The Hook

Image: origin unknown

You are a largemouth bass,

Micropertus salmoides,

gulping water and ushering

it passed your feathery gills,

focusing your steely,

golden eyes on that which

is just inches from your

well-practiced jowls,

undulating your dorsal fin

and tail just enough to

keep your densely scaled, robust body

suspended in the water column

so that you can decide.

The thick, ruddy

night-crawler-of-a-worm

thrashes there before you,

twisting and turning in such a manner

that your neurotransmitters can do little

more than concoct the invitation

“Eat me!”

“Eat me!” –

as if the Universe has suddenly decided

to offer up to you the winning

gastronomic lottery ticket.

You could bite,

or you could look more closely.

Here’s what I see –

A Lugumbricus terrestris

in sheer agony:

impaled,

folded,

and impaled again and again,

drowning.

The metallic barbed hook

is secured to a clear nylon line

studded with three lead sinkers.

Eight feet up a plastic red-and-white bobber

is riding the lake’s breeze waves,

waiting, eagerly

to be the spokesperson

of your demise.

The line continues on to a rod,

and then into a reel.

The ready hands on grip

are your own.

Your own.

So, what’s it going to be?

What is your karmic decision?

Are you going to get hooked

by the Old Patterns that

no longer serve you,

and perhaps never did?

Or, are you going to

seek and earn

authentic nourishment

elsewhere?

I pray that you don’t let

Self deception and

instant gratification

be the utensils of your

last supper.

©2010-2016/Jamie K. Reaser

Published in "Note to Self: Poems for Changing the World from the Inside Out" (www.hiraethpress.com)

Feel free to share

Seeing

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser, The Bush Man

You were given eyes with which to look

and a heart with which to see.

How blind the human heart.

There is a man on Jefferson Street in

San Francisco sitting behind two branches.

If you approach him, he’ll lurch out

with a growl and a grin.

He’s desperate to feel seen.

There are troubled young men in ghetto blasting cars,

women in skimpy cloth on littered street corners,

actors,

politicians,

people standing next to you,

and knee-high children yanking at their mother’s skirt

all longing to be held in an acknowledging heart’s gaze.

For many of them…

a turned head,

a blank stare,

and projection

will be all they ever know.

They are anonymous on the inside.

Turn your attention within.

There is a newborn at breast seeking affirmation

in your hold and expression.

There is a toddler taking first steps,

a kindergartner with scraped knee,

and a confused pubescent teen.

Have you ever noticed?

These are the unmet aspects of you

who scowl at those out there

out of jealousy and fear

that someone else will

achieve wholeness.

This is your inheritance,

and mine.

When did love become such a

scarce natural resource?

I asked this of the raven

and he showed me an unlit candle –

no light in the darkness,

no flame in the heart.

Set it on fire!

Oxygenate your tender corizone

and throw it a spark…

See what I see –

Mirrored back to you:

A glimmering timeless soul,

A radiant one deserving of endless earthly affections,

A unique story worth countless witnesses,

The essence of a piece/peace of us all.

Of us All.

Each being unseen is a tragedy of universal soul loss.

Open wide the eyes of your heart.

Peer through the breaks, cracks, and tears –

they are there for good reason.

Look. See.

Please.

© 2010-2020/Jamie K. Reaser

Published in "Note to Self: Poems for Changing the World from the Inside Out" 

Feel free to share

Madre de la Selva

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

You lure and captive-ate me

in your viney, gemstone

tendrils

like a love note or a thorn,

sent from afar, deeply penetrating

- me and time -

anonymous and humid.

Blood courses, flows, beads, spills.

What ancient longing stirs,

haunts,

indigenous, naked, and savage,

recollecting in

cellular memory

Life

Herself -

birthed the writhing, suckling, murderous

Goddess of Fertility

and Death,

encoupled,

serpentine,

and staring me in the I?

Ah! Bless the inner knowing –

a sensuous passage

awaits,

emergence from your

purgatorial embrace,

and after glow.

(c) 2004-2010/Jamie K. Reaser

Pandora's Box

-->

Image: origin unknown

“Don’t open Pandora’s box!”

“Don’t open it!”

How often as a little girl I gave into

this demand for containment –

this fallacy that there is safety

in ignorance, denial, and self-deceit.

Well, I am a woman now,

and the road I’ve walked has taught

me that Fear

can mistake blessing for threat.

So, the other night I did it,

I lifted the lid of Pandora’s box.

Two savage canid-like beasts burst forth -

hard-bodied, sleek and shimmering black,

with eyes that burned like crimson torches.

Hounds of hell…snarling,

one careened to my right,

the other lept to my left.

There, just out of my line of Sight,

it growled and churned head round to tail,

planning my last moment.

I screamed the primordial scream

taught to me by a jolly mystic,

and awoke, startled,

as my voice

uttered a profound squeak.

In the light of day,

I remembered this:

If you want to know the truth,

offer your demons

back scratches and belly rubs.

Time passed…

But not much of it before tongues lolled

and drool seeped in between

the floor boards.

And They spoke the tale we should

have been told:

Pandora,

manifestation of the Great Goddess,

provider of gifts that make life and culture possible,

had at her side a pithos –

a large jar, not a box as Hesiod claimed.

And oh how this jar was shaped –

wide at top,

narrow at bottom,

gently curved down the sides…

Pandora’s jar –

a sculpted, highly decorated

celebration of the womb.

You and I emerged from the original jar,

as did our ancestors.

We are all of Pandora’s box.

We are all of Pandora’s box.

And indeed what evils our introduction has wrought,

intended or naught –

How the air, water, land…

How the leafed, winged, finned, and footed…

How our own psyche have suffered.

How strangely tragic our journey has been from mother to Mother.

Some might still shout out in shame and regret:

“Don’t open Pandora’s box!”

“Don’t open it!”

But not those who know that in Pandora’s sacred,

unbreakable pithos

one thing remained,

One.

And that was, that is…

Hope.

Hope remains.

When the sacred union is consecrated,

Hope will be fully embodied into this world.

We need only hold ourselves open to the possibility.

© 2010-2017/Jamie K. Reaser

Published in "Note to Self: Poems for Changing the World from the Inside Out." 

Feel free to share

Emergence

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

It is time.

Crawl up from the underworld.

Depart your long stay in

thick darkness and clay.

Find your roots.

Find your roots.

Follow – straight or

spiraling - to the surface and

into the humid,

star-storied night.

Proceed slowly, yes,

but with the unyielding intent

to become the amazing thing

that you have never before

seen.

Can you feel your soft, tender body

up against the inside of your

dry, tight skin?

The edge. The tightness.

It tears you apart…

this back-splitting longing to

be larger than that which has

contained you.

I know that dream.

The one about having wings.

So, find that place where you will,

consciously,

take the last step as who you have been,

unfold your future,

and cast the old story behind you.

Emerge. Break free.

Surrender to your destiny,

lifting your long struggled form forth

onto a tree trunk,

or a flower stalk.

The moistness.

It is always there –

conception, growth,

birth, life, death.

Notice the eyes.

Red.

Let the soft dawning breezes

caress your sensitive nature,

as you unfurl lacy,

iridescent dreams.

So clear.

Now firm in the daylight.

You are seen.

Listen.

The world is calling to you.

Let yourself be heard.

Trust in what you have been

gifted.

Trust in what you have been

gifted.

Take flight –

with this core truth:

Where you land

and what you do

will determine

how well grounded

we are in the future.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

Published in "Note to Self: Poems for Changing the World from the Inside Out" 

Feel free to share

Bloom

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

If you were a flower,

would you let someone hold your petals

shut so that you could never bloom?

You are a flower…

The embodied floral essence of your Soul,

And I’m imploring you,

imploring you,

Resist everything and everyone that holds back

your most glorious unfurling!

The Heavens beckon you to reveal

your untamed beauty and offer your unique gifts

through acts of intimacy with the Sacred Other.

How tender the touch of butterfly and bee…

Feel it.

Feel it upon your own skin -

that potent co-mingling of

tenderness, intent, and outcome.

What are you waiting for?

Vow to leave nothing of benefit to

this crazy world hidden.

Vow to make vulnerable what the fearful ego

most demands you protect.

Vow to scream “Yes! Yes! Yes!” to the Cosmos at that

very moment you reach ecstatic heights of blossoming.

I don’t care if you are in a drumming circle, mosque,

or grocery store line…

The more public the better.

Inspire others to long for your courage,

and their own experience.

Scream, “Yes!”

Saying “Yes” in your own voice,

to your own magnificent display of beauty,

is the most powerful way of saying “No”

to anyone or anything that

would seek to keep you

closed up,

closed off,

shut up or

shut down.

Let me witness your radiance –

Let us witness your radiance –

Bloom!

©2010-2015/Jamie K. Reaser

Published in "Note to Self: Poems for Changing the World from the Inside Out" 

www.hiraethpress.com