Blame…

Blame

Lots of things conjured up around this week’s word, blame. Hope you like the poems, expressions and prose shared this week. And maybe just notice what might be conjured in your self around the word.

During this week’s poetry session, there were a few mentions about our childhood and how often it is blamed for what we may have landed with.  And the patterns we carry that have been learnt from our childhood or growing up, as well as the layers of complexity in sorting through it all, and the power of the self to relearn new ways.

We also spoke about the way that naming and labelling comes from blame, and the divisive nature of that, which is most notable with what is happening in the world today.

We took a little time out this week, to read a John Roedel poem, which we have shared below. It brings another style of expression with a simple yet powerful message.

Tonight we play the Blame Game….

AS we grow up who do we blame if something goes wrong
our siblings of course never our fault?

Dogs get the blame for digging holes,
barking a lot.

Driving our cars,
it’s always the other persons never our fault.

People bet on horses, not their fault,
the horse is blamed and called a donkey
for not running a place.

If our washing gets wet blame it on the rain.

Blame is a word easy to use,

So I’ll leave it to others to have their say.

LAM       20/9/21

Blame

As the chief executive of my mind
I gave my thoughts some down time.
Leaving me with little to do
I wandered into my reflective mood.
Looking forward to my time off.
The familiar, similar, vague thoughts floated by.
I traded an idea or two in my peaceful space
And settled down in my comfort state.
Out of the corner of my perception
Shuffled a tired and worn out plight
The one and only thought
I didn’t want to entertain tonight.
Quickly raising a mental wall
Hoping it wouldn’t crack
Too late it has slipped through
Hovering, expanding, and filling my space.
I acknowledge its’ presence
Full of power it exerts itself
Taking me back through my decisions
Telling me how wrong I was
To try and diminish its’ influence
Asking me to restore its’ place
In the hierarchy of the choices I make
I answer this cry for acceptance
Explaining its’ right to exist
Fails my final ecology test.
As the executive me
I need to find a better way
To deal with my faults
A more mature, wiser belief
Than the one with which it persists
To resist the temptations it brings.
There are times it can prevail
Like earthquakes, solar flares, magnetic poles
These are things not in my control
All those that are
Are what I’m responsible for
I accept it as a word.
How I and others use its’ name
To explain and complain to each other,
our faults and actions with excuses.
Blame I’m letting you go,
you’re a thought I find limiting.

PJR    20.09.2021

Blame or reason… 

Destructive or constructive
Unhelpful or helpful
Punishing or flourishing

Blame: destructive, unhelpful, punishing
Reason: constructive, helpful, flourishing

Blame from shame…
It becomes the game…
Let’s change the flow…
Give reason a go…

The reason for my choices
Just try to understand
I’m not a bad person
Needing forgiveness or be dammed.

I was only testing
To have my needs met,
It may have seemed ‘bad’,
But harm was not my intent.

So I learnt to squirm
Waning from  my truth,
On myself hard and firm
Blame, shame, lost my youth

So who can I blame
For the state of my hair,
My height, my cancer,
My weaknesses, I share

So who broke the vase?
It wasn’t me, I swear…
So how did that happen?
Tell the truth, do I dare?

The excuse, the cause
The problem you see
How much easier it would be
To just get to know me…

For so long, hiding,
Playing the game over  and over
Til not long ago,
I decided – no longer!

So now: I practice.
Expressing what is
No blame just explain
Even if it creates a tiz

No more ‘it was this
it was that’ as a fact,
Just the courage to say
As it is, with no tact…

No excuse or blame
for just how I feel,
Really it is not
Such a big deal,

But expression this way,
Is so hard to come by,
So this is my quest
My truth before I do die.

TLaB 19th Sept

The Thought of Blame

In the classroom
doing my best
Classmates in synch
when we jest

Our teacher arrives
Quiet in the room!
I flinch to have to concentrate and study

There has been an incident today!
I shudder to think that it
may come my way

Who is on the softball team!
We sheepishly put up our hands
Gosh, I was short stop- my favourite
Thought I did well – what the hell

Who was on 1st!
Who was on 3rd!
Good play, good team effort
Here it comes, it’s me for sure

Without any shame
The blame is on me
Can’t think why it could possibly be

Well!
I must admit I’m
Proud of you lot

Short stop!
Oh, I’m ready, here it comes
You won the game!
Now up you come to receive the
trophy for the team

Phew’ no need for blame at all
The class applauding, just for me?
In disbelief, I’m standing tall
Swelling with pride for us all

CCon 19th September

Blame

In politics, it’s the blame game
The pivot, the blame shift
The shame name
No limits

Shaming by blame
Puts labels,
A name
That holds like staples

Blame can be pointing the finger
Away from the self
So that it lingers
On another shelf

Why we do this
Its part of the distraction
From a crisis
That was our primary action

Now is the right time
To own up to our choices
That we were the prime
Not the secondary voices

NRS

My brain and heart divorced a decade ago

my brain and heart divorced a decade ago
over who was to blame about
how big of a mess I have become

eventually, they couldn’t be in the same room with each other
now my head and heart share custody of me

I stay with my brain during the week and my heart gets me on weekends

they never speak to one another  – instead, they give me the same note to pass
to each other every week and their notes they send to one another always says the same thing:

“This is all your fault”

on Sundays my heart complains about how my  head has let me down in the past
and on Wednesday my head lists all of the times my heart has screwed things up for me

in the future they blame each other for the state of my life
there’s been a lot of yelling – and crying so, lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time with my gut

who serves as my unofficial therapist
most nights, I sneak out of the window in my ribcage and slide down my spine and collapse on my
gut’s plush leather chair that’s always open for me~ and I just sit sit sit sit until the sun comes up

last evening,  my gut asked me if I was having a hard time being caught between my heart and my head

I nodded

I said I didn’t know if I could live with  either of them anymore

“my heart is always sad about something that happened yesterday
while my head is always worried about something that may happen tomorrow,”

I lamented my gut squeezed my hand

“I just can’t live with my mistakes of the past or my anxiety about the future,”

I sighed my gut smiled and said:

“in that case, you should  go stay with your lungs for a while,”

I was confused  – the look on my face gave it away

“if you are exhausted about your heart’s obsession with the fixed past and your mind’s focus on the uncertain future
your lungs are the perfect place for you there is no yesterday in your lungs there is no tomorrow there either
there is only now, there is only inhale there is only exhale there is only this moment there is only breath and in that breath
you can rest while your heart and head work their relationship out.”

this morning, while my brain was busy reading tea leaves and while my heart was staring at old photographs

I packed a little bag and walked to the door of  my lungs before I could even knock she opened the door with a smile and as

a gust of air embraced me she said

“what took you so long?”

   ~ john roedel (johnroedel.com)