red rose petals & cardinal's feathers

The curves of perfection
are a window
into a perpendicular world,
sometimes when the planets
are in alignment
and the moon is full
and shining just so,
Bukowski wakes me up
throws words instead of
red rose petals
and cardinal's feathers
at my feet,
unwashed, unveiled, unmasked
his truth
glaring at me
like a mirror
into a world just beyond
my white-gloved, lady-like
self-imposed reality,

and I realize
I've been too damned dead
and useless to be so fucking perfect,
wasting my life away

when all I ever had to do
was be myself,
pock-marked, dead drunk,
disheveled with scourging
words,
ripe with self-disgust.

— Kailashana, May 02, 2009

About This Poem

About the Author

Critiques

themoonman

17 years 1 month ago

Anna...

Ripened realities... the genuine pain of existing... thriving the unwanted truths... damn, I like your visits from the Man.... Richard

Kailashana

17 years 1 month ago

My moonman, you’re the

My moonman, you're the only one brave enough to touch this, eh? Yeah. My shortcomings, though many, including impatience and perfectionism have been sufficiently desecrated by the Man. What an amazing soul to have chosen such a life (as much as we can choose our lives ;-). I probably would have swooned at his feet, but then again, I wasn't a natural redhead....and there's no hiding that. Love you. Anna "The way you make love is the way God will be with you." Rumi

Nordic cloud

17 years 1 month ago

Oh golly!!

The beginning awoke the fond memory of the little book called "The song of the Cardinal" That most wonderfully red painted bird that you have in you climes. Such a sweet story of two Red Cardinal birds finding each other, and how she thought she, being without the bright red of his garb, wasn't fine looking or worthy of the the male, hiding herself, self depricateingly in the undergrowth, but he was man for the hunt and found her, and admired her for who she was..... and they lived happily ever after. Lovely, YES you must be yourself, even if you don't feel like the Princess you probably are, because it is that which will hold him dear in the end, when all the feathers have faded and you stand there unclothed of societies excesses, bare. Love Ann of Norway. P.S.The "Oh golly" was the words you used!!!!! So here I use an outdated English word instead! It amused me at the kindergarten when a child said this in Norway-oh golly - I thought it amusing.

Kailashana

17 years 1 month ago

Hi Ann, the cardinal is the

Hi Ann, the cardinal is the state bird of Ohio, so I come by this choice of feathers honestly. There is no *happily every after*. All we can hope for is the joy of being alive, with its moments of cruelty and ecstasy. Quite a masterful design, as it were. Much love Ann of Norway, golly gee! "The way you make love is the way God will be with you." Rumi

faerybeki

17 years 1 month ago

HI Anna, I’ve been meaning

HI Anna, I've been meaning to read you for ages, having enjoyed the 'zen-ness' of the comments of yours I've stumbbled on, and I'm so glad I have! :) some poetry I read here touches something in me and reminds me of my own experience, I connect to them, that way. But you.. reading you seems to open a way for me to connect to something more universal on a deeper level, less personal. Like reading something and saying, 'I knew that!' , having the knowledge reawoken, becoming more aware of it. I do hope some of this makes sense to you Anna? Needless to say, I loved this poem, infact all of what I have read of you thus far, wonderful stuff, much love b x

Kailashana

17 years 1 month ago

Perhaps, my dear, it’s

Perhaps, my dear, it's because I awoke to a universal reality/beingness that has been spoken of by all traditions. It is more than anything that can ever be written about... However, when one *returns* to the mundane reality, THAT experience will be from where life ebbs and flows. It's quite lovely. And poets intuitively connect. Much love. ~A "The way you make love is the way God will be with you." Rumi