Step 6

Finished my first one.....not sure the clothing tags are working, but I'll keep trying different ways.

Next, make a small book about Sword of Trauma...

Step 5

I've be come aware of my needle piercing the fabric of these sweet antique hankies...

step 4

First hankie, blue
(Tibetan prayer flag-style).
Acknowledge the Sword

I feel the fragile antique material in my hands, I feel the women who came before me. Life is fragile. Abuse can slip in like a mosquito - you might not notice the sting at first. But eventually, to heal, you must acknowledge that the sword has pierced your soul.

Hankie Wisdom Flags Step 3

Here are the hankies for my first flag. blue - white - red - green - yellow (same color order as Tibetan prayer flags)

Colorful threads will hang down...still awaiting the Trauma Sword labels...


Sword of Trauma
 Theory by Angela Shelton
from: http://survivormanual.com
Trauma – like rape, incest, child sexual abuse, domestic violence or neglect – is like getting pierced with a sword.
Being pierced with the sword of trauma can leave you silent, frozen in fear, stuck, and in pain.
It is nearly impossible to have intimate relationships. Being wounded by the sword of trauma can make you quick to anger, depressed, or isolated. It causes health problems. You can have chronic migraines, body aches, bad memories, insomnia, or numbness. Being wounded makes it hard to breathe deeply.
You can live with the sword pierced through you. You can ignore the fact that you are wounded and deal with the symptoms and instead of the cause. You can get into relationships with other people who are wounded. You can live in entire communities that are in pain. Keeping the sword in place is living in denial. Denial is a powerful choice that you have the freedom to make.
When you see the sword and realize you are wounded, you can also see how you are affecting yourself and the world around you. You can see that you can live a much healthier life when you remove the sword that wounded you.

Step Number 1 – Acknowledge the Sword
What is your trauma? What is your story? What has you living in pain and suffering? How is it affecting your life? How is being wounded keeping you away from joy and happiness?
The thought of facing trauma and going through the process of recovery brings up fear. It can make you cry. It can make you have body memories. It can make you want to scream out in horror and rage. It can scare you and leave you frozen in fear and not know where to begin. You may hear all of your negative thought patterns rear their ugly heads telling you that you are stupid, worthless, ugly, or nothing.

Step number 2 – removing the sword
If you were going to go through surgery you would have to make a plan. You need help, support, a place in which to remove it in the safest way possible, and a place to recover. Going through recovery is the same thing. You need a support system. Make a plan, gather support, and then go right into the fear. Find your therapist, support group, friends, and supportive family members to help you through the darkest hours. Select the support team that works best for you.
Some things that may come up while you are removing the sword are:
Rage
Pain
Fear
Tears
Isolation
Self-hatred
Removing the sword hurts. In order to get it fully out you have to go through the pain of purging it. In order to heal it, you have to feel it. Remember that once you face the fear and remove the sword – you will have it!

Step Number 3 – Healing the Wound
With your sword out and on the ground, you are left with a big gaping wound. You may feel sad, empty, depressed, lonely, isolated, or just plain numb. You may want to cry for a few days and that’s okay. Now is the time to take care of yourself on all levels – body, mind, and spirit.
Now is the time to replace negative thought patterns with positive self care and self love. Some good thoughts to have are: I love you, you are wonderful, you are loved, you are worthy of greatness, you’re beautiful, I love you, squish.

Step Number 4 – Using Your Sword
Now that the sword is no longer keeping your stunted in pain and suffering, you can pick it up. Take note that the sword – just like your trauma- is something outside of you. It is something that happened. It does not define who you are. See your sword, visualize it in your hand, on your back, or at your side. You have a choice how you are affected by your experiences. Being wounded by the sword does not have to make you into the walking wounded for the rest of your life.
You can remove your sword and use it for good. You can use your sword to cut away negative thought patterns. You can use it to give you strength in the dark times and remind you of your inner strength.

Step number 5 – Practice Sword Play
Removing the sword of trauma and then using it takes practice, especially if you were taught to live in denial. Living with your sword on your back or in your hand is a lot different than remaining pierced with it. Using your sword takes practice just like recovering from a traumatic experience. You may have to re-learn how to love yourself or parent yourself. You are not alone. There are many out there who are wounded. As we all get better and recover – more warriors replace victims.
You are worthy to be loved and you are worthy to have a sword instead of being wounded by it.
You sword can be a lot of things. I can be your pen, your camera, your paintbrush, your microphone, your musical instrument, or your walking stick.
Please use your sword with love instead of vengeance. Share this message with others and support your fellow warriors.

Hankie Wisdom Flag Step 2

I've ordered old-fashioned sew-on clothing labels, one for each Sword step.

And ironing has begun, and selecting sizes and colors.

Feelings: Excited, speaking out, doing something that someone else might really like to look at

airport haiku

A guitar, some songs,
I'm waiting at the airport.
All clear here, says Bill.

For Sharon

Sharon’s Daisies



As fresh as fucking daisies, Sharon,
that’s how you described them.
You were at a party with young
women in long summer dresses.
It came to you as you looked
into a mirror, the daisy thing.

Let us celebrate our dark laughter,
our knowing, our acknowledged status
as ex-daisies. I propose a toast
to the loosened thigh of advancing
years. Let’s drink to the anticipated
droop of eyelids, to the ever-downward
inclination of the female form.

I suppose we’re expected to know
the names of all the flowers.
On my kitchen table, virginal
white petals are spread, arranged
like a platter of hors d’oeuvres
at a sweet sixteen party.
Into my chlorinated swimming pool,
shameless red petals fall,
they drift unabashed, tiny red boats
on a rippling surface.
In my garden, a flower grows
which is obviously nothing more
than a veil of powdered pink dust
lustfully suspended in a milky haze.
Is it possible they could even have names?
oh, such foolish fluff, stuff of youth,
that’s how effing fresh they are.

Of course, they must have real names,
phyla, genera, species, but they’re barely there,
really, transparent little nothings.
So let’s call them all daisies, Sharon,
every honeysuckled blossom,
every perfect unpicked bloom,
we can call them anything we want,
so let’s say what we mean:
beautiful fucking daisies, bowing
and waving in the perfumed wind.

published Lullwater Review, Vol X, No. 2, Spring 2000

How to Peel a Red Pepper

How to Peel a Red Pepper



We float over a storm
between Detroit and Newark.
Two girls up front, drunk
at 10 a.m.
The streaked-hair one says,
Don’t mistake our Fun
for our Professionality.
When the stewardess hushes them
the other one stage-whispers
I just want to get there
before I get in trouble.

•

We watched movies
on our broken television
with closed captioning
we couldn’t turn off, on.
Later, when it got fixed,
how I missed

sounds of birds flapping
gurgling water
she sighs
heels clicking on a hard wood floor

•

Rub the red pepper with olive oil,
place it on a hot grill, let it blacken.
After it softens into itself,
peel off the skin
stretched thin
like third day sunburn
on a young girl’s shoulder.




____________________________


Mary MacGowan lives alone on a deserted frozen lake where
it snows every day all winter. As she writes this, she is pleased
to see signs of spring, and of love. She’s had poems published
in numerous journals including The South Carolina Review,
The Literary Review, POEM, Poesia, The Acorn, Lullwater
Review, Cimarron Review, The Orange Willow Review,
Westview, Array Magazine, Fugue, Green Hill Literary
Lantern, Palo Alto Review, Blood Orange Review, Apple
Valley Review, Review Americana, and Manorborn.
MacGowan can be found at marymacgowan.blogspot.com.


On “How to Peel a Red Pepper”:
I listen for an inner voice which whispers words to me.
Sometimes I use those words in the order in which I hear
them, which was the case with “How to Peel a Red Pepper.”
I feel that the inexplicable connection of images in this poem
brings the reader to a place that has no vocabulary—a quiet,
innocent place; the essence of poetry.


Apple Valley Review, Fall 2009, applevalleyreview.com

For Ellen

For Ellen, a link to another rowboat poem:

http://www.americanpopularculture.com/review_americana/spring_2008/macgowan.htm


...and here it is without bothering with the link:

Rowing Lessons



My mother said,
You must sit backwards
to row a boat.
Pick a tree across the way,
hold it on twelve o'clock
behind you, before you
that's how you must steer
from the boat's center.

My father said,
Push down through air
up through water.
Watch your tree
fall away, even when
you feel like you're
drawing it closer
with every pull.

I've learned that
now and then
you can sneak a look
behind you
to see what's ahead
which is always arriving.
But mostly they were right,
everything falls away
in spite of you
because of you.


© 2008 Americana: The Institute for the Study of American Popular Culture
AmericanPopularCulture.com

morning haikus

House banging, a drill,
someone's building something here.
Smooth, still, the water.

Upside down rowboat
ready for the long winter.
You won't cave in. Wait.

Dock-sitting

a morning haiku:


The day grows warm, slow.
Tangled new water lilies
turn a soft yellow.



e.coli



If all five of us die on this vacation, let’s say
the plane goes down, or room service delivers e.coli
for dinner, hey, it could happen, we could
all die, but our house would stay alive for a while,

22 Green Hill Road, tan brick, Josh’s report card
lying on the kitchen counter. Julie’s black jazz shoes
under the couch. RB’s softball cuddled in her mitt.
All of these pieces needing to be picked up, looked at.

Dance trophies packed in a box. Dirty clothes washed.
Old journals thrown out. Letters unopened, opened.
Three sets of china, divided, maybe argued over.
House sold. Refrigerator carrying on, making ice.

A dog, a rabbit and a guinea pig our only orphans.
Someone will have to take care of our creatures.
We walk along the beach, husband & wife
and a boy with sandy arms runs between us.

published as Bread & Butter, Orange Willow Review, Vol. 2, 2000

Writing Your Name On A Sunny Day

Writing Your Name On A Sunny Day




Sun covers my eyes
with warm hands. I simmer
in slow-baked charm.
The striped chair shadow
crosses the table, nestles elegantly
in the crook of my arm.
I write your name – there, like that.
My pen outlines you, defines you,
I draw a line under you,
a thin pen shadow.
This moment must end, I know.
Your name remains imprinted -
something I can touch later, and remember.

A version of this poem was published in Palo Alto Review as "Opportunity's Window" 1999

Flamingos in Atacama

Flamingos in Atacama



In this absolute desert
everything turns to artifact:
Sitting crosslegged for 500 years,
a girl with long braided hair.
She wears a mask to ward off
evil spirits, holds a grub hoe
carved of llama jawbone.

Bony dogs skulk the streets
in San Pedro de Atacama.
Nearby, wrecked car skeletons
and flamingos asleep
in pooled mountain water.
Ice forms around their spindly legs
while they wait for a morning sun
that always comes to set them free.

published in Apple Valley Review, Spring 2007 applevalleyreview.com

Levitating Instead of Sleeping

Levitating Instead of Sleeping



I’m lying in bed
levitating instead of sleeping
which is how my body refuses
to sink into these soft pillows
and cotton sheets

and I’m thinking about Jackson & Cooper
cat & cockatiel, and how Jackson
lies on top of Cooper’s cage
and the normally chatty
and chirpy Cooper gets very quiet

and I’m thinking
about water, which is perfectly
obedient to gravity, the way it seeks
the lowest place and goes there
always, until there’s no room for itself
so many ways to fall
without question or answer

and how yesterday
with quiet compliance
a woman bent over my feet
to give me a pedicure
buffed my nails, painted a mini
sunny-sky landscape on my toes

and about how maybe,
maybe I can bear to live without love inhaled
in the middle of the night
and I’m Jackson&Cooper&Water

and I’m Michelangelo’s angel
with shiny toenails painted all wrong
but exactly right: sun below, flower on top
and a river in the sky

but I can’t stay up here much longer
listening to him chip away
at my black sky knowing that at any moment
it could all shatter.

published in Juniper, 2006

Welcome to Mary MacGowan's Frozen Lake Blog

I live on a lake in northern Michigan where one can seek out many of my poems -- in the summer months floating amongst the loving loons and in the winter held safe within the blue ice.

Thanks for checking out my blog -- here's my first poem:


Corkscrew Curving Country Roads



I have just enough faith
in the mapmaker
and the dotted-line painter.
In the signmaker and the one
who puts up the signs.

In the placement
of fences and mile markers.
I believe in mathematicians
who calculate speed limits
and the grade of the road.

In the use of salt in winter.
That pedestrians will stay
to the side, and in the prudent
rights and lefts of other drivers.
I’m reasonably certain gravity

will continue to bind us
to cobblestone, asphalt,
gravel, dirt. It’s true so far.
And love. I believe in love,
I’m not sure why –

but that’s how love is,
it recklessly pulls us
in and out of harm’s way
and leads us
without mercy

or understanding
but with great competence
to East Bay beach
wrapped in an old quilt.

Across the street
a rickety river boat
at an old mini-golf place
with windows, designed
to look broken, broken.

Rain comes harder.
A lone seagull
walks ahead of me,
glancing back,
his shiny black eyes
good in the rain.

published in Poets' Night Out, 2007