Category: Community

Sep 24 2009

Muse in the Morning

By Robyn in Art, Community, Poetry

Muse in the Morning

A Transition through Poetry XXII

Art Link

Solitary

We are Normal: a duet

Would you please

Lend me food?

I am hungry.

We do not know you.

You are alien.

You are not welcome.

We are normal.

Can I please

Share your water?

I am thirsty.

We own the water.

You are strange.

You cannot have any.

We are normal.

Will you then

Share your fire?

I am cold.

We need all the warmth.

You are other.

You must go away.

We are normal.

Is it too much to ask,

To be able to live,

To be able to be?

We don’t like your kind.

You are different.

You make us think too much.

We are normal.

But all I want is

To live in peace,

To be happy.

You have no right to be happy.

You offend us.

You hurt us by existing.

We are normal.

I know how to love,

How to care,

How to hurt.

You are not one of us.

You don’t belong.

We want you to die.

We are normal.

–Robyn Elaine Serven

—June, 1994

Sep 23 2009

Muse in the Morning

By Robyn in Art, Community, Poetry

Muse in the Morning

A Transition through Poetry XXI

Art Link

Hearts
(This is larger than full size)

My Love

As I walk in the brisk autumn air

And the sun warms me but a bit

You are walking with me.

As I stop amongst the trees

And listen to the wind in the branches

I hear your voice.

As I bundle myself in my coat

And rearrange my hat and scarf

I feel your arms surround me.

As I walk through the garden

And see the last flowers of the year

I see your face.

You are forever with me

My Love

Eternally by my side

In my dreams

In my life.

To feel your touch,

To see your smile,

To hear you laugh,

I long for these.

One day, My Love,

We will be together

And the word Love

Will gain new meaning.

Soon, My Darling,

We will be together

As our spirits

Have always been.

We will meet

And the world

Will be our garden

Forever, My Love.

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–November, 1993

Sep 22 2009

Muse in the Morning

By Robyn in Art, Community, Poetry

Muse in the Morning

A Transition through Poetry XX

Art Link

Sextet

Love Does the Finding

Love departed when I changed

or at least what I thought was love

but it came with conditions

I could no longer fulfill

I despaired of ever finding it again

though I searched for it begged for it

cried long hours and days

at its demise and denial

Eventually one stops looking

I dedicated my life to helping others

while I resigned myself to being alone

It was then that love found me

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–February 13, 2006

Sep 21 2009

Muse in the Morning

By Robyn in Art, Community, Poetry

Muse in the Morning

A Transition through Poetry XIX

Art Link

Breaking Out

FREEDOM!

Free from the prison of my mind

Free from the fear that bound me

Free from denial and guilt and pain

Free of the sorrows of the past

Free to experience passion and joy

Free to grow, free to feel, free to love

Free to laugh, free to cry, free to sing

Free to live rather than merely exist

Free to walk my own path

Free to follow my dreams

Free to embrace the splendor and the beauty

Free to explore; free to be me

–Robyn Elaine Serven

—September, 1993

Sep 18 2009

Muse in the Morning

By Robyn in Art, Community, Poetry

Muse in the Morning

A Transition through Poetry XVIII

Art Link

Glimmers in the Dark Recesses

A New Life

There was a man whose life was meaningless

Filled with self-hate and bitterness.

He was an empty husk of a human being

Because he denied his core existence.

As the days slowly passed by

He wondered what life was meant to be.

As the years slowly accumulated

He wondered what love was.

Inside the dim recesses of his mind

Was a glimmer of another life.

Crouched in the corner of his brain

Afraid of the light of day.

The man came to a place and time

Where there was no point to his life.

He gave up trying

To find the path to happiness.

But as his life crumpled into non-being

The sliver of consciousness in his brain

Asked if it could have a try

At finding love and acceptance.

The man gave up his body

To the new being who fearfully

Peeked out from the prison

That was the man’s fear of living.

She was a timid being

Having known no other emotion

Save an all-consuming fear

Of being discovered.

Now she had nowhere to hide

And was forced to learn how to survive.

As she came forward to greet the sun

Society drew back in horror.

She tried to show

That she was better now,

At last a whole person.

But Society was filled with fear.

She changed the man’s body

Into something she thought

Society would accept.

But Society would not forget the past.

So she was cast out from the nest

Alone in the wilderness

Of loneliness and desolation of the soul.

And she could not understand.

How could Society be so fearful

That it preferred the desolate

Former inhabitant of that body

To the loving being she had become?

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–July, 1993

Sep 17 2009

Muse in the Morning

By Robyn in Art, Community, Poetry

Muse in the Morning

A Transition through Poetry XVII

Art Link

Abyss

Time enough tomorrow

At the edge

of the abyss

I looked Death

in the skull

gave myself

permission

to jump

or fall

no need to rush

borrowed time

is golden time

Every day is

not today

Fear gone

becomes anger

becomes me not

Best to bathe

in the river

of my truth

and invite others

to join me

while I laugh

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–January 13, 2006

Sep 16 2009

Muse in the Morning

By Robyn in Art, Community, Poetry

Muse in the Morning

A Transition through Poetry XVI

Art Link

Weed

Is There a Place for Me?

Is there a place for me

Among the beings of light?

Or must I grow like a fungus

Alone in the musty dark?

Am I like a wildflower

Providing beauty in the wilderness?

Or am I like a weed

That needs to be removed from a lawn?

Can I find someone

Who will love me as I am?

Or am I to be doomed

To a life of loneliness?

Is there a place for me

Where I can thrive and provide beauty?

Or am I forever condemned

To the dark ugliness of society’s cellar?

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–July, 1993

Sep 15 2009

Muse in the Morning

By Robyn in Art, Community, Poetry

Muse in the Morning

A Transition through Poetry XV

Art Link

Eyes

Exuviation

Like sloughing off

old skin

leaving chunks

along a life path

flaying myself alive

stashing a lump here

and a sliver there

One must tear down

before one rebuilds

sometimes embracing

portions of the past

bits left behind

sometimes not

always hoping

that joy might arise

from burying pain

and trying to forget

where it was left

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–January 24, 2006

Sep 14 2009

Muse in the Morning

By Robyn in Art, Community, Poetry

Muse in the Morning

A Transition through Poetry XIV

Art Link

Incompletion

Unfinished Woman

Some assembly required.

Includes non-factory installed equipment.

Read instructions completely before beginning.

Mistakes are not correctable.

Insert tab A into slot B.

Batteries are not included.

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–June, 1993

Sep 14 2009

Homeless News Roundup

By Miep in Community

Camp Runamuck; a Glimpse of the East Providence Homeless Community

Truthout

September 9, 2009

Katie is 19 and would only give her first name. She wears a bright-colored t-shirt and a mini skirt that would make any teen’s father crazy. Her tattooed belly and pierced lip are strangely elegant. She is a pretty girl who lives in Camp Runamuck with her boyfriend.

“I’ll never be a materialistic person again in my life. I will not be greedy,” she says. “You can put 100 people together, blacks and whites, gays, drug addicts who are completely different, but we all get along because we’re stuck in the same position. We all get bit by bugs.”

Sep 11 2009

Muse in the Morning

By Robyn in Art, Community, Poetry

Muse in the Morning

A Transition through Poetry XIII

Art Link

In Pairs

New Tricks
riffs on a theme

Discontinuity

Total refusal

to be who I was

balked at the concept

finally stood up

New environment

Learn to fit in

or face rejection

Is it ever enough?

There are always bigots

“Learning to fly

but I ain’t got wings”

And coming down

can smash your face

into the ground

It’s like trying

to pair up old socks

only much more serious

What portion is me

and what part pretense?

Non-vital essence

What only exists

for the sake of appearance

for convenience

for comfort, safety?

Being dead is safe

eventually

Learning is so hard

Learning how to exist

painfully harder

There is no blueprint

no textbook to consult

nor guide on this trail

I am a teacher

I must lead myself

–Robyn Serven

–January 25, 2006

◊ ◊ ◊

One of what I called my sand paintings, with a jazzed up background.

Good morning. Be excellent to one another.

Sep 10 2009

Muse in the Morning

By Robyn in Art, Community, Poetry

Muse in the Morning

A Transition through Poetry XII

Art Link

Bits and Bytes

E-spacing

There is no sound but the clickety-clack of fingers on the keyboard

There are no sights but the electronically formed letters on the screen

But there are people in my computer

Riding the crest of the technological future

And I have joined them

We have stripped ourselves down to the thoughts we express

Mind meeting mind with no distractions

The carefully chosen phrase can be undone

By the carelessly tossed word

A misplaced comma may cost a friendship

We become our vocabulary and our usage of it

Our emotions are expressed only through punctuation

Yet we bare our souls to each other

And form relationships deeper than those in the real world

Because we must always trust each other

Finland, Australia, South Africa and Canada

Maine, Virginia, New Hampshire and Kansas

Baltimore, Cleveland, San Francisco and Boston

I have trod on your virtual streets today

And visited with some of your most caring inhabitants

We embrace each other thought to thought

And love each other’s wisdom

We share our joys and pain

And support each other through our sorrows and triumphs

This is life in e-space

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–June, 1993