Category Archives: writing

40–“A Way to Release Sorrow” from “Frazzle”

African Violet (Pink) by M D Mikus, Copyright 2007

“…I am at vat-bottom
holding my arms up in a “V”

and the sorrow is leaving me,
leaving a delicious temporary
spaciousness
which I fill with joy….”

From poem 40, “A Way to Release Sorrow,” in my book, Thrown Again into the Frazzle Machine: Poems of Grace, Hope, and Healing. Listen here: https://youtu.be/SH1cY_oexvI

Notes: A blue moon is a second full moon in a month (or extra full moon in a season). I wrote this poem on New Year’s Eve, the day of the blue moon, which was the end of a decade, a rare event indeed. I had been doing intense healing work with Tricia Eldridge, the founder of the Energy Touch ® School of Advanced Healing. A follow-up phone conversation led to this visual and the poem came directly from that.

It can be daunting to attempt healing of deep trauma or sorrow, long-time painful beliefs, scars of the body-mind-spirit, or even still raw wounds. How to transform it all without being washed away in the process? I can tell you it requires patience and also trust. It does not require belief in anything, but rather a discerning openness, the willingness to take a small step and see what happens. It does require energy and it can be a slow process or instantaneous. Healing also ultimately gives back energy, uplifting and transcending. Blessings on your healing journey.

For more poem videos from the “Frazzle” series

THROWN AGAIN into the FRAZZLE MACHINE: Poems of Grace, Hope, and Healing

39–“How to Not Feel a Failure” from “Frazzle”

On Rt. 60, Heading into the Sunset, by M D Mikus, Copyright 2016

“…How to remember grace and be grateful?
How to be patient and trust…
enough?”

From Poem 39, “How to Not Feel a Failure,” in my book, Thrown Again into the Frazzle Machine: Poems of Grace, Hope, and Healing. Listen to poem here: https://youtu.be/BC2X7WMQmT8

You’ve probably had days (or longer) when you were most aware of not succeeding at what you most desired, had focused all your energy on. For me, on this particular day writing this poem, it was all the healing that had not happened, all the “failures.” I was not thinking about all the problems I no longer had, the MS being gone, cancer not a factor, being able to walk easily…and on and on. All problems that at one time were my primary longing. No, I was most aware of all the healing working its way into my attention, what was yet to resolve. And now, from this vantage point, 7 years later, most big problems of that time are gone. It is good to remember…

For more poem videos from “Frazzle”

THROWN AGAIN into the FRAZZLE MACHINE: Poems of Grace, Hope, and Healing

36–” Perfectly Imperfect” from “Frazzle”

Change Manifest, California Shore by M D Mikus, Copyright 2013

“It is hard to be
out of sync with my body.
The body speaks and
I don’t listen,

I try but
don’t entirely succeed
to remember healing
is a process…”

From poem 36, “Perfectly Imperfect,” in my book, Thrown Again into the Frazzle Machine: Poems of Grace, Hope, and Healing.  Listen here: https://youtu.be/x5pfX7iigzs

Although I am in some ways the same, I am also different now from the woman who wrote these poems 7 years ago, however revealing and personal. I made it through the times described in the book, to the “other side.” The nature of healing and transformation, of course, is that you are changed at the end. When reading these poems for you now, I inhabit them (and her), open my heart, and deliver. With a bit of distance, I perceive things I was not able to see then. But I am aware of the changes, even the way I write has changed.

I began a poetic journal after healing from multiple sclerosis 21 years ago. My creativity was “cracked open.” The poems act as a kind of truer memory, the details and emotions of an event written down at the time are not subject to the fogginess of remembering things only in my head. If you’ve ever compared recollections of growing up with your siblings, you know what I mean.

For more poem videos from “Frazzle”

THROWN AGAIN into the FRAZZLE MACHINE: Poems of Grace, Hope, and Healing

34–“Animals on the Journey Home” from “Frazzle”

I-94 to Michigan, M D Mikus, Copyright 2013

“A hawk in flight,
red tail, full wing extension

lands on the bank
newly grass-sown and waits….”

From poem 34, “Animals on the Journey Home,” in my book, Thrown Again into the Frazzle Machine: Poems of Grace, Hope, and Healing. Listen here: https://youtu.be/1fiDmWt2BHI

To be in the moment as a witness, even in a car on the way to Michigan with husband driving and two kids in back. To notice and write down and remember…that exact time, the trip an awareness of its own, not just a destination.

For more poem videos in the “Frazzle” series

22–“From Mary Jane D. and Stephenie Meyer” from “Frazzle”

Listen to this hopeful poem (#22) “From Mary Jane D. and Stephenie Meyer,” from my book, Thrown Again into the Frazzle Machine: Poems of Grace, Hope, and Healing:  https://youtu.be/STLSztazYAs

I never know where inspiration will come from, and how different threads will weave together. In the title to this poem, Mary Jane refers to a woman I met through remodeling our home and Stephenie Meyer is the author of the very popular, Twilight book series. She also did a series of interviews about her writing process that were very helpful to me. The guys mentioned in the subtitle were in a social-spiritual group I belonged to and were the direct inspiration for this topic: change that seems catastrophic, shaking the foundations of the life you had built up to that time.

“…the details
don’t matter:
a choice point where

all is divided into
before…and after…”

In my healing work I had been repeatedly shaken up by new diagnoses or other dark circumstances so that I could not go back to my old life, I could only try to move forward into the unknown. I had to become better skilled at and trusting of change. In most or all cases, after time passed I could see how what had looked devastating ultimately had directed me to a better and more satisfying life path.

Has this ever happened to you or someone you know?

Listen to more poems from “Frazzle”