I’m not sure about the title for this one. I was reading this book called “TranceFormations” about the Hypnotic Patterning of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, produced by Richard Bandler and John Grinder, modeled after the skilled Milton Erickson – father of modern clinical hypnosis. They spoke of hypnotic patterning. This is about love and connection, also. Maybe the title should be “Hypnotic Realities,” instead.

Captivated

You are the river
that flows through me
like relaxation…
the place I go
for comfort…
the dream that inspires me
and reminds me
of those things I had forgotten
and everything
I see
hear
and feel
is some part
of you.
To be in your presence
is to be
in trance.

Watching you…

I look at you
and record image
after image
etched in my memory -
hundreds of stop-action
still-frame images -
so many aspects
of you…
so many expressions…
So much of me
bears your name
and image -
looking at me
is to see
what you do to me.
If you could look
into my mind
you’d find yourself
reflected.

Synchronicity

Like magic
a virtual world
of our creation
comes into being,
shared,
experienced
as only two like us
could imagine,
privately.
Your eyes
looking into mine…
you smile
and instantly
I feel it.

When we touch
we will enter into
touch completely…
I’ll come to you
shaking
craving the intoxication
of your lips
and then
calmed by the
synchronicity
of our naked touch
and of movement.

I had seen a play recently by an organization called “Hidden Voices” (on the web here). The play was called “Home Is Not One Story.” What a powerful performance that was! I was brought to tears more than once by these stories. I think that many of the participants, actors and actresses, were telling their own story. I cannot be sure but that is what I wrote this poem below. I spoke to one of the actors in the play on Saturday night when I ran into him in town at a local restaurant and he said that indeed some of them are still homeless.

I do have a hard time meeting strangers, and approaching strangers. Yet somehow, when I saw this young woman who was in the play, at Weaver Street Market, I found the courage to approach her and tell her how moved by the performance, her performance. That is unusual, very unusual for me to approach a stranger and say something. I usually will comment to someone if they just happen to be standing near by. However, I was very interested… not because she was a woman but because of the nature of the performance, the play, and how moving it was. I thought that when I wrote this, it might read like there was attraction but that wasn’t it, any more than I was curious to learn more about the stories behind the guys that acted in the play. Were they indeed telling their own story?! The guy I met Saturday night, the night after I saw the play, didn’t say if that was his story.

They certainly gave the impression that it might have been their own stories they were telling. That to me, almost felt like being nude before an audience, raw, exposed. I suppose that’s how I’d feel. I do that with poetry, but I suppose even the most honest “confessional” poets, have limits to what private details they will reveal.

Exposure and Courage

I did it, confronted my fear, over came it,
and went up to introduce myself to someone.

I met a star today.
Her name is Rita.

Her play is called “Home is not one story” -
a powerful drama on homelessness,

Filled with personal, painful, honest stories;
She had told HER story to audiences.

I wanted to ask her so many questions -
What motivates a person to reveal

private details of suffering,
I mean where does one find the courage?

Where did I find the courage
to admit that during the performance

I was in tears at times?
Do you want to be left alone?

Was that enough bare exposure on the stage?
You sit alone at the market.

I sit alone writing,
but for a few moments, just moments ago,
I wasn’t alone.

If I got up on a stage,
told a crowd what I wanted,

Would I still sit alone? Be alone?
Probably.

Well, his full name is Bruce Thomas. The location is Weaver Street Market, a hang-out for the town folks of Carrboro and people of Chapel Hill come here as well. There is the co-op market and the lawn where they have tables and often there is music provided by bands. Families come with their kids, or individuals come. It’s where you go if you live in Carrboro. In March, the Independent Weekly, our local, weekly paper did a story that is available online here. So, while I sat there at a table outside, I wrote this.

Footloose Bruce

I saw Footloose Bruce
at Weaver Street Market,
a local hangout for our town.
He sat alone… walked across the lawn alone.

I read about him in the local paper recently,
an occasional curiosity,
most of the time,
I see him here,
alone.

No one notices him today -
there’s no music.
He seems invisible and purposeless,
this evening,
but maybe he feels something
I cannot feel -
carefree to just be,
always in the spirit and flow
of life’s rhythms,
like the tai chi
that is a part of his dance
when the music plays.

I wonder if he comes here
to make a connection
or just to look for some motion
and to become a part of the motion.
He dances with the kids
on the lawn but it still seems
to me, that he is dancing alone.

There will be more music here,
and Footloose Bruce will remain famous
as he dances
alone.