This is my sanctuary. A place to speak of life and art, of beauty and the vicious beast. To share and shout. To express without apology, approval or consideration for anything but passion, moving thoughts, emotion and inspiration - just words and images, metaphorical symbology and concepts - my ideas, my ideologies. Ranting and pouring myself out of repression. Some kind of real. Some kind of vague intention.
To scream and dream, to create and imagine something more. To explore. Something better and brighter over and over again. Beyond ego. Beyond pain. Till it's bright and more real and I believe. To fill it with love. Make it breathe. To dialogue with self doubt. And confront the inner critic enlisted to shut it down and shut it out. To stir it up. To tickle it. To tease the truth and summon spirits. Casting chaotic lunar wordspells that work magic at melting myths and treating the tricks... and the tricksters.
Because it sounds and it feels like the only thing to do right now. Because it's definitely much better out than in.
Out there, in the centre of the circle, where I can light a candle and dance and sing and laugh and cry all over it. Where I can give it form. And shape. And a story. I'm trying to carve out an original, an individual. An authentic sounding someone. Cos there's a seriously sparking diamond under all this rough. I just need time and space to dust it off!
To crack this shell of conformity along with all the things that I really 'should' be by now. Gotta break through, grab it by the throat and shake it and smash it till its falls to the floor. Because that's what some of us were put here for...
To spill, and to spit and to say it. Whether anyone's listening or watching or not. This is just me. A part of the ocean. Much like you. Making waves. All perfectly necessary and essential little drops.
My name is Anna Marie Gayle.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
The other
Looks strange
Weird
And different
Beautiful somehow
Exotic
I’m not sure
But I think we all belong here.
(AG 2012)
“Mine is the art of inspiring people to turn themselves inside out, transform their suffering into art, their art into awareness and their awareness into action”.
- Gabrielle Roth
Purification
Transformation
Of the outside - looking
Congruent
With the inside - feeling
Becoming
Grown from being
Knelt down
Truth revealing
The self
In flames
Re-creating
Re-making
Quietly
Invisibly
Undeniably
Physically
Painstakingly
From the ashes
New life does rise.
(Anna Marie Gayle 2012)
”If words are to enter men’s minds and bear fruit, they must be the right words shaped cunningly to pass men’s defenses and explode silently and effectually within their minds.
J.B Phillips
Learn to control the machinery as to live in day-tight compartments, as this is the most certain way to ensure safety on the voyage. Get on the bridge and see that at least the great bulkheads are in working order. Touch a button, and hear, at every level of your life, the iron doors shutting out the past - the dead yesterdays. Touch another button and shut off with a metal curtain the future - the unborn tomorrow’s. Then you are safe. Safe for today.
Sir William Osler
I throw these pieces away to the sky
I surrender these pieces
With your name written all over them
Pieces of memories and dreams
Of poems soft caresses and long promises
All sickly sweetly melting away…
They’re being pulled out
Tiny thorns that were pressed in deep
Rooted and raw and held tight way inside
Right through the middle
Way beyond opinions and what outside think they see
The places where you have been tied to me
These intricate delicate knots that got stuck
Or at least that’s how it feels
When I breathe…
I’m trying to keep this mellow though
Like a love song
From before love went wrong
And you caught me at just the right time today
On a somewhat breezy never easy afternoon of my own midwinter
A moment of sun still (Solstice)
And of light turning
As the heavens open just a bit more
As the planets shift ever so slightly
And perspective can too
Ever so slightly
But just enough to allow me this tilted back head
This deep exhale
And the briefness of this moment’s relief
Where my heart desires it’s own powerful beat
Well for now at least…
And so days ebb and life flies
And precious stories escape
From the hidden chamber places
Running off to make sense of themselves
Lost in time and way out beyond reason
Until they’re ready to to come back
To be rethought and retold
Home to me in the silence again
Taking my life apart
Putting something of more stamina
Back together
While all the time waiting for the rain…
To see it splashing off a single crimson rose
Right outside my bedroom window (yes there really is!)
I watch her lean faithfully into the great wind
Face against the empty sky
Receiving drops of gratitude and grace
Crying her tears like i do
When your face flashes through my mind
Like it does almost every day
Almost every time…
Such a splendid murder you did of me
Such terrible discomfort and pain
Of a tried out heart breaking open again and again
Old visions coming undone
Unravelling to become…
What I presented
What I thought was welcome
Was a mostly reluctant introduction
To the need to let go and grow
Decided and set in definite motion
By your insistent fullness of force
You turned head and cheek
Your straight hard words
Your focused stubborn refusal
To stay playing small
Or to let me do the same
Not anymore…
And so here it is
Me to myself again
For as long as it takes
Me and the roses
And their delicious fragrance
The soft touch of their petals
And everything else
Just as it is right now…
Anna Gayle (2011)
Sister got soul
Sister got funk
Sister got passion
Sister got style
Sister been burnt
Sister done learnt
Sister been low
Sister feels wild
Sister knows fear
Sister knows rage
Sister knows tears
Sister been lost
Sister keep writing
Sister keep dancing
Sister be patient
Sister please trust.
(AG 2011)
(Source: pmataafa)
There’s nothing wrong with solitude - for now this is a solo journey.
My hands are tied
My head is solemn and heavy
And not even your humorous suggestions and flirtations are enough to release me or hold my attention
Not anymore
You just bore me
Get out of my sight
Before my eyes turn to fire
And sizzle you up
Snip snip
The ties have been cut
Didn’t your mama teach you bout respect?
Don’t you know how to treat a woman?
Hasn’t life taught you anything about honesty or compassion?
Go well
Keep having your fun and indulging in whatever the other’s embrace can do
To keep you long enough from your own condition
Yes, i’m busy
No time for your sexed up misogyny
Don’t call and don’t look at me
For both our sakes go away
And leave me here
Where you found me
Turning and writhing in my cocoon
Spitting blood and tearing at limbs and lies
Wrapped up in transition
Trying to feed my own malnutrition
Anna Gayle (2011)
(Source: transylvanianmisanthropy)
