A Sequidilla

1. Seguidilla began as a dance song. Here are the basic rules:
   7-line poem
   Syllable count for each line is 7-5-7-5-5-7-5
   One assonance rhyme between lines 2 and 4; another one between lines 5 and 7
   Pause between lines 4 and 5–usually an end stop
   Also, the tone or focus changes between lines 4 and 5 as well

Twelve Steps, Twelve Traditions owned
make life livable
but holding on diligently
yields enjoyable.
Grab hold of the goal
and work the program for real,
healing rest for the soul.

Seguidilla, a dance or related poetic form

Every Day

People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Neither does bathing. That’s why we recommend it daily. ~ Zig Ziglar

We eat daily...at least if our disease
takes a form other than anorexia.
Teeth brushing, hand washing, bathing,
changing underwear, taking prescriptions,
communicating with important people
in our homes, our lives, we understand daily.
What about addressing spiritual or psychic needs?
Should we presume it's less necessary
to pray, to meditate, to to look at our part
in interactions, to confront our disease
by using the tools, reading Recovery literature,
writing, staying in touch with others,
following a food plan, giving service,
sponsoring, being sponsored, doing actions
necessary to our Recovery. keeping secrets
not ours to tell... These we recommend daily.

Choosing Peace

Consciously choosing to be peaceful isn't always easy. In fact, inside we might feel agitated, at first. But acting as if you feel peace is a beginning. Give it a try today. Your attempt will be felt far and wide. ~ Karen Casey

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things
I cannot change... We pray this assuming
we cannot change what's going on.  We pray
choosing peace. In a way, we're saying Would that
I would change this right now. And turning loose
is not our choice by nature, not really our desire,
rather a choice that we know is right, surrender,
Your will, not mine be done. But add the other truth,
Ask and you will receive. So asking for peace is to be peaceful.
Try it. Your peace is contagious. Your peace places you
amid peace, making your world peace-full.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours.

The prompt was to choose a song you hear today and use that title for your work.

Submission. "the action or fact of accepting or
yielding to a superior force or to the will
or authority of another person."
Surrender. "cease resistance to an enemy
or opponent and submit to their authority."
Contract. "a written or spoken agreement,
especially one concerning employment, sales,
or tenancy, that is intended to be enforceable by law."
Every day is a day when we must carry 
the vision of God’s will into all of our activities. 
“How can I best serve Thee— 
Thy will (not mine) be done.” 
These are thoughts which must go with us constantly. 
We can exercise our will power along this line
all we wish. It is the proper use of the will.
Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours. 

Fibbing

A fibonacci, or a “fib” has nothing to do with truth or lies. It is a poem based on the fibonacci sequence in math: the number of syllables in each line of the poem is the sum of the previous two lines: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 …. Try writing a six-line fibbonaci, for a total of 20 syllables.

I'm
home
right here
with my kind
folks just like I am
sharing a common compulsion.

Come
in
welcome
we know you
because you are us
sharing our true hope recovery.

Come
home
again
we miss you
knowing your pain
and that you know you'll find hope here.

Twelve
Steps
simple
not easy
the path we travel
to sanity, recovery, peace.
 

Grateful for Darkness

Darkness deserves gratitude. It is the alleluia point at which we learn to understand that all growth does not take place in the sunlight.
~ Joan Chittister

The alleluia point. The "Praise ye the Lord" point.
Darkness is that point, and Chittister, a Benedictine sister
doesn't say "a" such point. She goes on to clarify
it's when we encounter darkness we believe
nothing is happening. Consider a seed, though.
Buried, in dirt...sometimes in shit...the seed comes alive,
finding itself fruitful, capable, reaching toward light
unseen, unknown before the darkness.
Alleluia! Growth...the most important part it seems
happens when absent light belies hope.

FROM MY PRISON

It is a prison: a body miserable in excess,
unable to cross legs, to sit on the floor...
then stand without mimicking a camel rolling to his feet.
It is a prison: terminal ugliness, gross, grotesque,
too lazy/tired/depressed for cleanliness, for style,
for participation in life. It is a prison,
sentenced to life without hope, staying there
day after day, year after year, decade after decade.
THEY say we hold the key, can in release
by changing, by willpower, by helping ourselves
but they don't know, can;'t understand,
if we could, we would. Then visitors come,
former inmates, people who understand,
who have been there, agree we cannot
but tell us if a Power that can, give us twelve keys
to unlock the doors, to walk free.

From Resentment to Plunder

For today’s prompt, write a poem using at least three of the following six words: relent, horrendous, artifact, lagoon, wobble, and plunder.
If you want extra credit (and who doesn’t), try using all six!

Once you've transgressed, there's no escape,
your conscience nags you relentlessly...
so you seek to motivate it to relent
using the horrendous device of substitution.
You reason you surely could not, would not
have started the spilt milk that by now
has morphed into a large lagoon. Maybe a tad was yours
but the egregious wrong was his, of course.
That slight may actually be fiction calcified
by your mind's secretions, but you staunchly
stand ob it no matter how it may wobble.Then you
work a fourth step, searchingly and fearlessly
seeking part, realizing at last how you have
stolen his valor and your righteous indignation
was merely hollow plunder. 

I Saw Your Reaction

When I spoke at your meeting

last week, I hope you didn't
feel like I stared at you.
I know my eyes lingered
there even as I aimed
for eye contact with everyone.
Pardon my saying so
but I felt you'd been there,
lived a life like mine. As I spoke
of a slender family where
my size was an embarrassment,
of doing most things well,
the exceptions getting the attention,
I believe you, too, entertained yourself,
not showing your need for companions,
and perhaps you chose a spouse
with whom you identified
not knowing his neediness matched, too.
I hope my story resonated,
giving you hope to work the program.
And know I care and am hoping we'll talk
when you feel the need to have what
I've found.

 

This Lap of the Race

In the race of our lives we have today, 
or rather this moment, and nothing more. 
Yesterday is past, and while we will in all probability 
move forward to tomorrow, and should prepare for it,
when it comes we can face it with a song only
if we have surrendered the control, the outcome,
and if we pick the path of principles of our program.
If our surrender is real, dips will be rare
and the norm will be to surge to joy.

What Lengths?

If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it--then you are ready to take certain steps.Alcoholics Anonymous page 58

It seems a given when we arrive
we're willing to go to any lengths.
Isn't it obvious? Haven't we already?
We had major surgery, had our jaws wired shut,
gave ourselves shots in our stomach,
had pins inserted in our ears,
were hypnotized, fasted, ate absurd diets,
caused ourselves to vomit what we ate,
starved ourselves, abused laxatives...
surely we'd already tried everything possible.
But take certain steps? Admit we're powerless?
Turn our whole lives over to some supernatural spirit?
List every time we ever did wrong, then tell someone?
Give up our habits, our ways of coping?
'fess up to everybody we ever hurt or cheated?
Hey, I never got my jaws wired. Maybe I should try that!!

Isolation

At the bitter end,

food is the companion,

the obsession, the all in all.

Don't look at me!

Don't see the fat, the pimples,

the disarray, the too-small clothes.

Just leave me alone with my binge.
 

Wait! It may be bitter, but it's not the end.

Make it the beginning, the go!

Find peace, serenity, companions

as you surrender obsession to Recovery.

 

You're Welcome

God sends no one away empty except those who are full of themselves. ~ Dwight L. Moody
You Pharisees and teachers of the Law of Moses are in for trouble! You’re nothing but show-offs. You lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. You won’t go in yourselves, and you keep others from going in. ~ Matthew 23:13-14 (Contemporary English Version)

Come full of doubts, uncertain there is a god
of any kind, in any religion. Come confident
in your blind faith in the strange proposition
that this universe originated in a cipher and
aimlessly rushes nowhere. Come believing
all is helpless, you can never have hope.
Come confident you understand, that you're smarter,
sharper than anybody else in the rooms,
but willing to listen, to try to understand.
You are welcome here. We offer you a program,
a path to serenity, to joy, to peace, to a life
beyond your wildest dreams.

But come to change us, to show us up, to scoff,
to prove us foolish...come full of yourself,
missionaries to the foolish sheep...
but with  a desire to stop eating compulsively,
and even you are welcome nonetheless.
You'll be miserable in the rooms, and we may be, too,
until you eventually listen, or you drift away
believing we're hopeless. Either way, Recovery will happen here.
You're welcome to stay and see.

Vice Free

I don’t have any vices right now. It’s a very uncomfortable place to be. ~ Jhe T

Do you feel guilty for being righteous?
Does guilt feel so natural, the lack of it
brings discomfort? Martin Luther King, Jr. said,
"The Negro needs the white man
to free him from his fears.
The white man needs the Negro
to free him from his guilt."
With fears and guilt we feel natural.
With neither, something's wrong!I heard an old song today,
"Heaven Is a Place on Earth."
Ir's true, and that place is, maybe as it says,
where someone you love is. But romance
is not required. What is needed is the spirit of love,
people living Recovery. It's there,
a wondrous place even when it's an uncomfortable
place to be!

A Terrorist of a Higher Power

Food is a theorist higher power; it’s a tyrant is what it is. ~ Miranda O'D.

 

Al Qaeda have admitted they can no longer compete with fast food restaurants when it comes to killing Americans and will halt current terrorist activities to open their own burger chain. ~ Mostly Legitimate News Network, 06 August 2010

We all have a higher power, the source of help to which we turn
in times of crisis. If the solution to all and any problem in life
is food, that is functioning as your Higher Power! Most of us
who eventually ended up in Overeaters Anonymous learned...
eventually that HP was narcissistic, sadistic,
the furtherest thing from real help, a reliable source of guidance,
of logic...a total train-wreck. How marvelous to finally rebel,
dump the imposter and find a helpful HP, one worth our surrender,
our reliance, our trust. Thank HP for O.A., thank O.A. for HP!!

Fear Not

When fear enters in, I remind myself that God did not give me the spirit of fear. In my quiet time I hear, “Fear not!” ~ Voices of Recovery (Kindle Locations 3760-3761).

 

Paul told his protege Timothy,
"For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity,
but of power, love, and self-discipline."

Fear is a small word that "somehow touches about
every aspect of our lives....an evil and corroding

thread," the fabric of our existence was shot throughwith it. God speaks to us in a still, quiet voice,

and frequently what he says is, "Fear not!"

I Want Expansion

As you set a financial goal, it is not only about the expansion for yourself; it's about the expansion of all of those who are involved in that which you are about. In other words, it creates this nucleus, this machine, that allows so many to begin to thrive along with you. It's much bigger than finances. ~ Abraham

My goal is not to expand my wealth,

been there, have reached a comfort level.

But I want to claim expansion for my life

and "for those who are involved

in that which I am about."

Who's that? family, workplace folk,

my publishing, my writing

and those who read it,

organizations I've joined,

their purposes, those they reach.

I want expansion for the world,

and I accept that it can begin with me

and the expansion of my heart.

 

Welcome Home

Keep coming back, they tell us.
And if that means to meetings,
then right on! But too many of us find recovery,
then life gets in the way, or holidays,
or company, being it or having it
and meetings get skipped, recovery on hold
and we keep coming back to reestablish,
to repair the damage. When will we understand
those works we hear and repeat each meeting...
Welcome to Overeaters Anonymous, Welcome home!
Let's just stay in Recovery this time!

Second Life

You have two lives. The second one begins when you realize you only have one. ~ Confucius

 It surely feels as though when you reach the rooms of Recovery
as though you've failed miserably, can't even do
what everybody can...just exercise a little willpower,
grow up and finally follow the rules, act as though  you're responsible.
But soon you come to understand it's a disease, not your fault,
that by not trying to stop what you quite obviously can't stop,
you have to change your focus, get honest, look at who you are,
what you've done to yourself, to others, and admit it to yourself,
to another person and to God as you understand god,
be willing to change, face those you've hurt and do what's possible
to fix it, surrender every day, live one day at a time, tell others
what you've found, and live in peace with you, with others,
and with the world, you've begun finally to live life
as you've always wished it could be!

 

I'd Paint My Life

A searching and fearless moral inventory.
Many of us can best write an inventory 
in words, listing who we resent,
what happened, our part of the interaction,
and what of our principle needs are affected.
That works fine for word people like me
but ours is a program addressed to individuals.
How many of us express better in images?
If I were one, I'd draw a body surrounded
by vignettes showing Daddy saying,
"Don't be sorry, don't do it."
One picture would be the woman I wanted to sue,
the deception, and finally my understanding
of my attitude and her response.
I'd picture my lies, my dishonesty,
and why I feel that need.
How many pictures can you sketch in your mind,
and is that the best way for your own
searching and fearless moral inventory?