Wednesday, May 21, 2014

POINTLESS



I am compelled to write. Not a poem or song. A testament to my recent past perhaps. I simply, as always start with a word and let my mind, through my fingers empty itself, unburden the fading night in words.

It has been a year now since I willingly disengaged. Stopped, dropped and rolled away from people in general. I no longer feel compelled to read behind a microphone, emcee an open mic, or care whether I have left a good taste or bad taste in people I once saw near daily. I’m not exactly sure why I stopped doing the one thing outside of my house that I enjoyed other than both hosting and performing at venues had no more appeal.

I have suffered for it, for when I pulled back, I pulled all the way back. I do not submit for publication, I do not seek out chances to edit, I no longer call myself ‘Poet.” Except for the odd moment, I do not miss being out in public, interacting with people I know once cared for me. I do not miss seeing my name in print on flyers or articles. “Poet” was an aspiration for me, never a goal. I knew early on I could write with clarity, poetry challenged me to work harder at that. I knew I would never have the necessary initials behind my name for people to take me seriously, not in this success driven hyper self-inflated, education demanding twenty first century. I have not enough brain cells left me to name all the MFA’s and PhD’s I know. I love most of ‘em but never had that kind of patience to be educated away from the roots of my soul.

My mind has been broken too many times to remember, and diagnosed by too many fools to even try to recall. I have born it all though, labels, boxes, pins attempting to hold me to a display board; little has not been attempted to “help” me find a normal life. I am fortunate in that. I never was able to be forced into normal, I had to build my own chamber. Feel the wash of my own blood with every cut and break, both literally and figuratively. And through it all I wrote about it, I told anyone who cared to read about my battering against the shoals of a landfall I never felt I could reach. The climb to peaks meant just for me and now I have no treasure as I age, turmoil abounds but no succor of wisdom to fall back on. I suppose that comes from wandering aimlessly for all these decades accepting here as my destination. I have rarely been curious about, there.

Do not, I beg you, regard this as a complaint about the way my life is winding down; it is not. I have taken Frosts road less traveled and enjoyed the effort of moving down it, and I will not rage against Dylan Thomas’ darkness of the night. From my birth both were my inevitable course and my final end, I never fought the solitary path and anticipate that finale as simply another step to take when the time comes. Lord knows I have seen enough go ahead of me to know there is no use fighting with death, only acceptance that it is time to finally see. And I am tired, very tired of so many things. Physical pain being the one constant.

No one can endure as many broken bones and scalpel cuts as I have and not be in pain. 35 years though seems like it should be enough, but not yet. Not yet. My body carries enough shrapnel left inside me from surgeries one could melt me down and build a rocket to shoot the excess towards the sun. Many people are insomniac, I am not, I can sleep until pain wakes me. I once embraced it, gave it no place; but those were the days when I had a couple of jobs and a family that needed my support. No more job though and all of my kids are doing better at their age than I ever did regardless of how much I earned. I am no fanatic anymore about the need for sleep, if I get 3 hours that then is what the night allowed and if I hurt, hell yes I am going to grab a drug. Zen is cool, but Vicodin works so much faster and lasts longer.

I have spent most of the past year wondering about the illusory state of joy. There is none left within me now, maybe it is situational, a state of being depending on circumstances. If that be the case then I understand why it is dead. This past year has had its share of death, people I truly cared for gone now, both kinds of dying. Them who lost their mortal struggle and them who broke my heart. Foolish old man. I finally have learned to be circumspect with my trust. I can forgive the living, if they live still but them who died I can’t help but care for them, regret their leaving. Oh the damned turmoil left in their wake. Again money, inheritances, greed and ignorance just claims a place at the table.

Moral bankruptcy is harder for me to adapt to than the impending implosion of my pension through Detroit’s bankruptcy. This is after all Detroit and those of us who have lived here from the peak to the now sceptic tank vault have little expectation of much. This has always been a greedy place full of every imaginable kind of ill behavior between neighbors. A system of governance that exist only for its own survival. I once uprooted looking for a better place, found many of them but here I am, older, tired and constantly wondering if I had, in fact, ever left. Strange feeling that, not knowing if the best years of my living were a hallucination or did I really do all those things I think I remember.

That spirit of creation is the only one I have with me now who knows exactly who, what, where I have encountered along the way to here. And here, what is here? I have the unwilling to share beauty in my head and the polluted vision of my one eye here. My ghetto has become a slum and in becoming so it is not a welcoming home or a place where many venture to come. But through the loss of the loveliness of this place I still will shed no tear, not for here and not for me. What good is found in mourning? I simply do not know, and that same thing pretty much sums up my past year of self-isolation.

24 comments:

  1. you know...we all have to find our way...not sure i could pull back completely...i have done less readings...and i never really chased publication...writing is what i do...but i dont need anyone to tell me i can or can not...those that find my words are enough...sounds like a reflective time...i appreciate you for all you have given as far as encouragment...

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    1. Brian, you are one of the best post modern writers I have ever met. I still recomend you to people in need of an example of what poetry looks like without the foo foo. Personally i think you should put a manuscript together at least once and work to publish it just so you can see you name on a book---it is a thrill the first couple of times ana you DESERVE it.

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  2. Sounds like you rather enjoy being a hermit. Can't find any fault with it myself.

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    1. Carleton i enjoyed being with people doing what was good, but this past year has not made me depressed either. If someone wants to see me they have mu # and they know i won't ignore the call.

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  3. Down in the Detroit dumps, eh Mark. Life can be bleak and tedious especially when our body tortures us as advancing age gathers speed. I wish you well dear Mark.

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    1. Philip a pain free day--If i could remember what one was, but with the weather constantly in flux here so are my pain levels. i guess i am supposed to just drug up and zombie out. *sigh*

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  4. I have more and more moments these days when I think I will just stop worrying about writing for publication, or even to be read. They last longer than they used to. Perhaps one day they'll all run together and I'll do just that. But probably not yet.

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    1. It is a weird state of mind Charles especially having written so much over such a long period of time, maybe people like us who do it for the love of it and maybe a little bit of name recognition so the kids will be proud their old man at least did more than waste their time are being digitized out by fifty shades of gray?

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  5. Stop, drop, roll ... you are on fire ... and I love you ... smiles and meows ... cat.

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    1. Meowmomma you pick the hill and I'll roll down after you..I know--and thanks.

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  6. And from this so worthy desolation new sprouts perhaps will bud


    ALOHA from Honolulu
    ComfortSpiral
    =^..^=

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    1. sista' I never looked at writing as a habit but now it seems to be so, maybe Scarlet is right and i need to get out more but until the bankruptcy of Detroit is settled i am gun shy when it comes to spending more than a buck.

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  7. You've shared so much, thank you, and it's funny how you can tap into so many emotions that deal with people being away from them. I like to draw and paint and I'm alone when I do these things, but I always feel a need to get out there and connect. I don't think I could create anything otherwise. I wonder what inspires you to blog since you're off of a lot of other things you once enjoyed doing.

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    1. Ily what can I say, I have spent time with thousands of people in different situations and even in memory they are a never ending source of consternation. Words Scarlet, words inspire me.

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  8. Brings to mind the British painter Wyndham Lewis, friend of T.S.Eliot, when he took to writing, instead of painting, in Toronto.
    I can't remember the quote exactly from "Self-Condemned," but it was like
    "Finally, he produced something that looked like a newspaper article."

    Which I just did, at 75.
    Thank God for the Newmarket ERA?

    I am trying to ignore a quote attributed to Willie Nelson:
    "I did all that, but my dick fell off." :)

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    1. Ivan i can write prose but it's all so...prosey.

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  9. You need a big hug . . . ♫♪

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    1. i was thinking more like i need some goat stew.

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  10. Maybe if you cleaned yourself up you would feel better

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    1. I bathe regularly and you can pry my prozac from my cold dead hands.

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  11. I don't know you that long Mark but I can appreciate your journey to write when you can and not care about public perception of you ~ The label of poet is for me personal and a goal too ~ I read a lot of pain & disappointments but surely there's always a silver lining somewhere ~ Have a good Sunday, smiles ~

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  12. Great poets turn inward and produce great work. Perhaps your voice writing about the demise of your city will be the most important work for all of us

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So Walking Man I was thinking...