This title came to me while I was at a meeting recently. With my recovery anniversary near the start of July I’ve been thinking a little about when I arrived in the rooms, as it were. By the end of my drinking I was caught in a shame spiral that made death by alcohol seem deserving.
can you see the real me?
I was unable to be openly honest about my sexuality, except, of course, after a few drinks & oops things did happen with a ‘straight’ drinking buddy. So I was queer, a compulsive liar (because if I couldn’t be honest about myself why tell the truth about anything anyway, right); I was a thief. As a child I messed around with other children so I was a child molester anyway. There were no role models for me & like many closeted queer, I thought I was supposed to be a cross-dresser too.
On top of which I was (& still am) intensely creative, imaginative, & driven to express myself. Creativity is only respected if it makes lots of money – poetry is not butch enough – though no one ever quibbled about Leonard Cohen’s manliness.
am I’m in the kitchen or the bath?
I felt like I was from another planet – an alien – alienated from the culture I was living in on the east coast – there was an artsy crowd but I wasn’t considered their intellectual peer so never felt invited into it – coming into recovery was, for a time, finding myself with guys who were in many ways like me – queers who drank to get through the identity struggle.
there’s a whole person somewhere in there
In the recovery literature there’s a passage to the effect that ‘the old pangs of anxious apartness would disappear.’ Well, let me tell you that after over 37 years this hasn’t happened to me – I still feel that apartness, but today I’d rather feel it that numb myself to it. The apartness is a part of being human, I’d rather be human than an alien.
another of the rough rough drafts of my canto-by-canto rewrite of Dante’s Purgatory. By ‘rough’ I mean this is the first time I’ve looked at this canto since I first wrote it several years ago.
canto 6
Verlaine urged me
toward the exit
on to the next stage of our journey
when the denizens of the terrace
turned nearly as one to me
and various of them
began to plead with me
‘Duncan please
you are the one who can bring us rescue
tell us what to do
or better yet intercede on our behalf
make the gates opens
let new light flood through to us here
let the steamer work
so we can get better espresso
call a repair man
we’ll pay you back later
you have the juice we need
to get all of us back on line
plug us in
line us up with the right wifi provider
bigger tetra-bytes of memory
please we trust you
you know deep in your own creative soul
that this is what you are intended for
don’t you don’t you
you many ever reach the heights
we have reached
but you can give us the boost we need
please
take a few moments
write a little affirmation for us
an ode to our creative souls
that will release us
from this endless unproductive waiting
you have to
you must
please pretty please
think what it will mean to you
you can become
a foot note
in our great biographies
in each of them
there are so many here
each of us is counting on you now
now bring the light to bear upon us
to get the beans ground properly
to get the waiters
to bring us the right orders
so what if we weren’t sure of what we want
you can straighten that out
get them to go to the Barista
the big steamer in the sky
to perk us the proper brew
please
please
only you can do that now
when you return from that trek
get all your friends to do the same
the more who wish us the well
the sooner we can get on with
whatever their is for us to get on with
do you understand
are you willing’
The misery and desperation
on their faces touched me
and sickened me at the same time
‘Get the fuck away from me
you bunch of lazy bums
so what if you had the spark
and let expectations dull it
shine your own shoes
that is the only way to do it
stop moaning and groaning
and counting on things
outside your own volition
to get you anywhere
the glimpse of purity you have had
can continue
but not though my eyes
only through your own
so stop looking to critics
buyers
juries
to give you light
but look instead to your own inner soul
to your own creative need
to do and keep doing
don’t blame me
if that light flickers
even if that light doesn’t appeal to me
so get the fuck out of my way
I have better things to do
than intercede on behalf of any of you.’
‘Oh yeah
what is Verlaine doing
is he not interceding for you.’
‘He is my guide nothing more.’
‘Then be our guide too Duncan
you have to lead us
through to the next level of consciousness
to the great transformation
you must
you can do it.’
‘Look I have enough trouble
doing that for myself
I’m not to be followed
in any way
I don’t even like Verlaine’s verse
I hate to admit that
I can’t even think of a line
but he has been sent to me
unbidden
so perhaps someone will be sent to you.
so now get lost
because it was in being lost
that I was sent this guide
lost and powerless
not knowing there anyway out
you think there is a way out
until you lose that thread of hope
there is no way out’
September 3-6 – attending – Fan Expo
( I’ve registered already 🙂 )
http://fanexpocanada.com
October 18, Sunday – feature: Cabaret Noir: Inner Child Sacrifice
November 1 – 30 Participating NaNoWriMo
http://nanowrimo.org/
Like my pictures? I post lots on Tumblr
https://www.tumblr.com/blog/topoet
shelf reflection
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