“FREEZING MY ASS OFF IN ANZA BORREGO BY TEALIGHT”
After Amee and I split up I went to camp alone in the desert for some weeks. It was January so I went to the Anza Borrego desert in San Diego county. Very stark and beautiful and cold at night. The nights are long in January, so i spent a lot of time shivering in my tent thinking, reading by candlelight, and a little writing. So this would have been written in January 2002, and less a dark night of the soul then a time to really reflect on my purpose in the world. i got some good answers and it was time well spent. Anyone who comments on this post i will give a copy of my book “America: Its Land and Its People”. (Facebook comments don’t count, they have no history.)
I need to get real with people
Its easiest to do with strangers
With no history
Preconceived conceptions
Or formulaic patterns
To escape reality.
The fascination of discovery
Wonder
Total attention
The Universe condensed
To an understandable packet.
The most beautiful times
Are when that packet
Is the interaction.
The unity of two
The most difficult
To harmonize into the One.
As zero is nonbeing
And one is existance
Than two is one and not one.
Duality, the first separation
But between two is the
First Possibility of communication
A process that is One.
But if only one is being one
There is no communication
Only projections
Of the not one received by the one
And the Universe is the Other
And i am no more
Lost and forgotten
By even myself
I wander not in the unity of the One
Where I belong
Where I am nurtured
Where i am inexplicably me.
But in the Zero
Oblivion
Nothingness
The abyss
So excuse me
If I try
To make you get real
With me
I am only trying to exist.
Hey Mike, I haven’t been commenting, but I’ve been loving the poetry. I already have a copy of the book…so i don’t need that;-)
If you ever want to lay out your poetry more spatially (as opposed to a blog’s temporal layout)for web consumption, let me know and i will help you through the process. A decent free place to do that would be http://google.com/sites
Thanks John always appreciate the technical expertise. Without it my Luddite self wouldn’t have a web presence. I’m glad you’ve been enjoying the poetry, it won’t be long and i won’t have any more old stuff to post. I’d better get inspired and come up with something new. Thanks again for turning me on to wordpress my readership continues to climb which inspires me to post more, now that i know its not going into a vacuum.
It is definitely not going into a vacuum. I have been enjoying reading your blog and your poetry. I think this poem is my favorite so far. I used to write quite a bit of poetry and then during a dark time in my life threw it all away. I’m starting to write a bit again, may even post a bit on my blog at some point. Hope you keep up with the blog, I love wordpress for mine.
Thanks Lynda, i get a lot out of poetry, a lot of it i know by heart and i can run it through my brain when there’s nothing to read. It reminds me of who i am and what is important to me. Glad you’re writing again and i hope you post some. I have written a lot of poems about numbers and what they mean, i worry sometimes about how accessible that stuff is so the positive feedback is much appreciated.