Jamieson Wolf
Number-one bestselling author
The Portal at the Other Side of the World – A Poem
It’s the face cage that does it.
I dread the cage,
feeling trapped.
I am not afraid until then,
until it clicks into place
and my view of the world
is broken up by
thin white lines.
I’m told not to move,
not to move a muscle,
to stay perfectly still.
With my head immobile
inside of the cage,
the rest of my body
frozen into position
by a heavy lead vest,
it’s as if I am entering
some sort of futuristic coffin
when they wheel me in.
There are headphones
covering my ears
so that I can hear them
from inside the booth.
As the magnets spin around me,
they are looking within me,
trying to see the mystery within.
When they speak
I can hear them above the roar,
and it is as if I am hearing
the voice of God.
The last time I went,
someone had painted stars
within the tube.
I pretended that I was
at a very loud concert,
outside under the stars.
I could feel the grass
under my feet.
The same trick
never works twice.
This time, tonight,
I will pretend that I am
entering a portal,
a space time continuum,
that will take me to another world,
just for a moment,
a few lovely seconds.
Travelling through
the continuum is a noisy business,
space travel can be so loud,
but I will close my eyes.
A few tears will escape,
but the tears
will become jewels
in the new land
within myself.
I will close my eyes
the stars will enfold me
like a blanket
and I will make a wish.
I will give my tears
over to the magic.
I will wait for the moment
when I am told
that it’s all over,
that I can go home
and he is waiting for me.
I will sleep easy
knowing that my wish
was granted
and that a few of the stars
have followed me home.
FREE HOLIDAY READ! Mistletoe and Lemonade!
Hey Everyone!
Every year for the holidays, I publish a holiday story for my readers and give it away for free. I mean, who doesn’t love free things, especially during the Holiday Season?
Well, this year is no different! My holiday read for this year is a special one: Mistletoe and Lemonade. Here’s a bit about the story:
In a prequel set more than a year before the events of Lust and Lemonade, we find the gang about to celebrate the Christmas season.
It’s not been an easy time for Blaine. Dumped by his boyfriend two days ago, he is trying to recover and wondering whether or not he will ever find love again. Then he is visited by Gabriel, part of the AngelMan service, and things begin to take a turn for the better.
Nancy goes to visit Nan and finds her house dark and devoid of cheer. She sees no point in celebrating the holidays with just her in the house and Blaine living on his own. Nancy decides to have a holiday sleepover and decorate her house. The holidays are for family after all.
Chuck is planning to sleep his way through the holidays at the new bathhouse that opened up, but when he learns that it’s closed for the holidays, he has no idea what he’s going to do. Ray, the proprietor, decides to teach him what really matters for the Christmas season.
Mike and William are having problems of their own. William purchased a couch so big that it fills up their lofts living room, leaving their Christmas tree on the balcony. He wanted a good deal, never mind that the couch was totally impractical for what they needed. When Mike leaves, William must decide what matters most: the things we love or the people that love us.
Poppy is beside herself. Connie has been surlier than normal. When Poppy finally asks her what is wrong, she learns that in Connie’s last relationship, she had grown close to her ex’s daughter Alexa. She hasn’t seen her for two years and misses her most at Christmas. Poppy vows to do whatever she can to reunite them.
Will Blaine and friends find their happily ever after on Christmas? With a little bit of magic, anything is possible…
You can download the story from SmashWords here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/911759
It’s available in all kinds of different formats for all kinds of eReaders.
I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. It is my gift to all of you. I hope that your Holiday Season is filled with joy, happiness and a little bit of magic.
Elastic Bands, Band-Aids, Words and Song – A Poem
Every day is the same:
I work on holding myself together.
I wrap my body in found things:
elastic bands, string, a pleasing melody, Band-Aids, a well written line of text, the occasional staple.
These have built up over time,
to form a cocoon or a chrysalis,
that surrounds me.
Some days are better than others,
and I am able to go through the day without a care,
the cocoon around me able to withstand
the soft breeze of life,
and the ebbs and flow of my emotions.
Sometimes though,
everything that I am trying to hold in
finds its way out
and becomes an inferno that rises in me despite my care of the flame.
It bursts past the barriers of string and elastic bands,
scattering them to the wind.
It destroys something in me,
the chalice that holds the whole of me,
so that pieces of glass are littered like diamonds
in amongst the string and staples
and the occasional line of text.
I work at picking the pieces of myself
off of the floor,
adding more band aids, random pieces of string and elastic bands as I go.
I also pick up each piece of diamond glass,
no bigger than a grain of sand,
and look into their depths.
I see pieces of myself that make up the whole:
the sound of my laugher, my eyes that widen when I laugh, my thirst to live, to experience all that life has to offer me.
My light burns so brightly
and my body is capable of music.
This is a crescendo
and every moment is but a note that I can make.
Joy In Our Pain – A Poem
*Dedicated to our guide through Santiago de Cuba. An everyday angel.
We sat
in a restaurant
that was nestled
in the clouds.
I could see
a couple dancing,
moving as if
the very air
was filled with
music.
There were
apartments and dwellings
that rose up
high around us,
built on top
of one another.
I wondered if
those that lived
within those homes
knew that the
sky belonged to
them.
Our guide
sat and regarded
us with kind
eyes that had
seen so much.
The air around him
was filled with
the scents of vinegar,
spiced shrimp and
marinated chicken with
beans and rice.
The scents evoked
a mellowing of
my spirit and
soothed my turbulent
soul.
He spoke:
“The truth of it is that we find joy in our pain.”
Time had slowed
down when he
spoke, when he
shaped his words.
His voice was
melodic and each
rounded syllable was
like a musical
note.
He said:
“When life rises up to meet us, we look at it and laugh.”
He smiles when
he says this.
I can see
the twinkle in
his dark eyes.
They are windows
to his soul
and they contain
multitudes.
He said:
“There are times when I want to give up.”
He took a
moment to think
of his words
and I could see
him choosing and
discarding words that
didn’t make any
sense.
He said:
“But I never give up, there is too much life to live, no?”
The group sits
and we all
sip our beer,
listening to the
sounds of people
below us and
the noise of
traffic and I
realise that what
we are hearing
is the sound
of life being
lived.
The Wild Sea Within – A Poem
I often feel
as if my body
contains a storm at sea.
It rages inside of me, trying
to tear me limb from limb. I
can feel my skin being pulled taunt and
I am desperately trying to hold it together.
Sometimes, all I can hear is the noise and the fury
of the wind as the storm gets stronger, as the
waves crash against the rocks,
the birds scream overhead
as the wind becomes
even more
furious.
As the boat rides
the raging storm, lightning
snaps across the sky as thunder rolls
throughout the clouds. I am inside that
boat, holding on to the edges, the oars taken
by the hungry waters. I sit in the boat, knowing that
my time has come, holding on to my skin which
desperately wants to just come apart, my
muscles screaming at me, angry and sore
beneath my fragile skin. I sit in the boat
and close my eyes, trying to hear the
storm as music, to hear it as
something beautiful as
opposed to the battle
that is happening
within
me.
I close my
eyes and try to
hear the sounds around me,
that wild sea within that threatens
to consume me, as something beyond
the crash of waves and the screech of wind.
I try to hear the music within my body instead.
The crashes of the waves, the spasms that explode
within my body, those are the drums, keeping
the beat inside me. The screeching wind,
the flashes of pain that ride along my
skin, they are the flutes that keep
try to match the beat of my
heart. The crash of the
waves against the
rocks, that is
the brain
fog that
slams
into me, much like the
cymbals that slam into every
song, punctuating every movement,
every crescendo. The numbness and the
tingling that runs throughout my body, that
is the guitar, playing a sweet melody that holds
everything together, that unites everything into a cohesive
tune. As I listen to that storm symphony, I feel the
waters start slow their rocking, the winds begin
to slow down, the cymbals crashing together
less and less. Soon, I can only hear my heart
beat which was the voice of the song,
the eternal beat within me that
is the beat of everything,
that had been trying to
find its voice the
entire time.
I close
my eyes
and listen
as my heart
sings me a
song. As I
sit in the
water that
was the wild
sea within,
I listen
to the
pain that has
become a
song.
Buy Little Yellow Magnet from Amazon and Kobo!
Jamieson Wolf has written a compelling story about navigating multiple sclerosis and cerebral palsy. His story will touch your heart, make you cry, then laugh, and inspire you. A touching memoir with a bit of magic…and tarot! ~ Theresa Reed, author of The Tarot Coloring Book
Jamieson Wolf 