In an attempt to temper my incessant tendency to construct a grand narrative of every sensual encounter, I discarded all my journals. Gone. Journals filled with analysis of every requited or unrequited love and the dominance of my inner critic lashing out at me for sabotaging opportunities. Ultimately, it was never the fault of the other, always me. Unrelenting inner critic. The purge was sparked by a coincidence which I initially coined: 'this is it!' I bumped into an old lover and thought it was my opportunity to redeem myself, to reverse the sabotage. I pulled out my old journals and tried to make sense of how I was feeling when I was first with him, in an effort to avoid repetition.
On our first date (second time around) I was determined to remain light-hearted and flirty, ignoring the niggling warning signs. By the second date I realised that what I initially called sabotage was actually an intelligent internal warning system, telling me that this man was not right for me, that this man was pushing my boundaries. He displayed the same arrogant, manipulative behaviour that caused me, after an elongated denial, to delete his phone number in the first place. In essence his re-entry into my life, rather than being because he is my soul mate, was to enable me to trust my instincts and my own judgement.
Discarding the journals was a symbolic gesture, communicating to the universe that I trust myself; I don't have to hold on to the past or try to control the things that happen to me. Letting go of my journals was like saying yes to myself, in all my resplendence, and moving away from the victim mentality. Empowering. Due to my love of writing, I started up a new gratitude journal with the specific purpose of writing all the things I'm grateful for, describing the world around me in poetic language. Instead of writing ‘yeah, but...’ I write ‘yes, and…’. Now there is a sense of spaciousness in my emotional life; I want to cultivate and augment communication with the wisest part of my innermost self.
I was recently at Centennial Park in Sydney during a storm. When the rain subsided I wandered through the park with my friends. Further down the path I saw tiny droplets of rain clinging to the long grass like a multitude of fairy lights. Sporadic drops like diamonds. I thought of the Brahma Kumaris and their philosophy that we are all points of light, like diamonds, and I subsequently felt peaceful, connected. As we crossed the bridge I looked up and saw two rainbows, one of which was the brightest, most vivid representation of the colour spectrum I have ever seen. Later, on a white fence in someone’s front yard, snails left sparkling trails in their wake.
What a magical day.
I have a capacity for delight and I therefore generate love; a love of the natural world, of other people, of myself. Now there is no ‘waiting for the one’, for I have ascended to a different level and my acceptance is without measure.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Friday, February 22, 2008
Old poems
The void
What happened to the words
Transformed from images
In my mind?
There’s a space between paper and I
Where a feeling, a picture
Fades into oblivion
Maybe one day
I’ll see a dress being sewn,
Or a bed of frangipanis
Covering autumns concrete,
Or they’ll take my picture
And the flash will tell me
Where the words went
© Suzanne Madden 11/5/2000
El vacio
A donde se fueron las palabras
Convertidos de los imagines
Dentro de mi mente?
Entre el papel y yo hay un espacio
En donde un sentido, un dibujo,
Se marchita al olvido
Quizas un dia
Yo vere a algien cosiendo una vestida,
O una cama de flores cubriendo el suelo otono,
O me tocaran una foto mia,
Y el flash me diria
A donde se fueron las palabras
© Suzanne Madden 11/5/200
Beneath the Pencil
Would you transform my body into print?
Would you sketch the curves
Voluptuous and real?
Would you caress my skin
With lead between your fingers,
Creating what you see?
Passionfruit’s purple cover
Houses seeds amidst
Succulent flesh
Would your pencil break through?
Would you go inside?
Your incisive grey body –
And mine
Tasting drawn reality
I’ll kiss the sheets
of the life you want,
the life I want
© Suzanne Madden 2000
The Waitress
I served my life on white china
Hollow mussels oyster shells
Published secret ingredients garnished
With obliging smiles
Coconut insides fade on white –
china on the path
Lost fragments amidst spilt milk
Like futile jigsaws
Awaiting my naked feet
© Suzanne Madden 1999
Stream
If you asked me what I was thinking
I would not reply
A restrained tear
Would fall slowly,
Sliding down smooth skin
And when you’ve gone
Tears left behind
Would rush through the gap
Of the first truth.
Amidst brewing emotions,
A smile.
You wanted a glimpse of the within
You saw a stream
Do you like swimming?
© Suzanne Madden 28/3/2000
Exposure
Across unmade plains of
Water’s grave
Ancient shells scattered
Like discarded babes
I slide blistered feet
Beneath the naked bed
Where rain once tickled
The ocean’s surface
Day’s middle
Shoots spears of blindness
To the pupils of those
Born before their souls
Deserted dreams
Sit in clouds
A floating oasis
Shimmering the upper divide
Pain’s wake steers sharply
To now
Unveiling
Spring Ostriches
© Suzanne Madden 2000
Dust
She exposes you,
Pirouetting particles
Slippers within her beam
I pause
You dance with air
Finale on my skin,
My freshly polished piano
Solitary nights when you
Sleep with the sun
I play alone
When life-fire subsides,
My closing song
I know you’ll be waiting
Someone will watch me,
Some day,
Glimmering
© Suzanne Madden 2000
What happened to the words
Transformed from images
In my mind?
There’s a space between paper and I
Where a feeling, a picture
Fades into oblivion
Maybe one day
I’ll see a dress being sewn,
Or a bed of frangipanis
Covering autumns concrete,
Or they’ll take my picture
And the flash will tell me
Where the words went
© Suzanne Madden 11/5/2000
El vacio
A donde se fueron las palabras
Convertidos de los imagines
Dentro de mi mente?
Entre el papel y yo hay un espacio
En donde un sentido, un dibujo,
Se marchita al olvido
Quizas un dia
Yo vere a algien cosiendo una vestida,
O una cama de flores cubriendo el suelo otono,
O me tocaran una foto mia,
Y el flash me diria
A donde se fueron las palabras
© Suzanne Madden 11/5/200
Beneath the Pencil
Would you transform my body into print?
Would you sketch the curves
Voluptuous and real?
Would you caress my skin
With lead between your fingers,
Creating what you see?
Passionfruit’s purple cover
Houses seeds amidst
Succulent flesh
Would your pencil break through?
Would you go inside?
Your incisive grey body –
And mine
Tasting drawn reality
I’ll kiss the sheets
of the life you want,
the life I want
© Suzanne Madden 2000
The Waitress
I served my life on white china
Hollow mussels oyster shells
Published secret ingredients garnished
With obliging smiles
Coconut insides fade on white –
china on the path
Lost fragments amidst spilt milk
Like futile jigsaws
Awaiting my naked feet
© Suzanne Madden 1999
Stream
If you asked me what I was thinking
I would not reply
A restrained tear
Would fall slowly,
Sliding down smooth skin
And when you’ve gone
Tears left behind
Would rush through the gap
Of the first truth.
Amidst brewing emotions,
A smile.
You wanted a glimpse of the within
You saw a stream
Do you like swimming?
© Suzanne Madden 28/3/2000
Exposure
Across unmade plains of
Water’s grave
Ancient shells scattered
Like discarded babes
I slide blistered feet
Beneath the naked bed
Where rain once tickled
The ocean’s surface
Day’s middle
Shoots spears of blindness
To the pupils of those
Born before their souls
Deserted dreams
Sit in clouds
A floating oasis
Shimmering the upper divide
Pain’s wake steers sharply
To now
Unveiling
Spring Ostriches
© Suzanne Madden 2000
Dust
She exposes you,
Pirouetting particles
Slippers within her beam
I pause
You dance with air
Finale on my skin,
My freshly polished piano
Solitary nights when you
Sleep with the sun
I play alone
When life-fire subsides,
My closing song
I know you’ll be waiting
Someone will watch me,
Some day,
Glimmering
© Suzanne Madden 2000
La mariposa resplandeciente
Quiero salir del capullo
de la ambiguedad
a la intimidad del especifico
quiero dejar que aflorezca mi alma
- fuego y hielo -
tranquilizando los demonios por dentro
ellos crecieron en espacios encerrados pero
al llegar al desconocido
se disipan
y yo
despierta
la espontaniedad elimina la repeticion
yo no se
- y yo se -
en medio de la nada
florece una semilla
no afectada de lo antes
una lona vacia de
ilimitado
(c) Suzanne Madden 27/12/01
de la ambiguedad
a la intimidad del especifico
quiero dejar que aflorezca mi alma
- fuego y hielo -
tranquilizando los demonios por dentro
ellos crecieron en espacios encerrados pero
al llegar al desconocido
se disipan
y yo
despierta
la espontaniedad elimina la repeticion
yo no se
- y yo se -
en medio de la nada
florece una semilla
no afectada de lo antes
una lona vacia de
ilimitado
(c) Suzanne Madden 27/12/01
La mariposa resplandeciente
I want to emerge
from the cocoon of ambiguity
into the intimacy of specificity
I want to expose my soul
- fuego y hielo -
soothe the demons inside
they bred in confined spaces yet
into the unknown they dissipate
and I
awake.
Spontaneity eliminates repetition:
I do not know
and, I know
In the midst of nothingness,
a blossoming seed
untramelled by BEFORE
a blank canvas of
limitless becomings.
(c) Suzanne Madden 27/12/01
from the cocoon of ambiguity
into the intimacy of specificity
I want to expose my soul
- fuego y hielo -
soothe the demons inside
they bred in confined spaces yet
into the unknown they dissipate
and I
awake.
Spontaneity eliminates repetition:
I do not know
and, I know
In the midst of nothingness,
a blossoming seed
untramelled by BEFORE
a blank canvas of
limitless becomings.
(c) Suzanne Madden 27/12/01
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