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Who am I?  I am a poet of no particular talent and a man who keeps to himself.  The world is a very unfriendly place and people are not worth the effort.  That is how I feel, how I have always felt.  I sit here writing and reading joyfully, as I always have, but when I must leave this armchair, terrible things happen.  Thus, I came here to these distant woods to finally assess what I must do differently in this life in order to more harmoniously exist in relation to my fellow man, yet I have only encountered new problems.  I barely stepped not one hundred yards beyond the gates of this cabin before I had to run for my life.  The trees were creaking ominously, a symphony of wind instruments absorbing my attention so loudly that I did not notice the soloist until it was almost too late.   However, I suddenly found myself standing before a rather large bear cub who was blocking the path.  We were terrified of each other though, and while I remained frozen, he bolted into the wilderness as if I were death itself.  I would be a pile of bones and rotting bits of the remaining flesh now if that were not the case.  I am living though and reflecting upon the poem that I wrote prior to venturing beyond the safety of my armchair.  The whole affair reminded me of walking to the grocery store from my old apartment in the city where I was unpleasantly accosted by unknown persons hawking CDs and two teenagers running from a homeless woman knocked me over onto my bum.  They looked back at me from the other side of the road, laughing, but they were not actually looking at me.  I was merely collateral in their drama.  They were looking into the homeless woman trouncing about after them that I could now smell vividly, paused as she was alongside me, and they taunted her as a stream of traffic began to flow between us.  Then the livid woman, who knows what great wrong had been perpetrated against her by these maniacs, shouted as her vocal cords appeared to shred, “I’m gunna get you, you fucking cunts!”  It was the first time that I had ever heard the word and I did not actually know what it meant.  I had to ask a stranger after the event and all that she could do was laugh at me as she walked away attempting to overcome her hysteria.  I am a very sheltered person, but I feel very resolute in my absolute conviction that everybody involved in this incident was in the wrong, except for me.  That is generally how I feel about my relations with human beings.  That is why I have come to sit here quietly, writing poetry for an audience of no one in particular.  As I remain here, staring into the forest beyond me where I am now too terrified to venture, the bear encounter was only a few hours ago and he is still in there and has probably returned with friends, if not an entire family of much larger bears, I find myself wondering if I will ever break out of this prison of shyness.  Obviously, I’m not going to say hello to a bear, but there is a local café not a fifteen-minute drive away.  I picture myself entering and appearing exotic, a city dweller dressed in a suit.  I will put on a suit to establish myself here and to garner their interest.  “Why is he wearing suit?”, they will question themselves.  However, I know that the interaction will go something like this, “Hello, may I order a coffee with a dash of cream?”  “Why, yes, of course,” the barista will say, and I will remain silent all while a bubbling urge to ask questions grows within me.  The barista might make small talk, “why are you wearing a suit?”, at which point I will feel the urge to run away as I too will question why I have done this to myself.  Then language will spill from me, but it will be thoughtless and reactive, and as soon as I get the coffee, I will actually run away as fast as I can walk without appearing to be fleeing from a bear.  That is how I imagined it and why I am here brewing my own coffee.  Sometimes I like to imagine what it might be like, at the very least, to not be alone in this, to have fellow writers seated upon armchairs with whom I might speak infrequently, but comfortably. Sometimes I imagine more too, but my experience is that seeking such pleasures only creates more problems as people reveal emotions, needs, desires, and other uncomfortable realities.  I have never quite known what to do and I have grown to feel relatively at peace in my chaste solitude.  It is an uneasy balance though, the result of prolonged exposure to uncomfortable others, rather than genuine desire, and I would much prefer to inhabit an alternative equilibrium. Thus, I set down my pen, took a final sip of wine, looked out into the twilight beyond my window where a lonesome squirrel sat perched upon a branch as if he were looking back into my cabin wondering whether I had a treasure trove of nuts, though it appeared curiously, as my eyes grew heavier, as if he were holding a tiny oblong object, and yet I drifted gently to sleep prior to discerning the nature of the squirrel’s possession.

***

Here is the poem I wrote before the world grew dim, and twilight became darkness.

Meditations at the Gates of the Unknown

I sit upon the edge of a verdant sea
Where I have perched to ponder deeply
The questions that will guide my steps
Beyond and forward, or in sorry retreat
To a tree I call safety amidst darks forests.
I can stare through this fantastic veil
As it grows thicker, clouding vision.
I can walk amidst this daedalian garden,
Beyond beaten paths until there is no sun.
What will I discover amidst her depths?
What might I never recapture once I depart?
Who will I be once she is known?
I can sit here and calmly ponder
Such “questions of travel”,
Providing speckled answers
In the cinema of my mind
Or I can enter the spectacular theatre
And become.

What of me is there now
Anyways at her bosom,
Always between “this is me”—
A momentary fascination—
And the enduring mystery
Of the keenly felt other?

Will the light of this present,
Bright in contrast, forever
Be my center and our union
Merely a sharpening of my edge,
Defining me further, starkly,
Or might I cut through,
Become anew and beyond
Anything that I can imagine
Now and here because the mind
Is forever and always (un)limited?

***

And in my dream, this poetry became the only way to recount to horror and wonder of the world beyond and within me in the wake of the poem…

T’was then, in the midst of a heavy slumber,
I awoke suddenly upon the armchair
Amidst a radiant preternatural light glowing,
Emanating coolly from the window, and
Having not quite answered the frigid questions,
As quietly feeling as if there were no other choice,
The fear of the bear having passed—
How, I know not why as I felt
A compulsion thrusting me beyond my sanctuary
To the very site of the bear sighting—
I took one small step, what now seems a giant leap
And I travelled somewhere uncomfortably beyond.
T’was then, wandering,
A leaf fell before me,
So distinctly a leaf
Side to side drifting,
And became suddenly,
As inches from the ground,
Two butterflies in flight.
A flower rose before me
Too, seconds later,
Vibrant petals dancing,
Stemlessly floating
And the scent was
Delicious.
Thus, I delved deeper
Where I discovered more,
More flowers taunting,
Luring, luridly guiding me.
I know not why, why
I felt so comfortably
As if the exposure
Were controlled
And believing that
I stripped myself
of inhibition, clothing
and my usual care.
Her beasts began to appear then,
Not like thorns, but like harmonies
They walked with me as a friend.
The wolves were mounted by squirrels
And the robins sat upon a chariot
Whose reins embraced a bobcat.
Thus, I followed them further
Until the sun began to set
And all paths had disappeared.
T’was then, at our parting
That they gifted me a seed.
“Swallow it,” said a squirrel
Crowned and puffy chested.
“Swallow it!” chanted the others,
Standing behind him with robins
Chirping, “Swallow it!”, “swallow it!”,
While the predators remained silent,
Unseen, and who knows what thinking.
Thus, thoughtlessly I indulged them
And suddenly the theatre went dark,
“The actors disappeared, and the stage
Became the sound of my beating heart.
Then, after a stunning wave
of total disorientation
I collected many branches,
Ignited a magnificent fire,
And illuminated the sudden night
Where trees swayed quietly,
Eerily so without whining
Amidst the wind’s gentle caress.
T’was then appeared the lyre
In the hand of a handsome fellow
And the music began wordlessly
As more and handsomer appeared
In a steady stream to circle the flame.
Thus, we danced without speaking.
I know not why, for I nervously felt
Words bubbling, seeking to emerge
As the images of fire and man blurred
Together as if at one.
Thus, oh so gradually
I began to feel unmoored,
In tune with music and wind
And at every vision of a man
I shouted gleefully,
“off with your pants!”
“off with your pants!”
“This is nature, and
I am her son!”
“Off with your pants!”
The intoxication came
from I knew not where,
how, why, or when
but it grew within me
and sought to spread
like wildflowers,
a wildfire, a beastly desire
that was not new
merely never known
so intimately in flesh.
I saw then in the flame,
Whose logs were hissing,
The reflection of a wolf
And the fellows’ faces
All around me melted,
Becoming beasts
Whose gazes were sorrowful
Before reconstituting
As joyful men dancing.
And the lyre’s happy tune,
It felt dissonant as dancing
Still, these fellows smiled
And I stood, mind and body
Spinning, spinning, spinning
And unable ‘til I collapsed.
Thus, I awoke deep within her belly
Head throbbing, memories swirling
And laying there amidst the verdant sea
Of evergreen and me
I discovered
my body was covered in leeches.
They were technicolor and beautiful
And with each rip they shouted
In adorable children’s voices,
“Ow! You’re hurting me!”
“Stop it! You’re hurting us!”
“I’m going to tell mummy
And she’s going to make you pay!”
Yet, eventually their voices grew quiet
And their bodies faded to brown
As I freed myself and watched them
inching, writhing, and shriveling
as they began to produce a putrid scent.
My body was limp though
and my mind oh so cloudy.
“Where am I?”, I began questioning,
“How much of that was real?”,
“Where are the damn ashes?”,
“What have I swallowed?”
And, “where am I now?”
“What is happening?’
And, “can I ever return?”
Thus, I wandered through
Bright green evergreen
An infinite expanse
Of everything and nothing
Searching for an escape
As the intoxicated world,
The night before, became
A quest for survival
In a forest without a map
Or a compass or a clue.
Thus, I wandered loudly
Always seeking my return
To the comfort of who
I once was before
I took one small step
Swallowed whatever
And found myself
There and then wandering
Amidst darkness night and day.
The nights grew darker too/
And the trees whispered to me,
“She’s eating you, our mother.”
“She takes her time
As does a tree grow
You will wither within her.”
“Yes, yes,” whispered the flowers,
“As do some trees perish,
You will be struck by lightning,
Engulfed in flames before disappearing.”
“Lightning! Lightning!”, they chanted
As I slept upon a bed of twigs
Praying for the lightning
Or perhaps a loving scythe.
“We wish to see you struck!”
The big one shouted.
“Will you dance for us?”
He questioned, his petals
glowing in excitement
“Or might you go down
In flames without becoming
One of the great names?”
They did this to me night and day
And I no longer had anything to say.
I dreamt of them within the dream
Waking every day, I heard them scream
“Lightning! Lightning! Make him burn!”
Thus, I awaited lightning, devoid of joy
Wandering always and everywhere
Amidst that terrible and fantastic
Now here, there and then
Until one day eventually unrelentingly
I began singing this melancholic tune:
I do not know what came to this
this emptiness, this lack of bliss
and I do not know where to go from here
consumed by fear, how close is near?
And I want to go beyond these trees.
I am on my knees; oh please, oh please
And I come from a place of blissful peace.
Oh, mother please, oh please, oh pleas
Will you finally grant me release?
I promise you, should I return
So many ashes within this urn
Oh, herald the lightning, I wish to burn
Become for you, anything I will learn
Anything for you I will do, who
Oh whoooo, must I become?
Whooo, whooo, do you wish me to be?
And I awoke suddenly in my armchair,
Questioning, “who am I now?”,
My mind still misty
Amidst the musty dwelling,
And I felt as if in a vivid haze,
As if it had been several days.
The memories melded—
The nightmare and fantasy bled
Together into truth and reality—
As if worlds had collided, a city
Taken root, and the construction
And destruction were taking place
Simultaneously.
As hypnagogic visions lingered,
Dancing about before me as
Confabulous confabulations,
A man busking that song,
A happier, livelier rendition
On a sidewalk as passersby
And a few lingering admired
A man who appeared to be
A vision of me confidently
Travelling amidst the sound
Of the city streets, bustling
With people strange and new,
I sought to cling to memories
I felt were true, real, and me,
Memories of comfort, my tree.
Yet, the vision tasted sweet
And the idea, a tantalizing treat,
Of an audience with whom
I might be heard, word for word,
Without having to interact
Began to take shallow root,
But as soon as it came, surely,
I realized as certain as the rain,
People will speak and it will be a pain.
Thus, I gradually returned to myself,
Lucidly me, as seated upon the armchair,
The visions began to recede,
And amidst the rising sun,
Golden upon my skin,
My solitude felt increasingly
Necessary, light, and proper.
“Yes, ’tis best to be lonely;
Only one, oneself,
One world and me.”
Thus, I rose, as if triumphant,
And with gait to coffee to brew,
But the evening’s lingering vision, I knew
It was just a strange delusion,
A fascinating, terrifying intrusion.
Thus, I chanted, ”It was just a dream”,
“It was just a dream, a dream.”
“It was just a dream, ethereal,”
“None of that was ever real”,
“It was just a dream”
“It was just a dream”,
And yet, as I grabbed the cream
“It was just a dream”
Became musical notes flowing
And I began to sing
As the horn of a rising wind.