your fortune

befalls you
each morning
   when you
 come to

slap your face
  drink your dreary coffee
  black

eat twice as much
  oatmeal

still you lack
    cut yourself
   no slack

the assembly line of life
wants you back
jack...

don't go

give yourself a

staycation

a lavender mud mask

write a book

count all your pennies

shout Foucault to the rooftops

leave us your history

of madness

bipolar

life and all its head aching
enormity

dull like old world
war weapons
under glass

twist the cork toward
the pop

bubbles burst over West Hollywood
neurotransmitters desperate
to breathe

out the dizzy heads
gasping

the flutes
fighting for air
in the gutter
below the booths

ecstatic applause
then static

underwater
ina drought
perspiring

effervescence
Hollywood
laughing and screaming
in delight

the flutes spill over
and over with
 foam

irascible

irascible
yet trapped beneath
the truth

trying to see through
stepped on
glasses

blurs
all into a gel
the eye

then the voices

you could find her
predawn by
the old covered
bridge

if you moved like a shadow
conceived in the less than light

a world of silence
in her head
overtook the duck pond
by the lily pad bed

then the light
then traversed
the sky

only the pond
remained dark with
her reflection
and the night

then the voices
began to bubble
anaerobic from the depths

then the cry to stop
then the aeroplane
then the cry for help

an orchestra of crickets
picked up where
they left
off

you can find her
predawn by
the old covered
bridge

that's where she died
that's where she
lives

de.celebrated

Most rock stars walk the memory back to the days when every concert was hard pressed and hard won, when they knew personally every groupie and went afterpartying with the club, fresh cuts on their lips. When gigs were dive bars, audiences unpredictable if not hostile, and pay came in the form of an open tab. When a station wagon full of amps needed a jump. The simple luxuries on the road. A bitter loaf of bread and one night stand. A pan full of eggs and bacon. Walls dressed in hard wood. The percolating coffee pot to ringing ears. Crazy laughter after what just happened? Most rock stars dream of such beginnings. Through the gold-plated bars of today's high hung song bird cage. Awash in stale hits. Buried in mountains of paperwork. Studying the tax codes. Dining with divorce lawyers. Oh, how a dream can turn back on itself. 

cities

all the forms brought all
their shadows upon the parks
and fountains

the forms themselves rarely
crossed the line unless
toppled

sometimes
weather systems forced them
to huddle together and
blend

they did so
reluctantly

for the shadows of the forms
made new cities

so heavy
were they

the homeless
lived there
on a currency of wine
and blankets

in the forms shadows
made

therapy styles by k

let's throw some light on the relationship between thoughts and feelings and behaviors. how i feel about a situation reflects my values. if i express pain because i am lonely, then i will ask myself, do i value friendship? this is absent but implicit. if i feel useless when unemployed, is not the underlying message that i value working hard? feelings can help me connect with myself and others. when i am upset and i show it, people may become more invested in helping. when i cry or vent my anger, it's a release and i feel alive. the thoughts which color my feelings are not always facts. feelings are not facts because the thoughts behind them are colored in by attitudes and beliefs and assumptions. if i can increase my awareness of my automatic thoughts, patterns of belief systems i inherited from my family will begin to reveal themselves. i was embedded within a family system. the family developed its own coping strategies within the greater community, manifesting in thoughts and behaviors. what i was taught then may or may not be of use to me today, and may even get in the way of my health and happiness. i can give myself a chance to discard the useless, irrational, ineffective ways of being, and evolve into more fruitful ways of being. this can free me up to be playful and respond to the world differently, lessen my inhibitions and make healthier choices.