Category: Poetry

Muse in the Morning

State of the Onion XIII

I have learned, over time, to celebrate being Other.  The boundaries of human existence are the frontiers of our possibilities.

Art Link Eggstraction On the Borderlands The land on the border is fertile The people are kind gentle content for the most part until of course the patrol comes by to force everyone to move to one side or the other That causes great turmoil on the borderlands so sometimes we move the border when they aren’t looking –Robyn Elaine Serven –March 3, 2006

Please join us on the inside to celebrate, venerate, regenerate and/or motivate our muses.

Muse in the Morning

State of the Onion XII

It has taken years of learning and self-examination to come to an understanding of myself and gender as it applies to my experience, tentative though they still may remain.  According to some, it was unnecessary labor.  Everyone is an expert on gender.  Without any study…or even very much thought.  They know so much more than I do, to the point where they can so easily invalidate my existence.  

Art Link Shades Uncommon Wisdom “Gender is ENTIRELY a social construct” How easily is my existence denied my experience dismissed squashed like a bug my motivations questioned in front of everybody How different are testosterone and estrogen? I know –Robyn Elaine Serven –March 7, 2006

Please join us on the inside to celebrate, venerate, regenerate and/or motivate our muses.

This is an open thread.

Muse in the Morning

State of the Onion XI

Sound bytes have their uses, but can be quite limiting as well.

Art Link Knot Personal View Born in the wrong body? Bunch of crap in my opinion The one I have is the only body I was given Nobody else has the one I was supposed to have Born in the wrong culture definitely in the wrong time period most likely on the wrong planet quite possibly But it’s not like I had a choice in the matter –Robyn Elaine Serven –February 3, 2006

Please join us on the inside to celebrate, venerate, regenerate and/or motivate our muses.  I’m hoping to instigate something more appropriate.  

Muse in the Morning

State of the Onion X

So what was I going to say from that forum I tentatively occupied.  It was painfully going to be about me much of the time, but I had to have an underlying message.

One learns.  One teaches.

Art Link Red Neon On Gender extraordinary – weird unconventional – odd exceptional – queer peculiar – strange gifted – outlandish outstanding – bizarre special – eccentric curious – atypical unusual – abnormal Why is “normal” the objective? There is a broad horizon of possibility for the human condition. Rather than circling our wagons to protect and defend only one or two or even just a few acceptable ways of living, shouldn’t we begin the exploration of those other possibilities? Why isn’t it possible to expand  the definition of woman and expand the definition of man, while simultaneously allowing people to claim neither or both or even to develop whole new categories of gender? What does society have to lose? What does society have to fear? Once again, I  ask: Why is normality the objective? –Robyn Elaine Serven –November 9, 2005

Please join us on the inside to celebrate, venerate, regenerate and/or motivate our muses.  Currently mine is a little constipated when I would prefer it be syncopated.

Muse in the Morning

State of the Onion IX

Ultimately, being invisible doesn’t help anybody, especially not yourself.  Visibility comes back when one develops one’s voice.  If you speak up, people stare.  While they stare, it helps to have something to say.

If people are going to give you a podium, you should put it to use.

Art Link Colors People I don’t know exactly when I became one of us if I first decided I was or maybe it was when someone called me one of “those people” but I can’t deny I have a people I belong to We all do whether we deny it or not As one of my people I can not sit idly by while my people are disparaged degraded humiliated dismissed We are not jokes Our lives are not jokes What we have to put up with from other people vicious other people is no joke My people are teachers are artists are thinkers are lesbians are writers are gender-variant and so much ever so much so god damned much more my people all my people I cannot be divided against myself –Robyn Elaine Serven –February 15, 2006

Please join us on the inside to celebrate, venerate, regenerate and/or motivate our muses.  Currently mine is a little constipated when I would prefer it be syncopated.

Muse in the Morning

State of the Onion VIII

Art Link Working with Silver On Worth Treasure comes in many shades For some it is always material For me it is the wonder of the measurable variability of human thought and emotion In the hearts and minds and souls of others I find the value of my own substance of my own independence Difference is the light in the darkness –Robyn Elaine Serven –March 13, 2006

Please join us on the inside to celebrate, venerate, regenerate and/or motivate our muses.  I’m hoping some more new poems can be anticipated.

Muse in the Morning

State of the Onion VII

Cheers to the art and the poem being created synergistically (not a word I like to use, but use ’em or lose ’em).  When I look back on it, I consider the time around the creation of this to be one of my most creative periods.

Art Link Carving The Whittlers All it took was for me to become different They jumped at the chance they sit around waiting for to grab their knives and carve away at my reputation my physical body my possessions my dignity my humanity but inside I was resolute tougher than I would have thought stubborn to the core The pain sliced at the surface of my soul but deep inside I was free and they were chained –Robyn Elaine Serven –February 22, 2006

Please join us on the inside to celebrate, venerate, regenerate and/or motivate our muses.  Currently mine is a little constipated when I would prefer it be syncopated.

Muse in the Morning

State of the Onion VI

I changed.  I am a changeling.

People change as they grow.  Changing some things, though, meets with social appropation.  In order to survive, one must have a base to stand firm upon.

I am and always will be a learner and teacher.  And I will do both to the best of my ability.  Some believed this should have been taken away from me, that I was no longer capable.  Why?  All changing meant was that I would have more to teach.

I will learn.  I will teach.  And I will live an examined life.

Art Link Sensory Input A Teacher What more could anyone want to be than a studier learning what one wants or needs to learn so that one can learn more each nugget of wisdom parsed again and again into 17 different contexts just for the fun of it joyously reading for the knowledge contained or just to view the style in which it was presented levels upon levels of viewpoints and knowledge always knowledge deeper and broader at the edge of human experience and beyond forever knowledge both profound and absurd and eventually for the lucky industrious few getting paid to think and help others along their own paths to enlightenment? I am a teacher –Robyn Elaine Serven –February 22, 2006

Please join us on the inside to celebrate, venerate, regenerate and/or motivate our muses.

Muse in the Morning

State of the Onion V

Art Link Who? Choosing He was I am and will be It took a sharp blade to divide us He carried me through tough times and brought me to where I could be but it was unbearable too utterly suffocating and bitterly ravaging that he lived while I hid wasting away slowly rotting the years away a life mislived It was him or both of us There was only one vessel One had to die I chose I chose him I do not regret that he lived I am who he wished he could be but could not manage to be Not to be was the alternative so I chose –Robyn Elaine Serven –January 25, 2006

Please join us on the inside to celebrate, venerate, regenerate and/or motivate our muses.  Currently mine is a little constipated when I would prefer it be syncopated.

Reposted, with minor edits, from February 2008

The story of a once-proud warrior

with one last battle left to fight.

Ulysses

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

IT LITTLE PROFITS that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Match’d with an aged wife,

I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race,