In 1984 while in the Care Unit, I began writing poetry. I got the courage to take some of poetry to the NW Portland dive bar Satyricon, which had an open mike every Monday and Wednesday at 7:00PM, and give public opportunities for readings.
The last reading I did was a poem that I had begun, but could not finish
.
As the slowly shifting sands of time
Create ever taller dunes for this lost soul to climb
It is within my selfish, hateful world of little reason or rhyme
That I must seek the way of truth, to find love sublime.
..
I got a lot of feedback from a real spectrum of characters who wanted to influence my writing in their divergant “well-meaning” directions. They were a disturbing lot, for sure. Lots of aspiring poets, philosophers, mental illness victims, addicts, alcoholics, homeless storytellers, and lonely people looking for “affirmation”.
I feared for my safety.
.
I never touched that poem again until 1990, when my present wife and I shared a powerful meditative experience.
I found the deep silence within myself, and thought that I had found what I had intentioned.
Then, words started exploding in my mind, so loudly that I briefly thought that the world must be destined to hear them.
The world never did. I sat on the work for 30 years.
.
“Oh seeker of Truth, God’s High Mount you would climb,
While stumbling through the darkened valleys of shifting sands of time.
Stop confusing your mind with worn out rhyme and reason
For they are eternally charged by Truth with treason.
..
Oh mental marathoner on a treadmill you just stand
Second-hand words and thoughts keeps you Life’s also-ran.
Forever chasing in vain my All Loving Voice
Be still, with your run’s end, is true cause to rejoice!
..
Oh marionette’s dancing image on the screen of the world’s mind
With time based beliefs in control, what possible freedom can you find?
Release your mind from those traitorous materialistic strings
To prepare for new inner Wisdom only my Intelligence brings.
..
Oh shadow boxer of evil, when will you ever tire?
Tis champion of a lonely dream world to which you would aspire.
Stop resuscitating dead illusions with those mental pugilist blows
To reveal the peaceful mind which, in the now, knows!
..
Oh wake up to Love’s Voice, sweet somnambulator
And realize the deepest Truth that I within You is greater
Than any knowledge or image that, in your ignorance you could ever form or learn
And then your world will reflect back to You the One for you have always yearned.
..
To be in realization of Truth, is to find My High Mount just another illusion to climb
Created by fearful, desirous minds caught on a merry-go-round of time
The unillumined, restless mind remains forever bereft of Love’s Rhyme and Truth’s Reason
Endlessly chasing after the latest mirages,
Until it’s sees that it’s movements are guilty of treason.
..
My trip through the underworld, and my emergence from it into a new way of life, created the foundation for this narrative, a narrative that created several books, and almost no interest from others.
.
Submitted to you, Melinda, as a response to several comments on the book edit file.
Thanks,
Cheers! (I am still hanging out with the Brits and Aussies)
Bruce
