a poet in exile

naked face, no glamor; I’ve no interest to impress 

writers notes today

awhile back I referred to an existential crisis 

                                                                 well, I was referring to something that has come upon me. It is a kind of balance that has been disturbed in a way but it is, for my own experience about my Fundamentals. 

the values

personal values that for me must work with what I produce in life. How I mean ….for instance, I quit jobs that went against my personal ethics —this is my example to explain what I’m having trouble trying to say here.

So, I walked away from opportunities because I hated myself doing the jobs 

only it’s never been choice as much absolute need. my ex friend from the book shops once told me I was more devout than her most religious catholic priest because of the extremes that I went to not go that way. 

I don’t know what that is about me. But as a writer and artist it makes sense if you knew me. I am this through and through. I live the artist’s mind every moment I breathe. I digest life as seen through my dark framed glasses. Through my glass darkly 

So my existential crisis is to do with —how to continue in a world I grow further from 

I am organic. not digital. I touch. I feel through all my senses. I am very touch sensitive and everything is more intense to me 

I suppose this is why I need armor —

but the way to live a life not focused on what our society judges as success 

verses that I as an artist have always lived by my creed. 

And : To give back to society a positive or nothing else if it can only be instead a negative 

I can’t do jobs I know are in, my ethical sense,bad for society, it is not in my nature. It is counter productive to joining the planet, is my view. So, if I’m not benefitting I must find how I must —is how I think of society in general. Is that very socialistic? or utopian? 

so you see each step I took I did this at places I went to. I searched for what was needed most and put myself there. 

I was influenced by people like William Morris. His books are not as known as his art. But yes, clearly his art —I reveal how my mind is going 

But whether or not I am understood by my contemporaries —my worth is gauged this way for me. Not by the material monies because when you die it’s not yours—am I earning my soul’s worth here? am I positively effecting the souls I touch? And the ones who burn me, do I turn poisonous too—or let it roll right off my back knowing I am more pure and they cannot trample my journey 

The existential crisis I refer to is about this realization— and here is why I feel as a social commentator —I find myself owing a debt I must repay from the minds I have been prepared for battle by—like a social responsibility but more the agony of the world —where my people came from —my nomadic soul 

requires something to be left here I guess that is not for me but for — the ongoing conversation 

imagine being there now with all the republican campaigning for fascism and all those loaded rifles ? I got out in time 

from the journey, oh the places we have gone

my pilgrimage 

This is why I hike 

I never use a filter, I wait for when the light is right 

 

 

 

 ....these fleeting thoughts as I pass through the end of one stage and turn

there is awareness over how voices I’ve listened to before were harmful. They wanted things from me as they opened their hands and offered me their veiled gifts

I see I have turned the corner and learned how to keep going on calloused soled feet that gained their rites of passage at last

they will no longer chain me down

I walked away at last

      I didn’t know I had instilled the callus as shield with the rubber exterior that bounces and deflects what once I had no defense against.... oh those flesh eating parasites.... goodbye. I don’t care anymore. No I’m not an asshole, I’ve just gone hard inside from the callus of experiences of a journey you will never know. If that makes me cold, so be it, but the world was always cold on this path when faces sneered and turned away in narrow judgement

I find warmth in places I’d never have expected .... New York which once had been my punisher comes now to rescue me as if the ghost of my father carries me to his historical monument. I stand at his statue on this city’s street and humble myself at his feet knowing awe stumbling to it by sheer accident.... my father

“What is it?” he asks me as I watch absently squirrels gathering their acorns. Sit on the wood floor with legs up against me, my head against the wall. “You’re so quiet these last few days...”

His hands run up my arms as he sits behind me. He pulls me to him sitting behind me

“I think that I realize now that identity.... is a riddle about the measure of being different.... and I don’t know why the relevance of this has left me so empty lately. The shift of meaning seems to appear to me more about the emotions that drive us; the desperate ones.... What is voice?”

what is voice

when I can only whisper, no one hears, that is apocalyptic emptiness