is hard for me to listen therefore hard to relate. I tense up when others speak. Not always but often it is attention I seek. Having been muted when young It is now among my priorities to have my words sung. **#%^****I am a young Black child. My hands up, my manner mild. My little red basketball 🏀 Took a fall Into the white man’s yard. It was hard to get the guts To get it back for fear they would shut their hearts ♥️ for fear of this little, little man Who can inspire such fearIn neighbors near. Saturday, June 6, 2020Why so down?Beth has a nice 🎂 birthday 🍰 Danny, Dan Dan is doing great. My symphonies and trading are going well. Could be anti libidinal ego Could be physical pain Could be that constant main Heartache, same old refrain. Loneliness of various sorts. As I sit writing in my shorts. Could be Coronavirus Could be racial tensions Massive unemployment Could be political angstAll working against calm enjoyment. So writing even the first line Makes everything if not exactly fine Then at least good enough to end this whine.
^*###^^***
On an even keel
Our wise son whizzes on wheels.
**#^^*+**
A Walk In the Park
Progeny celebrating androgyny.
+*^****
The platinum spoon
Can be a boon. But if success comes too soon Too easily before noon It can shoot your ego to the moon Before you develop fullyAnd become a slightly vulgar
Ever so nasty sulky, bulky bully. Please stop focusing on flying the Markets to the moon, Jupiter and the stars while our people are pinned down behind cars Thrown behind bars Stop bleeding 🩸 us. Our great stable genius Our chosen one who has fun With lovers of guns Defiling decency to a degenerate degreeOnly partly in part because of your illustrious pedigree. *****Oh little blue pill 💊 blue I said blueberry bluebird 🐦 Bluetooth bluebell the color blue true blue the Black Lives Matters Blues Twelve Bar beat me eight to the bar Get your knee off of my neckBlue nine bar form is not the normI couldn’t learn many things blues. True But a fewI did to help me earn a few green bucks green backs, green fronts my affront to myself and my Self worse than the worst I’ve visited upon others. I understand more and more how I sure made people 😠 angry and sore. I see it in Dan. Oh man!Joe get your act together Weather this storm Defeat the great evil 👿 Dump the trumped up strumpets lump it together with his rabble rousing stump speech This lecherous leach Bluebeard weird fearCleared. Oh well, what the hell. This pill of which I have hardly had my full fill is still working with my oft drug of choice Zoloft Making my moods more gentle and soft. Monday June 1, 2020The three things:Martin Luther King Mahatma Ghandi Mother Theresa The Dali LamaTich Nhat Han and Burt Bacharach walk into a bar. First, they decide to raise the bar. Then, they decide that what the world needs now is ❤️ love, sweet love...And a little humor.
**#}^^*++******
It was quarter to three. Look at me
Having a snack
Avoiding a low blood sugar attack.
*****Part of me knew at that HS
What was best. S
o why did I do too much
As usual?
The bulky bully needs compassion too.
True but how to empower my better Self Find it in an IFS book off the shelf.
***}}#%^***+
There is good reason I don’t want to sleep.
Low BG creeps
In my heart ❤️ races I brace for the crash The rash overeating. I am being more mindful More cool head about insulin titration. There are more better numbers. So take courage Take heart. This is a very good start.
Sunday, May31, 2020
Oh dear. I fear. Another night With sleep far from here.
Sleep, I fear oh dear Is not near. That much is clear. Beer is not a good idea.
^#}%^***+
Becoming can be good or sad 😞 Become the slow-boiling frog is pretty bad.
It arises out if inviting abuse. Not so obtuse!
Devil thought he cooked my goose. In truth
I call a cool 😎 little, refreshing, self-revitalizing truce. When Hernandez said
“And your mother was no prize.”
Ouch.
Try that on for size. The shocked surprise
Played with my head. Instead of addressing this right away
It stayed
For four fulminating days.
When he said“Maybe you’re just an angry person.
”It felt like he was getting couching from Les (is more?). Please leave me be
Neither criticized nor condemned. Let me draw my own inferences if you will. After all, I pay the bill.
Oh, and couching is when one shrink goes to another for coaching.
When he wrote that he was sorry I found the session unhelpful it felt like a cry for me to salve his ego. When he said “You just can’t learn to get along with people.”I felt condemned. When he said “this group is too high level for you. }It felt bad. Though he was sorry if not dad he had used that term. It made both of us squirm. And when he said “In order for you to return to the group
You would have to demonstrate that you’ve made an effort to control your acting like a three year old having a temper tantrum.”
That felt like I have made no effort over the past many a decade.
It made me mad. From that moment, I wondered if the twice a week is too much. A hunch
my depression has coincided with the period of increased therapy. Over dependence for clever me. But more than that. It’s seeing myself as bad, perhaps unsalvageable. I become. Where is the ira of our first sessions when he validated and encouraged and praised?My creativity blossomed. Not at rock bottom but still in need In deed antidotes I can feed My own cavernous envy and greed. And about my glass jaw did he speak. At the words I did tweak We’ve had a good thorough peek. Cut down Almost off Gabapentin Do less. Feel the emptiness. See what arises. On Thursday go first an artist’s date. Don’t tempt fate but do go out. It’s been too much therapy even for this therapy geek. Try once a week. It may stimulate the self reliance I seek. I become the slow-boiled frog.
Friday, May 29, 2020
Paranoia blooms
Ghosts loom.
**%^***
Negativity increasingly heated abounds. Russia stirs round the melted pot Seen clearly by a lot But not
The enabling lockstep banana Republican whores
Wanting ever more. They may see it But use it bit by bit
Of no consequence are their lies Except The american pie Burnt 🥵 as we shrivel As Democracy dies Turned against herself Lady Liberty 🗽 whose Noble words he wants to feed to the Birdbrains washed down with the Koolaid He made talk of civil war which Seemed so far away only yesterday...He’s not enough rich?He’s drunk 😵 on power. Thirst unquenchable to the final minute of the final hour. The final second of the last sour instant In each installment He turns up the heat on distractions and race baiting. Destroy the nation Give it willingly Eagerly to PutinOr else the blackmail’s veil fails The curtain certainlyLike that from Oz Everyone had powers Except the wizard 🧙♂️ The little, weak, scared 😟 old manFeeble when seen in the light of day. Click your hero’s heels 👠 three times. Make this perpetrator of crimes go away. ****++^##%^*+++***There are those more angry than I. If I try to harness myRage To a worthy causeBecause a new chapter A fresh page A new stageMore potent More helpfulMore appropriate More useful Usually Yes not don’t. Say yes to my energy potent. ****%#^*****The time has come. Not here some dumb comely lines. The horrors have more than begun. It is not clear Not at all I fearClear how to calm Evil unleashed. ****I’m torn up, horrified by the gasoline being poured on the fires of already sickening, unendingly painful, heartbreaking, gut punch racism by our “very stable genius- war president.”Do you want to talk today?Wednesday, May 27, 2020A jam in a jar Might be made from strawberries 🍓 A jam in the street is made from too many 🤔 hmmmm... cars. A jam at workCan mobilize. 🤔 Try that on for size!A jam in a band Clap, give the boys a hand. A jamb in a door 🚪 secures the door so more can use it going to different rooms on the same floor. But to be sure A mental traffic jam Buried under strawBuried under berries Under worries and thoughts more merryConflicted about your mother in law’s daughterPart and parcel of the jam I’m in Through thick or thin My cram jam is part of who I am. Use it to win. *****Ira points out I’m desperate to connect. Aha! That’s what it’s about. I reveal to much. Give too much advice. Ask too many questions.Can’t tolerate the silence. All true but I would have preferred if He had drawn it out Getting me to say these things. Still the session was helpful. I was able to edit movement four Of my current score feeling moreEnergetic even with being ever so slightly mad 😠 and apoplectic. ***+*%#^*++++***^^“Awakening,” the story is like me and Zoloft. Oft I felt happier. It could be the Gabapentin Which reinvigorates the intrusive Abusive memories non relentingLeads to a depressive moodWhich isn’t any good. Then to less self control With anger and hypersensitivity to vitriol. ****It makes me feel bad Adding to my dad Repeatedly telling me I have a glassJaw, a glass Chin wears thin. Dad also told me to grow a thick skin. A crust if you must. The advice though good Not misunderstood in my head Is not something I can do without better meds. ******Tuesday, May26, 2020I want to read this to you twice. I’m a little not very niceAnd think 🤔 I’m onto something a trice helpful in letting go of anger and P/A. So hey!Let’s get on with it. What d’ya say About the goal of this word play?Suddenly With a child’s delight Entering kindergarten Leaving mom Charlotte and dad Martín. Am eager to rejoin group.I can’t promise- anything But welcome the challenge. What if the old anger arises again?What do you mean “if?”I could take a time out. I could discuss and find out How angry 😠 I am at the man I am. Damn. This is good. Ha. And from this overgrown Embarrassed boy from a middle class neighborhood. (Where’s Jennifer Lopez when you need her?Read her bio?I dunno. Maybe I already know enough stuff and more would be fluff.)Authority issues A reaction to dad. Glad that is apparent...Only one parent?Let’s discussin light of my internal family system. A new character emergedAs the “Firefighter” holds my attention. Did I mentionHe’s me?At the age of three Or younger mischievously Drawing ✍️ on a wall behind the upright blonde 👱♀️ piano like a bathroom stall. I must have known allAlong it was wrong said Sima because I was doing it in hiding. That felt like a whack on the head. But instead Of telling her how bad her comments made me feel At her feet for decades did I genuflect and kneel. She commented too on how I let people talk to me. Ugh. But that didn’t help. At least not then. So whenDo I give myself self respect?I decree It is NOW!!!!Feeling more...Expressing more...Now on a more even keelNow riding my own judgement now... now......n...…o..........… wA wave 🌊 in the sea of me The ebb an flow Go to Dover 🏖 Beach Then to speaking sparkling Spanish in Spain I’ll refrain till later to explain...More And everyone you see in the Collective Unconscious Which I don’t really understand hardly at allExcept that it seems more and more relevant this spring as I fall in the autumn 🍂 of life feeling I’m yet to start. So start I will. Yes today Right nowYes that fits the bill. StillMy compulsion to share My difficulty in listening I do care but actions speak louder than words. Back to Sima- my surrogate mom on whom I projected dad reflected. That seems like her usual negative Befuddlement or my misinterpretation. Oh pangs of dad here now have not had their last hold on me. To get free...What does my sixty two year-old self have to say?I now say, my hidden creative play was and brings up the image of a cave painting 🖼 in Altamira, SpainA bison, powerful In its last agonyPainted long before antiquity. If the artist 👩🎨 knew his work (Could it have been a female cave painter?) would last for eternity, he would have not been surprised. After all wasn’t they the point? We’ll never know. Most people think 🤔 those who do Think the motivation was a 🧙♀️ magical thinking to empower the hunt. Probably true but my view of artists preview is to cheat death Leave part The best part of yourself for posterity. I am gratified Danny tells me I have taught him well. Can’t that-those mana-like words For which I am starved break the spell Of unwelcome intrusive memories and the anger and self-loathing they generally generate?A first-rate question. It’s almost like Strange Encounters of the Third Kind... an unconscious compulsion to create in private flavored for years by Spanish-not rice 🍛 though pleasant and nice 👍 nicely connects me with a different culture which I crave in my incurable boredom to put it more positivelyMy infinite curiosity. My central, defining trait. When I shut this down I crawl to the locked gate. So perhaps to Altamira I go. For perhaps the most unexpected Part of the show. Maybe bigger than me. We’ll see. First learn to do better with others Myself-care too. I’m good if not great 👍 At self repair. Productive, preventative medicine is the next step out off my hidden shelfOut of my self-imposed wealth In a gilded cage. Still even not too late at this advanced age. I smile 😃 with self-recognition. I’m so peculiar with people. I ask for stuffI make commitments I set appointments. Then I don’t want the stuff. Don’t keep my commitments. Don’t remember the appointments. Ugh. But fodder for this day’s hour. Am I really incapable of behaving more professionally?Occasionally. At least till now. Somehow I set up this pattern repeatedly. Alienating as I must know on some level it will do so somewhat heatedly. Until this weird, odd and somewhat strange behavior is gotten under controlMy BG and authority issues Will keep me locked up under house arrest. And that’s the scenario case which is best. Could be worse. Could wind up in a hearseAs I rehearse this self-sabotaging Over eating Over medicating Over doing and under doing Cognitive distortional Retirement recreational In isolation still. ****6 AMBeen up for half an hour. Time to shower. BG is good. Still should Keep it flatter. Ups and downs do matter. Three A.M.Did you see those idiots clustered in swimming 🏊♀️ pools 🏊♀️ What fools them into complacency In the face of pandemic emergency?Why of course!It’s that guy on the golf course. After all, god will protect me Yawl see. Unless it’s my time to go So no ventilation needed on my vacation. Bedsides, POTUS is not worried. So why should I?See we have so much stuffOur economy is so buff We have to give it away to BrazilBolsonaro is a great friend of POTUS You know usWe’re a bunch of bots 🤖 from the Steppes of Central Asia Anastasia and Svetlana Dimtry and Boris Sing 🎶 happily in chorus. Don’t ignore us!We’re working for mother Russia And from less expensive AfricaHow’d you like them apples! Monday, May 25, 2020I’m a dirty old man I like college girls with a tan. ****So much feeling for father Farther inside. Abide the pain The unexpressed Inexpressible And what about mom?Saturday May 23, 2020Don’t know from Venmo. Putting on a show at the Ritz Waiter FritzSpritzed 🥤 soda popFrom a shaken can Taken from the non stop band stand. Pretty ritzy. Booked through Etsy Paid the tab With a plastic slab Credit card on file We go there once in a while. So no need for VenmoTo dine at the Ritz in ritzy style. *****Sterile Puerile You can tellPurellLife with lockdown COVID 19Stuck between A rock and a mean Faced cliff. Thank bartender Biff for a drink that’s good and stiff. Who’s Biff?Why he’s the guy who helped with this riff. ****QuashedSquashed Well-whitewashed Brainwashed At least it’s clean. ****%%%******^Squashed feelings Kept too long inside Decide to come out to play. 😁 Hooray 😃 ******Inspired by my new teacher. A preacher of gospel musical?You can tell...Oh, what the the hell...Dispel sans yelling compelling compulsion Proclivities for Putting people on a pedestal. What if it toppled and fell?A farmer and his dell His wife and kids foretell the kitchen sink doth reek and smell Oh that hidden hellTo the brink of Over crowding might beYou seeFor you and me. ****Avoiding past peccadillosLike a pack of armadillosNot to sugarcoat Not to coat with sugar Just escape from that thar vulgar cougar in my 🐆 Jaguar 🚙 car 🚗 Pedal to the metal going fast and far. ****Thursday, May 21, 2020So what did old Aristotle say?Boys go out and play. Today we’ll learn about Plato’s Cave. I humbly pray you knaves pay attention, behave!Posterity will give us raves. Socrates, he left it to Plato and XenophonCause he didn’t write it down. It’s renown Thanks to them his work we found quite profound. Those brilliant young men about town. ****Recapture the joy Find it whereverA clever CuriousLittle golden haired boy Revitalizes this gray haired Grumpy 😡 grandpa. Ha. Tuesday, May, 19, 2020Why so dark and down?A compulsive obsessive renownFor humiliating self hating. A pronounA profession A confession Aunt Sylvia’s depression Simply Self-expression. ****Stuck and depressed Slightly less well-dressed For my funeral. Thursday, May 14, 2020
Hernandez reminds me of my former interest in CBT. Hee, hee hee 😜 He was reluctant to let me go when I showed interest in that other therapy. Why is he reminding me now?Is it to smoothly kick me out?A good swift kick And I’ll pick Myself up and go out the back 🚪 door. What more could he ask for?I challenge him.He says he needs to do better. I’m a tough customer. In spring and summer. Fall not far from the old apple 🍎 treeCould be I’m a clone of dad And Danny of meBut you see He has good parts from Beth as well. Spend five minutes with him- it’s easy to tellHe’s talented, hardworking, clever, hip, handsome and generally swell. Unless he’s drunk. Was I tipsy before that group?One glass of wine 🍷 Was not fine According to Ira. I should have meditated more For sure. Could have been worse. He could have said this when I was feeling beaten up and down and out. Still and allI told him I told the group of my fear that I would soon lose it in group. That I wanted to part on good terms. Neither group nor ira Heard my plea. Well, Michael did reach out. You could say losing my temper that way Is a very roundabout not taking responsibility to be free of the group. Now I see. Does therapy although helped me find a more copacetic way to earn a few bucks, tap my creativity, improve my marriage got me to go on meds but can not thus far help with diabetes/impulse control especially around 🥘 food, or self sabotage in general and my overall stuck-ness which I finesse to be productive but almost exclusively alone. And it’s not just Coronavirus keeping me sequestered at home. More intrusive thoughts return. While I don’t burn with shame the whole day through it is true that they plague me my face screwing up into a knot which triggers more memories of “helpful criticism” that I should grow a crust. Hide my feelings.- especially my self absorbed one. Wednesday, May 13, 2020No movement Movements one through four Sometimes moreIn my various scores. Sometimes lessWhen that felt best. If there were movement Where would I go?Get my music played Be the narrator The singer The bassoonist The conductor?None of that is a truly motivating goal Though they all were at one time. If dad has let me be more myself (As Beth and my son is)I would have come to be pretty much Exactly in touch Exactly where such and such My hunch, no bunch of regrets No need to fret Betting bygone boiled spilled milk under the bridgeA bridge 🌉 hardly forgotten Sometimes food for thought Sometimes rotten. At the moment I choose To lose the binding bonds
Of the past At last to just be swimming in the current
And fast.
Tuesday, May 12, 2020
Tired 😓 So tired Angry at myself The depth of my pain The fury of my rage I tried to get Samantha, Erwin and Hernandez to see it through dreams and stories and poems. I went from the extreme of putting on a good face to acting out with the trauma therapist in the first and only session. Why hasn’t Wittenberg called back?Is he ok? I hope so. Saturday, May 9, 2020Five painful memories rewritten Dad Samantha IS 221
Sunday, May 9, 2020
Happy Mother’s Day dear Beth my wife.
Sweet wife Love ❤️ of my life.
Danny is so lucky to have you as mom.
***
Beth is a good mother One of the best Danny sometimes realizes Often not. But as far a kids go
He’s pretty great As great and cool 😎 and neat
As it was to Beth meet.
*****Face everything and recover. ‘****Take the stick Take the stick Take it real quick Afore it becomes my go to slick sickening schtick. **Take the stick slow So you know How and why Things have come to this by and by. ****Take the stick shift into a different gear A comfortable speed to confront fear. Amy’s teaching is quite clear. *****A good start. Thanks to your caring cheerful heart, dear doctor, master of your art. HW Assignment A vision appears Smiling through tears To love ❤️ and embrace the abuser Not as masochist loserRather as compassionate fellow traveler Fellow sufferer Letting the stick fallMeltEvaporate in a puffy white cloud not a shroud Letting go of my angerSilently calm CreatingAllowing a natural balm. No need to say it aloud. Be ever so gently quietly proudPatient with the otherBe it a non-friend, a true friend, wife, sister or brother****Gently take the stick from the one who is beating me. Even if and perhaps especially If that many faceted monster is deep in memory. Do that then be free Of daily painful 😣 as yet unwritten history. *****And who do we have to thank?Why of course it’s Deutsche BankWho keeps the money 💴 clean. As clean as if it were laundered in a washing machine. Yes the color green did flow from some home in Moscow To the towers of our chosen one how Now brown, tan, Chinese, Jew, Muslim, Mexican and Black he’s got your back to stab as he grabs more and more egregious power in this dire hour not taking any responsibility destroying treaties like a house 🏠 build on milk soaked Wheat-tease. If you please He’ll take the shirt 👕 off your back while you have a little nap. Give him no flak or flap not find him guilty Yes guilt free without evidence or witnesses you see The Senate and Department of Injustice are lockstep Banana Republican Whores who profess to adore 🥰 our Manchurian Candidate who is never late for a friendly Oval Office call with his pal, mentor and blackmailer in chiefPut Putin in power That’s the deal without which he’d have been......a poor son of a bitch. ****I like and care about everyone in the group. So why this coup?Weeks ago Knowing how this would go Not wanting yet another fuckup Yup 👍 I said it was time to go. So I listened to Ira and up in my face did it did blow a strong wind 💨 Kindred Of the evil 👿 plagues of envy And insensitivity Obsessive enmity. My true inner voice was correct. I have choice***+Gabapentin and me A parable you see. Fish 🐟 mongers monger fish. Traders tradeOtherwise a slouch Get my ass off the fucking couch It’s like a frigging parade Of self-made Self-directed hand 🖐 grenades. Coming out of her silent treatment Deb returned to me with in one of her frequent attacks Setting me back Saying I bring up trump Well Ira and others do it more than I She says I attack her Well that’s how she feels. Months ago she said nice 👍 things I couldn’t take the pressure So unconsciously taking miniature measures I made her into an angry 😡 dad. 😞 Sad. Don’t curse. Ira has rules. Don’t interrupt Deb and Ira are particularly vocal about that. Let them finish. Don’t scat. Don’t role your eyes. If you want to get along with others...I’m tired and sick Of getting advice From chicks Or talking about what pricks Men are By far the most who send unwanted dick pics. Let the group come to you. Your questions are an effort to bring you to the center. What?!!!!Fuck that. Don’t make suggestions. Don’t go out of the room. Don’t go on tangents. Be succinct. Don’t break the therapeutic frame. Don’t disrespect Ira and the therapeutic process. Yeah, well Ira it’s not all about you either. Take a breather. Yes you’ve helped me. With Beth I am sometimes better. But much worse today. So it must be me. See after all these decades of therapy Mediation, yoga, journal writing ✍️ More recently meds Instead I am thinking 🤔 of giving up trying to be better. Maybe I’m just not cut out to be a man about Town Maybe a hermitage with a golden cell Yet My confidence in trading is more professional. I still crave confessional approval Addicted to binging No longer reading books 📚 Not going out of the house 🏡 in months Unable to finalize tax prepEdit a fucking piece and put it out there in the world. Ha. Are you kidding?!!!With my interpersonal skillSomeone will want to killMe missing margaritas And writing ✍️ in bars I go from one extreme to the otherLooking forward to drinking at dinner and the cocktail hour Not showering in weeks. This speaks of a different sort of depression. In my session on Gabapentin I’ll lay the blame. It annoys me that Ira let’s them chew me up Spit me out. Partially it’s his nervousnessHe rescues others He’s angry 😠 at me And either can’t see what that’s about Or doesn’t have the technique to be the group leader for me. Individually he’s a great therapist. But hejust like his predecessors in therapy couldn’t help with diabetes control Or authority issues Or the golden rule. Ira encourages me to say my feelings- that’s when my trouble started in Eric’s group. Ira says the group was too polite. Well he got his wish. And just like in Eric’s group I made it a living hell. Friday, May 8, 2020This probably-Restart. Who knows if this will be a poem Or a journal entry. It was heart-warming to receive Michael’s email. It’s been increasingly uncomfortable 🥵 In group. One by one I alienate: first Deb, then the new girl. Ha. I’ve blocked out this woman’s name. Donna, Beth, Rosie, bitch?Shauntal used to like me. She avoids me much as Deb does. Though Deb chimes in to throw a dagger when I was down. Ira does nothing to make me feel safe. Ha. I offended her this woman. And here I go wailing inconsolably. Ain’t particularly nobly Or mature. So what do I do?The usual of course. Per force I act like a bitten 🐗 boar A human bore stomping out the cyberspace 🚪door. ****Since bars have closed (Georgia’s reopened too soon.)Oranges 🍊 taste pretty darn goodEven if you’re opposed To having them without the Blue 🌚 Moon. **+%^*+**++***Our once great nation Will be great again When women and menCome to their senses See how he doth bend The law into a laughing stock guffawFeeding kool-aide to the gun toting macho jocks and their comely young maids. -****\$}}%***Dr. Seuss meets Humpty DumpfdeeOrGrumpy Trump the greatest liar 🤥 Since he sold what was left of his soul To the highest bidder Through money 💰 laundering at Deutsche Bank from Russian power brokers he got super rich in exchange for making America greatly pitched to fall into collapse in a roadkill ditch. ****The orange 🍊 foppish flopAgent Orange 🍊 of PutinLikes to go shootin’Off his mouth Making our great nation go south. ****Trickle down Trickle down Trickle down PopThat’s the sound of everything great coming to a full stop. Thursday, May 7, 2020Again I was a frightened fool. As if I had never been to the school Of hard knocks Thinking 🤔 I was the smartest on the block. No longer in shock 😦 That I let the market clean 🧽 my clockI’ll greet the new day With more equanimity Oh that would be more than subliminal sublimity. May 6. 2020Ray, thank you for the invitation. As you knowAnd can see meditation 🧘♂️ Is meaningful for Beth and me. To paraphrase John O'DonohueOhYou know I live like the river flowsCarried by surprises unending And in that flow, I am grateful to know So again I go On to re-thank you for unfolding the truer self from the time we met when I was more hidden Hiding on a guarded shelf Still in me there is so much angerRage some appropriate most not I’ve got to look this in the face At its own pace In an intra-personal space Afore setting foot 🦶 ashore. Yes meditating 🧘♂️ I adore 🥰 Sitting on couch or floor But as of now Somehow Meditation and sensing are private Matters perhaps agoraphobic Perhaps a defense In another sense Could be a release from endless tense 😬 Misguided intent To please others ✊ Respecting all distressed sisters and brothers Myself too I feel to be true To that tiny little inner voice My preference to mediate alone For the most part has shown What all along we have known Listening to that deeply felt truer choice. So once again I thank you 🙏 For you a true friend To whom I send My gratitude. For your 👂 ear and being a guide on my lifelong quest Having looked in the mirror and assessed Who knows When the river’s flowsCarrying surprises unending May bring greater social easeFreeing me from isolation and disease Someday joining humanity With neither anger nor profanity. That moment is not now But PossibilitiesI allow. Version sent to RayRay, thank you for the invitation. As you knowAnd can see meditation 🧘♂️ Is meaningful for Beth and me. To paraphrase John O'DonohueOhYou know I live like the river flowsCarried by surprises unending And in that flow, I am grateful to know So again I go On to re-thank you for unfolding the truer self from the time we met when I was more hidden Hiding on a guarded shelf Still in me there is so much angerRage some appropriate most not I’ve got to look this in the face At its own pace In an intra-personal space Afore setting foot 🦶 ashore. Yes meditating 🧘♂️ I adore 🥰 Sitting on couch or floor But as of now Somehow Meditation and sensing are private Matters perhaps agoraphobic Perhaps a defense In another sense Could be a release from endless tense 😬 Misguided intent To please others ✊ Respecting all distressed sisters and brothers Myself too I feel to be true To that tiny little inner voice My preference to mediate alone For the most part has shown What all along we have known Listening to that deeply felt truer choice. So once again I thank you 🙏 For you a true friend To whom I send My gratitude. For your 👂 ear and being a guide on my lifelong quest Having looked in the mirror and assessed Who knows When the river’s flowsCarrying surprises unending May bring greater social easeFreeing me from isolation and disease Someday joining humanity With neither anger nor profanity. That moment is not now But PossibilitiesI allow. Pleased 😀 to see a micro view of the glorious infinite show In that flow, grateful to know So again I go On to re-re-thank you for helping my unfolding With ever less unnecessary holding The truer self from the time we met when I bet I was more hidden Hiding on that guarded shelf. I wish you happiness, freedom from suffering, good health and the ease of living in life’s river’s flows for today and a multitude infinite of days. Be well, my good friend Ray.May 2, 2020May two, two thousand twenty two and too good to be true. His numbers fall But you will recall Dr. Fauci who had big things to say, not smallWas not allowed to testify before Congress. No, no not at all. His base, amplified by a Russian band Created disharmony throughout our great land.
