Kitchen Sink Epiphanies.

If you've been to Rock Bottom...

1. TO SYLVIA I am a potted plant.

Bound within

hand-painted ceramic,

well-behaved.

I am a piñata.

A punch to the gut

may spill forth

strange treasures.

I am a poet.

But choose to bake

pineapple-upside-down cakes

instead of my head in the oven,

to watch them rise.

Like air,

I am. I am. I am.

2. KITCHEN SINK EPIPHANIES If you’ve been to Rock Bottom,

You’ve seen the clogged sink –

That special place in Domestic Hell

Where broccoli stalks and broken dreams

in equal parts go to die.

But, we stoop to conquer,

So in the kitchen soup I now see

Not Narcissus, but The Oracle JKZ

And thus speaks Zarathustra:

“Life Itself, Is The Meditation”.

If we must poke fingers in sludge,

Pump the drains, scrub the pots,

Fold the cloth, dust the gods,

As we proffer apples as did Eve Herself,

We could also sit back with our cups of wine and tears,

And sip on Lorde and Angelou, Dickinson and Plath.

We could conjure the hellhound Tess of D’Uberville

And whisper to her, in thoughts and deeds,

Or between the lines as the case may be:

If only your Sorrow could see us now!

Bare-legged, loose-tongued,

Writing our hearts out, not always paying a price.

Some of us can now have ‘It All’ – the gall!

But never mind all that, the story is too long.

This is the treasure I found down the pipes:

Clarity can begin at home.

3. BAGGAGE I have baggage, as much as the next guy.

It’s soft and pliable though, not a hard case.

And without a monogramme of any kind,

Thank Heavens. Or rather, thanks to

Smaller days spent rolling with dogs

In dog-hair matted carpeting

And weekends with fallen coconuts

and nothing to do,

In the shade.

4. UNSHRINKABLE Tonight I can write the happiest lines.

Write for example, "I am unshrinkable",

And "the pale stars shiver in the distance."

Or, for example, "My metaphors

Stink of borrowing but it doesn't matter

Because I am always true of heart,

And besides, 'Shoulders of Giants'".

Maybe it's just the swing of the old pendulum,

- Sadsack making space for her playmate.

Or perhaps its the soft lighting -

The way it glints through the ale?

Cheers.

5. HOPE FLOATS At first, I agreed with what they said About the stillborn stranglehold Of genes and 'disposition' That directs the tone of and turns in Our one and only story. But then I decided to employ The 'willing suspension of disbelief' - And I read so much better now. To conclude: Life is Art. Like everything else.

6. HANGING TEN They say to you,

“Adopt a dog!

Sleep eight hours.

Play tennis.

Meet a friend for coffee.

It’s that simple to stay afloat

On first world problems.”

You hand over your 200 USD, grateful,

Then vomit, projectile, your ennui.

That. Feels. Better.

They forget to tell you though,

About the free information

On the one who watches.

The Witness Within.

The one who got you onboard

Before you paid the blood money

For audience with the Jungian Oracle.

Before your Herculean heaving

To avoid the rock,

Pass up the hard place,

Squeeze past the screaming sirens

That would have you crash,

Slap bang into the devil,

The deep blue sea.

Comrade.

In the end, it’s just you.

You, and your board.

French kissing the ocean.

Riding the wave.

7. GRATITUDE AND OTHER DEMONS

My fingers smell of garlic.

All the trouble of feminism

And here I am,

Back in the kitchen

Where I belong.

Sulk.

Then there it comes:

The Spectre of Privilege.

I have food. I have water.

I have. I have. I have.

I have no maid-in-waiting.

Dear God, pass me the apron.

Do not take the Lord's name in vain!

Mainly because there is no Lord,

But what a great story.

Rapture!

Love is the answer.

Bang on.

Today a friend shaved her head

And posted it on Instagram.

'Happy Easter' said the caption,

On a muggy mid-September day.

'Thar she cracks!', I thought,

But eyed the buzzer myself.

What kind of bald I would be?

Sinead or Brittany? A new kind?

'Stop working!', said a friend to me,

Once upon another lifetime

As she witnessed a spin out worse.

Some things never change -

And for that, I am grateful.

8. OYSTER Here I am! Under this rock,

Pulling in my tentacles

One by one.

Some from fear

Of jaws that bite,

Others from a desire

To 'finish the job'.

It is strangely beautiful

To be annihilated,

To cease to exist.

To go, as in sleep,

To a kind of death,

And there to be,

And not to be,

At once.

Locked in,

Shut tight.

The world,

My oyster.

At last!

9. ALL THE RAGE

Mother says,

When I was a girl,

I would lie on the floor

On my belly - and scream.

Flailing my arms and legs,

Raging wildly against

The Machine.

These days, I prefer,

To sit on my chair,

Cross-legged - and type.

Flailing my fingers,

Raging wildly against

The Machine.

10. THREE MINUTES TO AMY EYES

With your right hand, hold the brush.

With your left hand gently stretch the skin

Just above your left eye.

Sweep the brush right to left, and up.

Don't forget to end in a point and fill in the gaps.

And now, when you go about your day,

fetching supplies and children,

you may carry on your lids,

an Event Horizon.