House Rules

Sit up straight don’t slouch.
Stop crying I will give you something to cry for.
Don’t answer back.
Pull yourself together.
Do as I say pay attention.
Don’t fidget sit still.

Those who ask don’t get.
Those who don’t ask don’t want.
If the wind changes your face will stay like that.
Speak when you are spoken to.
Little girls should be seen and not heard.
You must make the best of yourself.

If you don’t abide by my rules you can leave.

Don’t stare it’s rude to stare.
Stop that now rude girl.

I am not staring I am looking.
I am searching I am yearning.

Where are you?

Kathleen Freeman

Choosing one poem from among the many fine pieces Kathleen has written so far was a rather hard decision. You can see more of her work and keep up with her latest posts at http://kathylambie.blog.com.

This fuzzy fellow is one of several illustrations I made for my very first poetry collection at age 14. He was an atypically whimsical subject for me; I wasn’t drawing lots of teddy bears, or anything else, at age 14.

I’d actually stopped drawing sometime around age 11, and by that I mean drawing with any intention. I was still doodling in the margins of notebooks, but that was about it. It was only my little poetry project (inspired in large part by Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and the illustrations that accompanied the lyrics for each song in the foldout album jacket) that drew me back into making art, and then only for a little while.

When my work on the project was concluded, my artist went back underground again. I’d become extremely critical of my abilities by then and couldn’t seem to produce anything that satisfied me. Today’s selection was one of a few very rare exceptions.

Today’s poem, “body memory”, is from part seven (“hints of daylight”) of Iron Man Family Outing.

For those who are not familiar with the term body memory, here’s my brief take on it from a post I wrote a while back called “the body is the gateway”:

The body is a container, a vessel, a vehicle for the expression of energy. Sometimes energy gets stuck or trapped. This can result in physical pain, discomfort, structural problems, or illness. A story is also a container, a vessel, a vehicle for the expression of energy. Energy can be trapped in the body in the form of a story. Some stories that emerge from the body are literally true and verifiable in terms of one’s real world experience. This type of story is often referred to as a body memory.

Today’s poem came to me quite spontaneously one afternoon many years ago as I was lying on the bed having a little rest. In another previous post entitled “poetry, dreams, and the body”, I wrote about the changing nature of my relationship with my body at that time in my life that opened the way for this poem to express itself to me:

I was also, at that time, coming into a new form of relationship with my body. I’d been treating my body like a mechanism for most of my life, a strange and mysterious other that felt external and separate from what I thought of as myself, an unreliable machine that suffered from all sorts of inconvenient problems and breakdowns that no doctor I’d seen could explain. I know now that this sort of separation and dissociation from the body is very common among men and boys in my culture. I also know now that it’s common to another demographic group of which I am also a member: adult survivors of childhood abuse.

Somehow, and I honestly can’t say how this came about, I found that my body was, like my dreams, another rich source of imagery and information that expressed itself well in poetic language. I believe this discovery was largely stimulated by the emotional processing work I was doing at the time, in which I was taught to tune into my body as a way to locate and unlock the psychological and emotional energy I’d been forced to repress as a child. As time went on, I gradually began to see my body as a partner rather than as an adversary. I also found that my body had something to say. I only had to give it the time and the space to speak.

The violent incident recalled at the conclusion of this poem is explored again from a slightly different perspective in a poem called “out of body” from my new book, Scapegoat’s Cross: Poems about Finding and Reclaiming the Lost Man Within.

For more poetry on video, visit my YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/rickbeldenpoet.

Today’s poem, “charley horse”, is from part six (“the unclaimed soul”) of Iron Man Family Outing.

I refer in this poem to a broken leg I suffered as a child. The circumstances of that event, its aftermath, and its profound impact on my relationship with my father from childhood onward are explored more fully in a piece I wrote a while back called “broken bones and the father wound”.

For more poetry on video, visit my YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/rickbeldenpoet.

Iron Man and I go way back. I think I can reasonably say that he actually saved my life, twice as a matter of fact: once when I was a child, and again when I was a man in my early thirties. More on that in a bit.

I still remember the first Iron Man comic I bought: Tales of Suspense #93, published in September 1967. This issue featured a battle between Iron Man and one of his chief nemeses at the time, a much larger armored counterpart from the Soviet Union named Titanium Man. The cover of the comic book showed Iron Man and Titanium Man facing off against one another inside a long, claustrophobic metal tunnel with the caption “POWER vs. POWER!” I was nine-going-on-ten and from the moment I saw that cover, Superman and Batman were old news to me. I was hooked on Iron Man.

One of my uncles, who was six or seven years older than me, had quite a comic book collection at that time and was more than happy to let me dig around in it, as he’d already moved on to James Bond movies, cars, and girls. He had a few of the older Iron Man comic books, not all of them, but enough for me to become even more intrigued as I saw the progression of the Iron Man armor from the original, which looked something like a gray cast-iron wood stove, to a slightly less clunky golden version, to the familiar red-and-gold armor I recognized. Along the way, his helmet and face mask also changed several times, as did his power source and the array of features and weaponry built into the armor.

I also learned about his other identity, Tony Stark: inventor, industrialist, arms merchant, millionaire, playboy. And I learned about why he built the Iron Man armor, why he needed to continue to wear it, how it changed him, what it gave him, and what it cost him. I identified with this man who was brilliant but deeply injured inside, who built layers of protection and defense around himself so that he could deal with external threats, and who hid his true face behind the frozen expression of a metal mask. Tony Stark’s heart was wounded and so was mine, his from the fragments of a bomb that nearly killed him and mine from an angry, abusive, emotionally distant father, a ferocious giant who was my own “Titanium Man.”

I was in desperate need of some sort of positive masculine figure, even a fictional one, to help me cope with the difficulties of my life, and Iron Man came along just in time. I read my Iron Man comics. I played and pretended and fantasized. I wanted to be Iron Man. I needed to be. He saved my life by showing me that I could use my own ingenuity to protect myself, to armor myself up (psychologically, emotionally, and physically), to hide my vulnerabilities, and to survive. In the process, I internalized Iron Man and his qualities in ways I couldn’t begin to understand at the time.

As I moved into my teens, I abandoned the comic books and moved on to other interests, much like my uncle before me. I gave my comics away to younger cousins and forgot about Iron Man. But my armor was still in place, and I continued to add new layers to it during my late teens and throughout my twenties as life brought more painful experiences, rejections, and disappointments that I lacked the skills to handle with any real effectiveness.

Just before my 29th birthday, a woman for whom I cared deeply betrayed my trust with another man and broke my heart worse than it had ever been broken before (which was quite an accomplishment for any woman, given my history up to that point). Nothing I knew how to do for myself could reduce, or even manage, the pain I felt. At that point, I decided to break one the biggest taboos in my family of origin: I decided to seek help.

Not long after making that decision, I found myself working with an innovative counselor who used some very dynamic emotional release techniques. As my work with him progressed, emotional and psychological pathways began to open in me that had been closed down for a long time. One result of this opening was that I started dreaming prolifically. That was unexpected, and what was even more unexpected was that I began to have recurring dreams involving the Iron Man character that I loved so much as a child.

Initially, as a man moving into his thirties, I felt more than a little silly dreaming about a comic book character from my youth. But the dreams continued anyway, regardless of how I felt about them, and as time went on, I was more and more urgently compelled to understand why Iron Man had reentered my life. I found a guide who could help me work with my Iron Man dreams, to help me try to understand what they were all about and what I was being told. The assistance I received was critically important in helping me improve my understanding, but I knew I needed to do more. I found myself drawn to go out and find the old comic books I had when I was a kid. I bought Iron Man action figures. I made Iron Man collages. I worked and (perhaps more importantly) played with the image and the mythology of the character in every way that I could.

The result of all this activity was another surprise: my first book, Iron Man Family Outing: Poems about Transition into a More Conscious Manhood, in which I wrote for the first time about the childhood experiences that originally drew me to Iron Man, the effects of those childhood experiences on my life as a young man, and my efforts to develop a greater understanding of myself and take a greater responsibility for my own life and my own healing. At the center of the book were a number of my Iron Man dreams, those initially inscrutable messages from deep within my psyche that had proven to be the keys to finding myself and saving my own life. For the second time, Iron Man had saved me.

At the time I did this work, there was no Iron Man movie. The character was very obscure and my relationship with him felt very personal, very special, and very intimate. I usually had to explain who Iron Man was when I spoke about my experience with him to anyone. Things have certainly changed. Just about everybody has at least some idea of who Iron Man is now.

I’m glad that I had Iron Man to myself, so to speak, when I was dreaming about him. I’m glad that I had to put some time and effort into finding those old comic books and, if I was very lucky, even the occasional action figure. My process and my relationship with Iron Man were driven completely from within, from within my own memories, my own body, my own history, and my own unconscious. There was almost no external source of information to mediate, influence, or alter what I was being given from those mysterious sources deep within me. It was a very pure experience in that respect, as I believe it needed to be.

Given my extensive history with Iron Man, the news that the long-rumored and perpetually-delayed movie based on the character was finally coming was a matter of great personal interest to me, not simply as an exercise in escapist fantasy and entertainment, but as a filmic actualization of internal mythology and personal archetype. I followed all the media updates, starting in summer 2007, and was understandably eager to see the movie when it arrived in theaters in May 2008.

For the most part, I was pleased. Although the timeframe of the origin story had been modified and several storylines had been compressed in order to work within the constraints of a two-hour movie, Iron Man was still a very faithful adaptation that retained all of the original archetypal elements that captivated my imagination as a youngster. Robert Downey, Jr. was the perfect choice to play Tony Stark, completely believable at every step of Stark’s transformation from a careless hedonist who takes nothing seriously to a man who finally understands his path and his purpose in life. Iron Man even battled a much larger armored counterpart in the finale, just as he did in the very first Iron Man comic I bought as a child.

Still, the Iron Man in the movie didn’t feel like my Iron Man, and of course, it wasn’t. I can’t say I was surprised by this. I’d spent an enormous amount of time with that character and the associated mythology over many years, gone very deep with it, and alchemized it into something that’s totally personal and unique to me. It would have been ridiculous for me to expect any movie, no matter how well done, to match that.

Nevertheless, taken on its own terms the Iron Man movie has plenty to offer those who are interested in how certain aspects of masculinity and the male experience are expressed and represented on film, and I hope my review at Masculinity-Movies.com provides readers with some useful insights about some of the deeper themes found in the movie.

Iron Man is no longer front and center in my life in the way he once was. He very seldom comes to me in my dreams now. The old comics, action figures, and collages from the time I spent with him in my early thirties are packed away in a box in my closet, keepsakes of another time in my life. I won’t be giving them away this time.

But the Iron Man who first came to me when I was an emotionally and psychologically wounded boy who needed a hero and a role model, and then reappeared twenty years later when I was a confused, distressed young man who’d forgotten who he was and could be, is still at work in my life and in the lives of others. He lives on in the book I was inspired to write by my dreams about him, and he comes to life in a new way in the mind and heart of every person who reads my story. Most of all, he lives on in me, because I wouldn’t be the person I am today without him.

scaRy motheR takeoveR
fatheR figuRe bReakdown.

chain mail pipe dReam
injuRed family dance.

house of the bRoken pRomise
won’t get fooled again
again.

(PDF version)

Rick’s work, if it is anything, is transformative. It holds out in optimism that by courageously facing the child we were, we can create a more rewarding future for the adult we want to become.

You can read his full post in its entirety at Men’s Well-Being.

In other “IMFO in the UK” news, another counselor based in the United Kingdom, John Kennett of Kent Counselling for Men, recently added Iron Man Family Outing to his Amazon UK Listmania list “Men, masculinity and maturity”, describing the book as a “raw and powerful means of accessing the inaccessible.”

In response to this recent UK news, a friend remarked to me via email, “I do think it is great that Iron Man is offered for sale in English pounds.” I have to agree.

I’ve posted some preview material on my web site at rickbelden.com/new_book, including an excerpt from the introduction and some of the poems that appear in the book.

I’m also making preview copies of the complete manuscript available to those who’d like an early look. Please see rickbelden.com/new_book for information about getting a preview copy.

In her comments about my book, Rebecca said:

What a treat to read such an authentic and heartfelt book. Through the use of poetry Belden tells his story of growing up with an abusive father. Belden allows the reader an insight into his heart and takes us along in his struggles to claim a conscious manhood. If you are looking for pretty poetry, this isn’t the book. This is raw, truthful, and captures both the darkness and the lightness of meeting one’s past. While Iron Man Family Outing may seem to be for men, it helped me as a woman have a better understanding of what men may be going through within themselves.

You can read her full post in its entirety at The Mindful Beat.

Rick Belden is a fellow Austinite who has written a book, Iron Man Family Outing, of healing poetry about his own personal journey of growing up male in American society. His poetry is moving and poignant. His descriptions of his family, himself and his relationships strike a chord with everyone with whom I’ve shared them. I highly recommend this book.

You can read her full post in its entirety at Kellevision and also at Kellen’s blog at Intent.com.

Kellen’s recent post “Making Yourself a Target: Replicating the Scapegoat Role in Your Life – How to Stop Doing It” is yet another insightful entry in her excellent ongoing series on the the role of the scapegoat in dysfunctional family systems. This is a subject that deserves far more attention than it gets, in my opinion. I’m grateful to Kellen for shedding some light on the experience and the dynamics of the scapegoat role, and for providing practical, helpful information for those who need it.

* The Body – Thoughts – Feelings Connection

* Depressive Realism

* Self Care

The Kellevision blog has been up for a little over a year. It contains a wealth of perceptive, practical information about psychological health and self care, and is updated regularly. I plan to revisit it often to explore the archives as well as to keep up with the latest posts. Highly recommended.

* Jason Fierstein of Phoenix Men’s Counseling praised the book’s “use of metaphor” and said the “poems are very transformational, and really give a voice to the modern male experience – one which is frequently (and unfortunately) not discussed.”

* Jack Kammer of The Center for Men and Boys in Social Policy commented on the isolation many men feel with their so-called “personal problems” and said the book “makes it unmistakably clear that any man who sometimes feels alienated from his best hopes and from his own, best, most cherished view of himself is most decidedly not alone.”

* Life/Executive Coach Sean Casey LeClaire said that “Belden explores the shadow side of the male journey” and added that the book “comes at a wonderful time, as millions of men find themselves without work … the opportunity to face themselves with courage and decency, which Rick’s poems do, is most timely.”

The complete archive of reviews for the book is available at http://rickbelden.com/reviews.

my dad seems unhappy + remorseful about his life
not the angry man I knew
he seems sad about his relationship with me + anxious
to make some kind of connection between us.

he + I are standing in the
big doorway of the garage he built
this is dad’s territory
mom stays in the house.

he gives me a real old iron man comic book
but first he goes through it
tearing out stuff he says I’m not supposed to see
stuff that has something to do with work
his deletions appear random to me
I can’t see a pattern of anything sensitive
in what he removes.

he describes in great detail the way iron man moves
including the precise number of seconds it takes
for iron man to respond to an attack
then dad asks me how long it takes
for me to respond to an attack.

the iron man comic he gives me is a one time only
special issue
this is the one I’ve been searching for
the one where iron man’s face mask changes
from pointed + horned
to rounded + smooth.

in this issue
iron man reveals that he is actually a monk
when questioned
he explains that the monk is the other side of
his usual playboy/inventor/materialist identity.

in the dream
I recognize this comic book as
a very special gift from my dad
something important to him
something he’s saved for a long time
it’s a peace offering
something we both value.

in the dream
I feel touched yet saddened
our communication is still so indirect.

a comic book is no substitute
for a warm hug + loving words
between a father + a son.

(PDF version | Video version)

but our little house of lies isn’t big enough to hold us now
she won’t stand up for herself + I can’t stand up
for both of us at the same time anymore
so we ride the broken lover’s seesaw of staying + leaving
one foot in + one foot out
we dance in the kitchen like unloved children + wait
for fulfillment of old pain’s expectations.

so anxious to leave
so anxious to be left
so anxious to be right
so anxious to be hurt
so anxious to be disappointed
so anxious to be alone again.

when this whole thing started
I wanted us to be immersed in each other
I wanted us to fix each other
I thought that was what people were supposed to do
I don’t want that anymore
I don’t need that anymore
but I still don’t know
how to love someone I don’t want to fix.

(PDF version | Video version)

what’s the half-life of a lousy childhood?
stranglehold tentacles
come out of a house where
nobody I know lives anymore
body and soul clench like a fist
when that hairy hand tries to pull me down
I need lights
I need noise
I need naked female flesh all around
else I implode.

how do I give up what I don’t understand?
this home isn’t broken it’s blown to hell.

now here’s a place where I can be unhappy in peace
totally safe and unbelievable
a crime against everything I was brought up to be
a slap in the face to that guy who thinks
he knows how it’s supposed to be done
a tight connection to all those old friends
I thought I’d left behind
whores just like me
who knows what they sell themselves for?

last chance for ro-mance
take care of these ladies and they’ll take care of you
why do I need this?

the weird thing is I don’t even see
most of these women anymore
not even as objects.

can’t buy a thrill?
sometimes I can sometimes I can’t but
I don’t need a thrill
I need a break.

(PDF version | Video version)

my skin remembers
slap of the flyswatter metal wire handle.

my tongue remembers
bar of soap shoved in my mouth.

my hand remembers
spilled milk on the first day of first grade.

my stomach remembers
crying in front of everyone ’cause I lost the fight.

my knee remembers
wait for me daddy before I fell + broke my leg.

my feet remember
please teach ricky how to skip
pinned to my kindergarten shirt.

my chin remembers
falling out of bed into a
daddy’s mad again hot sunday night.

my nose remembers
can’t breathe comic books in ragweed darkness.

my fingers remember
building model rockets in a cool summer basement.

my neck remembers
father’s hands closing tight around my throat.

my ears remember
mother screaming stop it dick stop it.

time passes but nothing is lost
I can’t fool myself
my body remembers everything.

(PDF version | Video version)