THE TRUTH, NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH.

I know I don't seem to be catching up or staying even with all of you, my true friends, both face world and cyber. Seems like for the last year I have been questioning my desire to write more. I keep thinking what is there left to say?

Every decision man has ever made either fair or foul has the end result of it floating on the Earth, in an ocean, within the core heart of humanity or is still sailing away to the utter ends of the cosmos, where it will bounce back, hopefully wiser than it left.

For myself I have turned inward this past year, not to reflect or look for new sides to see old questions from, but as a form of escape from a reality I no longer want to face in a physical space I no longer want to be in. I am not questioning my mortality, I know the definition of the word. I am cool with it, not in fear of losing my grip on the bar that holds me here. It is inevitable but I am not rushing it.

In 2006 I started this blog, wrote many many things on it, met both in real space and hyperspace more people that I know I can truly count on as friends. More friends than I have ever had or cared for before. Some no longer blog themselves but I still keep them listed because they got naked for me in their writing, as I always tried to do in mine.

Once a friend who now is more virtual than faceworld tod me I had written enough, more than most, I had proved my proficiency and prolific use of words in poetry, I could stop anytime and not be counted among them who wasted a talent. I wonder though? Did it ever change anything for anyone or was it just me liking to be bare? Prose is entertainment for the most part when done well for that purpose.

Poetry though is something else, something that at times defies definition and is only understood in the feelings it evokes. I know I have accomplished at least in part that--desire within me to show others what i have seen, but the question going forward is do I still have the fire in the belly grandma lit so many decades ago? Or has it become rote, rutted, passionless? I don't want to stop writing, but I also don't want to become overly repetitive or condescending to you or my own being?

I have no degrees, I have, some say because of that lack, no claim to the sobriquet of Poet, I say I do, I have earned it a harder way. But again what is left to say? These past months I have become to feel more like coal that occasionally flares but is closer to going out than burning on. In a few weeks I hit the end of my 60th year and close in on 5 decades of writing because it was the only form of analysis that ever worked for me. All of the best of me it seems was left on a dusty highway just as i was about to settle down and as it turns out rarely leave Detroit again.

I had eight years of freedom and fifty two of life, interrupted by work, alcoholism, insanity, and fighting, most of all fighting. Trying to smash down the walls of power, and I see ne'er a dent has been made, and what bricks i did knock loose have been replaced, mortared and all signs of my having stood to fight for justice and love and truth and compassion are gone. Not even a plaque in my own soul to remember those heady days of trampling authority.

There is so much about me no one knows, no one but me cares about and I believe that everyone is the same, except I do care; for the hidden parts of you as well as the parts you have exposed to me, just for myself though I have no thought left or desire to say anymore, mankind is a cruel, ugly, beast and all of the positive platitudes are nothing but a bandage for the continual stings. Maybe it is my upbringing in a not so good childhood coming back to me, rarely do the conquered stay down.

I can honestly say though, without qualm or qualification I have felt love through this monitor and have tried with all I have to return it in kind. Every day I feel someone different is thinking about me, hoping I am well. I am well enough and I have come to the conclusion that that has to be enough for me right now.  I need to find something  haven't had in a long time. New, different, a place within/or without that I have never been before. yet as the line in the Pink Floyd song goes "I have become comfortably numb."

And that, in moments of stark clarity, annoys me and makes me sad because I can not see any way where I will have the ability to feel real, solid again. I bore myself sometimes but i thought those who come here, came here and gave me the courtesy of reading my work, whether commenting or not deserved an explanation of what has been going on inside my head and more importantly my once rust free iron willed heart.

believe it or not i have only rarely, and that usually for an English class, have never written to a prompt. Everything I have put here and the ones no one has ever seen has always been from my heart, my own state of mind. I now though am ready to try that--prompts. Make a suggestion, a list, or say the road is at end, but I know I want to be challenged again. So, my friends who are like family--prompt me to go places you know but I do not. Please. There is no prize, except for the one we already share, helping in small ways to help each other.

mark


PS I had to go across town today, I had to pass by "Hardcore Pawn"and stopped in. I wanted to see with my own eyes the place that presents Detroit's people as some of them are, usually at their worst. The first thing I noticed was the only one seen on the show who was working was the short bald dude they make do all the stupid stuff, like dressing in costumes to pass out flyers. the second thing I saw was there were almost as many tourists there as there were customers. There was no drama, just a line of people trying to pawn something for a few bucks, a few items I had seen on the show that Les got extremely cheap by using the "...But I have to restore it" line, stuff that was in no way restored but priced 15x's what he paid for it. lots and lots and lots of jewlery, one BIG HUGE security guard leaning on a speaker eating a bag of chips and a showroom that of course is 10x's smaller than it looks on television. I wanted to stop in and see the place that has made millions from being in Detroit while at the same time making it look like shit. Now that I have actually felt the energy in the place, I can say honestly it is an apt representation of Detroit's people at their stoned and drunken worst but also a place, a family business, built by a family that left Detroit for the suburbs decades ago, but still milks Detroit for every ounce or gram of gold and silver it can. In short typical, so very typical a situation for this city. Plus they do not take Timex watches on pawn...so I still after 15 years do not own a watch.