Susitna Writer's Voice--A Time to Get Angry, by Ellen Thea

In this poem, Talkeetna performance poet Ellen Thea

writes about making change in one’s life.

It’s time to get angry

But the right usage of anger

The realization that the jailer
is the jailed

When the deadends
in the labryinth
run back
to the same source

When the river demands
the edge of the cliff

When facsimile and metaphor
are not enough,
to live the presence
of life,
and not the shadows,
to embrace, swallow
the firelight dancers
and leave the friggin’ cave,
shouting from the depths
of soul and rooftops

Be free and fall,
wings spread wide,
laughing,
as the hilarious magic
takes hold

It is the end of things,
the usual way,
the safe way can kill as easily
as any other, a deeper danger
exists there, the death is more
insidious and permanent

One day all the excuses
are no longer an excuse

Danger exists,
certainly

But which death shall you choose,
safely timid, the victim
of circumstances, the job, money,
the kids, the guy or the girl or the
lack thereof, my mother, my father,
my sister, uncle, school,
government, or do I choose the
bright bold, Mata Hari, Coyote,
that double agent, surprising
you into yourself

There’s only one direction this
journey takes.

We slitheryslide through
mother’s legs (or pulled unceremoniously) and
begin our disintegration
toward enlightenment

How utterly ridiculous is that

The world disrupts around us
This cakewalk ain’t no piece
of easy cake, pie in the face

And then there is the distraction
of seemingly vaster matters
than my own simple turmoil
and truth seeking

Yet I am the world
you are the world

And when that doorway closes,
and you have sat, seemingly safe,
not edging out toward so-called
danger, the test,to love your
self first, at the frenetic
moment of death’s visit,that
inevitable face to face chat,
is misery the memory to crave,
to cherish

Or is it that I have lived, I have chosen
this to embrace, I ate that
damn apple, with delight,
with abandon,without restraint
and didn’t regret the knowing,
the discovery

Bliss is not ignorance
wisdom is bliss
and wisdom is whatever road is taken,
bumps and warts and all

New joy rising, bubbling, undulating,
what next–

I mean, rabbits may fly out
my ass, or pigs with wings,
kaleidoscopic joy

Because
why suffer

Suffering can come soon enough
misery always loves our company
and all the world offers is the
peddling of illusion

Because a frog is still a frog
the magic is in the kiss itself
and flies can taste so sweetly divine
when you give the moon permission

Anything can happen
the oracle whispered,
as long as you live, alive,
because, be known,
the shell can be dead
and there are many zombies
roaming about

Touch your dream
and breathe the Holy Grail