ehli'schild

[ehli'schild]

<a name="#thirty one"> Respite </a>

The storm is over
but I hate the calm.
The word "respite" is
an oxymoron in itself.
I think I shall go back to
playing camp songs periodically
and crying over them;
eating much bean and cheese dip
on chips late at night;
wearing black more often than not;
reading obstetric texts and
dreaming of babies coming out
for the gratis naked family portrait;
watching movies late into the evening
while cross-stitching, cross-legged,
like one of Santa's crazed elves.
Maybe I'll even read to my kids,
play ball with them
tell them I love them;
Clean my house with a frenzy
to reaffirm my independence.
Time over memory, baby.

PamEhli/1998

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[ehli'schild]

<a name="#thirty two"> Fell Asleep in the Bathtub </a>

Beyond warm,
not quite simmering,
shimmering anointing oil
in the mecca of soothing comfort
imperceptively rocked me down
into its depths.
Like being unborn again, this,
still within a mother's giving fortress.
Relaxed, untensed, unbent,
the blanket of velvet liquid
and clouds of steam infuse
bath salts and candle scent--
gingerpeach, seaside, spruce-berry.
Consciousness slipped,
gave way,
body and mind floating off
on unresisting all-forgiving
enfolding incapsulating
oblivion.
Indulging in both sleeping and
such luxuriant bathing throws
incandescence between
two worlds of one being.

PamEhli/2002

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[ehli'schild]

<a name="#thirty three"> Untitled </a>

Yesterday, I sat down
and said good-bye
without a tear
without a word
like dust and bones
and a well run dry.
Sat down again later
to make my peace
but the words were transplanted
so I was forced to listen
while you corrected me,
laid out the next stretch of road,
and put the barricades up behind me.
This flood is over,
and so is this apprenticeship
for all practical purposes.
I can see ahead as much as is allowed,
and know that I can't just float
into another dusky fall,
under a blanket of snow,
or only just observe
the birthing of a new year.
After that I don't know;
it was not given to me,
except that I will not sit and wait.
This is the time to quit
thinking so much
and start on repairs
and new construction.
When I stood up again,
I stamped my dirty inky bare foot
onto a new book of days.

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[ehli'schild]

<a name="#thirty four"> Somewhere </a>

Somewhere tonight your computer screen
looks you right in the eye.
Somewhere else, right here in my own skin,
I'm on this again, and again, and again.
Never having seen in person-to-person,
we've touched minds, in some way
through keyboards & bullshit words,
thrown out into cyberspace and realtime
to see just what comes back.
Well, baby, can I call you Baby?
In my sister's naturalized homeland
is where you live, if I remember correctly,
somewhere within a train ride of her, anyway.
I have yet to visit her there,
always procrastinating, crying broke,
staying closer to home in my quest to kill the past.
Now would be a good time,
before I can't squeeze out another anger-angst piece,
and before you get bored and split.
So let me meet you somewhere,
and we can eye each other in the age-old way
and profess denial, the grand river in Egypt.
Maybe we'd better stay out of your neighborhood,
and retire to a diner, a smoky Irish pub,
or some out-of-the way little place you know of.
Talking, laughing--that comes easy.
Downing shots or pints, filling in the gaps.
Speaking is so much faster than typing.
For all I know, which is nothing,
you're a slick greasy fat cat mobster w/a pinkie ring,
or maybe a fetish fanatic with an axe.
You could be a 'nice guy' which would dissappoint me;
there's always got to be an element of danger.
Getting pinned to the wall, in whatever context,
has been playing on the soundtrack upstairs,
along with Chad Krogers' rasp & grind,
and DJ Micro thumping techno
and Travis Meeks' anguished howl.
Do you even know what I'm talking about,
wherever you are, sitting and staring right NOW?
Maybe you're scared, "it's just too wierd."
Ah, what am I going to do?
You been on my mind,
creeping in,
I can't say unbidden.

PamEhli/2002

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[ehli'schild]

<a name="#thirty five"> Loft </a>

Up four flights of stairs, around and around;
one of these days I'll be able to
run them unwinded.
Newly arrived, I'll lug everything up there--
a few salvaged pieces of my past life--
and be glad to do so.
I'm gonna live up there
all alone for a good long while,
padlock my door
smear paint everywhere
except the floor and the ceiling
and the white leather couch where I sleep.
Time to forget the past.
Let it come to me however it will.
I live as my heart tells me.
I'll just keep squatting over drop-cloths,
trying to squeeze out sheer brilliance--
color and form onto canvas and board
while my halogens throw weird shapes
against the walls.
Eventually I'll get brave and
haunt the caverns of my home,
with it's vintage bricks and archways
and neo-secret stairwells.
I will frequent the public restroom
like a sacred spring.
At dawn, I'll emerge a new
and seemingly respectable woman,
to put in my time, to buy my time & sanctuary,
along with the stores for my tiny little fridge
and materials for this quest.
Then back, to where destiny calls me
to be along or in the company
of the like-minded, someday,
to say everything using brushes and turpentine
to improve and clarify
through summer's open-ended days
and winter's endless nights
new and used blend into one;
the old warehouse,
desolate in the center of town,
its the resting place that my slaughtered spirit
needs to get at, to be at
to make up for itself.
I scream and I plead and I beg
but never in those terms.
I dare only mention it in passing,
or even the mists of the dream will dissipate.

PamEhli/2001

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[ehli'schild]

<a name="#thirty six"> Poems Never Written </a>

The CPU is a footrest
for feet whose owner
is chained to her desk.
She's posting four pages now;
how many by next week?
For now she relies
on reserves from other days
before an electronic succubus
graced her living room.
Occasionally inspiration
takes hold, overrides the demon
who none-the-less swallows
it's products
whole.

PamEhli/2002

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[ehli'schild]

<a name="#thirty seven"> No, No, No, and No </a>

I see you are courting him now,
and why, if I might ask?
Surely your life is full;
with your man and your children,
all the myriad things you do all day
and write about.
How could this futile and redundant debate
possibly interest you?
You talk of change to the changeless,
of bending to the unbendable,
of tolerance to the intolerant.
In this, you will be lowered to
the position of child, of dog,
you, who is the light of so many lives.
Were you chosen behind the scenes as delegate,
as the Trojan hourse, as it were,
to present the goods on our precious direction?
To be born into one's body and intellect
is pure chance (or is it?)
and why fight about who or what you are,
or where, or when?
So you're a North American woman
in the early twenty-first century...
No explanations, reasons, justifications, or defenses
required.

PamEhli/2002

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[ehli'schild]

<a name="#thirty eight"> Just a Child I Once Knew </a>

When you were so sick
I stood over your bed
and cried and prayed as you slept
even though I never admit
to doing either of those things.
Cleaned you, fed you,
inserted tubes,
and waited for your awakening
each time they wheeled you off.
The bright blue eyes sifted your awareness,
focusing by degrees,
and fascinated, I watched your progession
from unconscious to twilight,
to your fully prehensile grasp on life.

Since that day
when you walked out of here,
thin as a rail,
bald as an egg,
but on you own two overlarge feet,
it seems like a piece of sunshine went
out of the ward.
Of course, that's not true.
It was because of you
that I found my calling, after all.
Every time I follow a fragile child
into yet another surgery and back out,
you're right there with us,
staring up into my face
as I repeat the words I said to you,
that I'll see you on the other side.

They should have known better,
the powers that be,
than to sic a directionless,
just-out-of-school trainee
on a young boy half a generation her junior.
I think I fell in love with you,
somewhere between wound care and advanced algebra.

Something chaged professionally,
when they discharged you,
with proper fanfare,
on that spring day.
Pronounced cured,
and as far as we know, you are.
Never since then have I lost myself
in a patient like that,
though I'm no longer clumsy and inexperienced
as I was with you.

I've seen you walk the catwalk
on your way up,
just a couple seconds worth
on the local news.
I've seen your too-wide mouth
ten feet high, still speaking
over 3 octaves and cracking
and my goodness, you even sing.
Well, good luck and a good life,
my sweetie, as I wished you then
and as I wish all my little angels.

PamEhli/2002

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[ehli'schild]

<a name="#thirty nine"> The Couch </a>

So very worried was the little boy
about his impending Christmas joy
that he is up way past his bedtime.
He speaks at random, not touching the real subject,
of cards, computer games,
his brother whose hazing of him never ends.
Maybe this year he'll hit the jackpot on nothingness.
It's been a bumpy year;
so he is always reaching
and pushing and demanding
in a life so insecure.
what he really really wants
has to have
or it won't be fair
since little brother's getting the papasan chaire
is a couch, just a couch,
which he knows mom can't afford
but she has to, you see
to make him believe
she loves him.

Pam Ehli/2002

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[ehli'schild]

<a name="#forty"> Time out of Mind </a>

Will there ever be a time,
time out of mind,
when I don't think about
looking at you just one more time?

Will there ever be a time,
time out of mind,
when you don't show up
in my sleeping psyche
which waking thought responds to
with a magnetism
that it takes every ounce of
"I can't, I won't"
to keep me grounded
to where I make my stand
and hold to what I have to?

Will there ever be a time,
time out of mind,
when the once-freed-from fear
will drop away and fall from existence
as you disappear from the face of the earth?

In all the midst of time,
of screaming silently, "why?"
the answers come faster than the questions.

I need more time
to prove I'm alive,
that I can fight,
that I exist
though one wants to kill me
and the other, forget.

I'm still me, damn you both.
You can't kill me,
and I won't forget you
whether you like it or not.
Though it's no longer requisite
that I act,
and I won't,
you can come in through the window
now, any time now,
shedding glass shards as you go
to point the barrel down my throat
and blast away.
Go ahead.
I'll forgive you,
in time,
but I'm the only one.

PamEhli/2002

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[ehli'schild]

<a name="#forty one"> Human Touch </a>

Just a touch,
a human touch
is so simple,
and loaded with complications.
Like a flashback song
the need arises
out of familiarity and repression.
So sing to me first
since it's all you've got to give;
all the old cadences
of self-deception.
May I have your permission
to sate just one desire in you
though it's not enough
but enough for now?
If I have to,
I'll scrape it out of you,
since you never could resist my nails--
scratching your skin
down the the surface of your
medication-fuzzed drive
to where you at least
want to be touched.

PamEhli/2002

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[ehli'schild]

<a name="#forty two"> Those Girls Who Write </a>

Those girls who write
are just so weird.
They sit and scribble;
they don't talk, flirt,
or do normal "girl" things.
It's really no wonder,
in and of itself.
Often they're not very pretty,
or they're hefty heifers,
they don't wear make-up.
Hell, they're sitting around
holding their pens and tablets
like it's something special,
or remarkable.
Where's the fun in that?
Their beady little eyes
follow every passer-by
as if gathering potential fodder.
Well, not me, please!
I once heard of a guy
who chanced an encounter
and wound up immortalized
in someone's
illict
penned
nightmares.
God knows what else they think of,
alone in their beds at night.
Do they write of world domination,
epic romance,
of serenity and peace of mind?
Are they dreaming of coming out?
One has to wonder, briefly;
but frankly, I don't care,
as long as it doesn't include me.
Tomorrow I'm going to lunch
with my pen and paper,
and maybe then
they'll let me by
unnoticed.

PamEhli/2002

**note--there are several of us at work who 'write.' we are considered strange for doing so in public. as if we're masturbating or something! btw i look a lot like my little picture, which is why i chose it.

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[ehli'schild]

<a name="#forty three"> Can't Scream on Screaming Hill </a>

It's late; it's early; it's 3:30.
Too late to party, to early for sumrise.
Meteor showers, alone empty hours;
shouldn't be up here, it's really not wise.
Drove up the hill, screaming hill they call it,
at least that's what we use it for,
to scare off the crows and echo the canyon
and chase down demons with howling galore.
For things that eat our guts out
screams pierce the night wind
giving voice to the clamor we carry within.
Standing on the ledge, can't even see the bottom,
yelling challenge and defiance
we are brothers with no alliance
from the winderness's edge
of this modern day Sodom.
The gang up the road is watering the weeds.
The two next to them go their car a-rockin'.
Next to them, aching vioce drones
over steel-string guitar,
so it is me who's the only one balking.
Tonight I wanted to shriek and scream
and yowl at all the thoughts provoking
till throat's raw, hoarse and croaking
and laugh till I collapse.
How strange that I can't make a sound,
take a deep breath and wait around
for the power, as if in a dream
while straining every synapse.
Can't give it up
break down the wall
take part in the joy
fall that free-fall
and tell 'em off
and cuss 'em out
and say my piece
till the very last shout.
Can't scream tonight on screaming hill
just you and me and it's not wise.
I'll let you raise my voice for me
and memorize the lightning skies.

PamEhli/2001

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[ehli'schild]

<a name="#forty four"> Bar Band </a>

For all of you who wonder if I write anymore, yes. I don't like to post anything before it's ready. So here's an oldie. You can decide if it's a goodie. I know damn well it's timeless. The long hair, baggy silk shirts, and cookie-cutter Ibanez's of when I wrote it are gone, but the feeling lives on.

Bar Band

I. Shadows

Shades of night
grey and black
inside the bar
they don't look back
red orange spots
center stage
drawing rivoting
tension a cage
no one new
the same old thing
still we come
to hear them sing
inject themselves
into our souls
temporarily
filling the holes
we're all shadows
but at night
they take solid form
to dominate our sight
some want to be them
some, to own
we are the wounded
lost and alone
we all stare trancelike
at the faces guitars
the hands arms bodies
for now they're ours.

II. Attraction Sing-Song

Play with me
the timeless game
you are wild
and mine to tame
you did your magic
your looks the sting
tonight obsession
you're the one to bring
light...oh I must capture you
for you invade me like a coup
unseen magnet that is the source
somehow it must run it's course
reverberating humming whistling too
pulling forward dance before you
studying you studying me.

PamFriedEhli/1991

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[ehli'schild]

yeah, i know... not exactly poetry. i wrote this in a 'trying to hold it together' state of mind. please tell me if it sounds trite. other than that, i'd say it's pretty universal.

<a name="#forty five"> Permission and Should </a>

Once in a movie, it was said of an ambitious, high-powered, single-minded woman, "...she'd devour her own offspring..."

If I've come across as insensitive, cruel, I'm sorry. Have I?
Its probably because I've started dishing out now, having been treated to so much, myself,
that I'll get the jump rather than chance swallowing more.
It's no excuse; it doesn't work, and I'm endlessly bored with pissing and moaning.
There's got to be a happy medium and a way to find it.
Confused? No doubt; but not always.
If on any given day I don't write or paint or play or give my thought process some creative outlet
you can bet I'm planning the next break-out, and some day it'll all pay off.
Melodramatic and over emotional?
To be a robot and feel nothing--at times I've been shocked into such.
Or medicated just enough to take off the edge of highs and lows till I didn't self-resonate as human.
I want to feel those extremes,
even though those in my path get overloaded--scared or just annoyed--
till they practically hate me from the burnout.
However, I'm not going to live a life, regardless of how this sounds here,
full of back-pedalling and apologizing for my existance.
Demanding, critical, high maintenance? No; I just refuse to be "casual."
I'm not sure now to say this without sounding heavy-handed,
but how many times have I heard that statement about
"Not settling for less than I DESERVE"?
How am I less than what anyone deserves?
It's more preferable to think the reverse.
And it's so easy to take that personally.
Men and women both kill the lifeblood of their opposite species daily with that sentiment.
All the things we're supposed to do, to be, should, should, should...
If I should be gorgeous, subservient, fertile, shallow, and all the better if I'm independently wealthy
to be an acceptable female specimen,
then lock me up or lock me out now, because I'm not, won't be, don't want to be.
I'm not supposed to sell myself short, I'm told; ridiculous!!
Am I simply the sum of my parts?
What about a brain? What about a sense of responsibility? Or empathy? A sense of humor?
For the 238th time, what about goddamn love, that I don't get to share with anyone,
so I'm supposed to choke on it and be happy to be me...?!?
Ok, breathe.
Are you laughing at me yet? I am.
I think I just SHOULD all over myself.
It's not a matter of feeling sorry self-pity.
What god made me is what I am
and there's no reason on earth to go around expecting more than the same of anyone
as long as those natural people out there aren't hurting or using me.
Not that a few run-ins aren't inevitable,
but whoever wants to rough me up a little can go SHOULD on someone else.
Everyone's got their own little tale;
I've been told mine's pretty mediocre (I swear they don't know the whole story!)
It's all about what lessons have been learned the first time;
or tried, failed, and retried; falling down and getting back up, till once and for all they're brought home.
Basic things--getting out of bed rather than lying there till they take me away;
to work another day, to do the necessary to survive, and tell myself, then know, it's not all in vain
and that it doesn't matter if anyone agrees.
To go out of the way enough to find inspiration,
or to stay on the beaten path of life, either or both;
whether to walk blind or aware,
to accept help or be too proud;
to just be angry and full of rage, or to admit to pain, and heal.
If I DESERVE anything, it has nothing to do with whatever man I do or don't manage to snag.
It's better to just relate as one human to another, or try, if possible.
So what's your story?

PamEhli/2001

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