Tuesday, December 26, 2017

The Eternal Pursuit of Happiness

Craving

After the first breath
The desire, the need for food
To be held, embraced
Hugged back into the warmth of the body

The whole of life, craving
Seeking that from which we were withdrawn
And that which is new
To crawl, walk, talk
Fed, to feed, on our own

Never, no, never are we free
Of craving, of desire
Food, yes, the necessity,  food, the delight
The special, the taste sublime

The physical, always we crave
Someone to nurture, to hold, to cuddle us
No matter what age
So often so misunderstood, misaligned
Targeting the wrong desire
The most essential, the most needed
Blinded by the irrational
Fighting for a rational mind
So easily hiding it, biding another

So many, so far from the womb
So far from the touch of gentleness
That destruction becomes the lust
The seed to destroy, not grow, not fertilize
The need, the beating of the heart
Better to stop it, than not find the mother


Norishment calls again and again
the mother father in all,
 male female one
loves, nurtures
All we imbibe, physical, mental, moral
Seeks only to wake to life
To find the holy womb
Of our eternal child
Until it quiets in natural sleep
In natural quiet
In natural birth
In natural death


Reflections on thoughts that were clearer at 3 am last night
12/25/2017


Desires, watercolor @1975, So. Russell St., Beacon Hill

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

JTR III Today You Would Be 75

JTRIII, Taken at Bay State Road, Boston, Fall 1970
Today you would be 75

Oh, Jack
You changed my life
Turned it upside down
& right-side up
So glad I took that job
At Allen Bookoff Studios
On 25th Street, Baltimore

Passionate lovers
Wild lovers
Clumsy lovers
Brilliant and Brittle
Such bad lovers
Inept, uncertain
So unknowing of how
Of what
Outcast, bred out of our love
Our need to love each other
Yet love we did

The poetry
The Art
You awoke the me in me
Bursting with a quest for
Knowledge
Movies became cinema
Books, discovery tours
Music, centuries old
Brand new
Fluid and explosive
Gentle
 Dancing with rhythms
I knew not before
No longer just
 teenage mating calls

Personally, sexually
Still forming social selves
We still had, like cooking
Housekeeping, to learn
How, and who, to love
So mired in religion to know
The book of love unwritten
Stumbling, while escaping, running
Down the forbidden path

Destroying lives
In soap opera drama
Throwing out the order of things
Babies thrown aside
Women, mothers scored
And scorning, admired, loved, scorning
As un  that which is our nature

Joy Street in Boston
Home of the Appalachian Club
House of bishops
In the Shadow of the State House
And the Whorehouse
Where black suited government workers
spent lunch & breaks
Across from the Red Shed of Kennedy studios
Our last attempt to live together
The battles raged
The chair, the beautiful art nouveau chair
So lovingly restored
So powerfully broken over my back
The police called,
Calming us down, not intervening
In domestic affairs until tragedy happened
Their kindness keeping us from bodily harm
The injury replaced with sorrow
That we could not
Control the flood

Setting sail apart
To Washington for you
For me Pittsburgh, Newburyport
And North, ever North

Always, brothers in love
The thick and the thin
Nourished and whetted
We were too much
And not enough
For each other                                                     

John Tyler Ricketts III 1942-2011



st. jean 1973

Jmf-w
50  years Ago
So glad I took that job

Saturday, December 9, 2017

Harassment on High

Funny Man

Funny
sit-com society,
On a Jerry Springer stage
Society scorns sanctified sex roles
Honed for years, for eons
Since the finger first pointed to Eve
In the common legend
Now points at men
Who played the game
Set for them, even in jest

Now fingers point
One step from picking up the stone
First to toss at the culprit
Madwomen armed in a hotel room
frazzled femininity a high-heeled cause

While the Chief Finger
Know of tiny hands
Tweet venom to male and female alike
Lynching up with his little round mount
And prissy voice, the judgment of the king

Changing capitals of tiny kingdoms
To appease his commanding worshiping godmen
Fitfully bringing apocalypse they so adore
Wishing holy hell on the sinful poor
Holy Richeousness Pensive with bright—eyed hate
Saint Donald, the Revelator
Dancing on the pole
Nailing the cross of Jerusalem

                                                                                                                                Christmastide 2017
Media Fanning the Flames of Miscontent
(aka Forked Tongue Fox)