Underlain by sex

 

 

Lostness   (60)

 

 

I need a metaphysical vacuum cleaner
for the soiled carpet of my soul.

 

Where are higher powers
when you want them?

 

“No lie in the sky!”  sounded one atheist slogan
during unbelieving rage
days upon which, looking at our planet, it seemed
maybe gods should also ask forgiveness
from creatures suffering
subject
to such creation

Here happiness appeared an irrational state
with misery and anger
taking typical positions
behind morality
against onrushing evil tides

Refusing contentment
until situations were put right
thus assuring vexation

(As argument demanding agreement
ensures its own frustration)

Perfectionism
defers living
to search after unreachables

Trying too hard
denying animality
buffoon versus baboon
or remembered child
that messed his pants
shamed before a looming parent
when my arse followed me
like a judgement.

 

There
beneath ethics
lurks aesthetics.
Beauty
underlain by sex
fired through hormones
hence desire overcomes distaste
then other bodies turn
ingestible.

 

 

In the end
at two extremes
we find
those seeing all
as evidence of divine presence
opposing those seeing the same
as showing only
divine absence.

 

Yet
if people who abhor reality
require religion more

what about this particular
isolation…

Might it grow so intense
I’d begin mumbling at deities
(while lacking faith in their actuality)
merely from an urge to complain?

Perhaps
even confessing
I need
a metaphysical vacuum cleaner
for the soiled carpet
of my soul.

 

 

 

(1993)

 

(art/atheism/blogging/drawing/life/lostness/mental health/poetry/thoughts/writing)

 

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Thinking about women

 

 

Lostness   (59)

 

 

Entangled by illness, yet still thinking about women…

 

If only I didn’t adore them so much.

 

I am mired here
amid lingering discontents
of the unloved

Alone
in a city filled with strangers
its female population
imagined
uttering many thousand variations
on “No”.

Recollecting times
women have given me a challenging look
and feeling uncertain whether it meant
“Don’t you dare speak to me!”
or
“Speak to me: I dare you!”

Then breaking eye-contact
over fear of offence.

 

Even beauty
can intimidate.

 

Recalling
when well enough for travel by bus
occasionally seated next to women
like a hungry man ignoring food
faking nonchalance
avoiding her gaze
or potential discomfort
should any trace of desire
leak from this empty chamber
called a heart.

 

Suffering an invisible disability
enables my passing as “normal”
although it shows no reason
to be lacking status

That happens once maleness
(valued through doing
rather than being)
becomes too sick for achievement
hence seen as socially useless.

 

Just fantasies persist
around she who might love me
as I would love her

Which never occurs.

 

How difficult
transcending pain
where it clings to us
like slime.

 

Now I visualise myself
sitting outside
on the doorstep of life
hoping someone turns up with a key

Passing couples laugh
but nobody wants me
in their world

So I rest there
smiling
across despair

while the portal
remains

closed.

 

 

 

 

(1993-1994)

 

(art/blogging/depression/loneliness/lostness/mental health/poetry/thoughts/writing)

 

 

 

Slowly deleted

 

 

Lostness   (58)

 

 

Writing, because I cannot live…

 

Impatient from excess rest.
Thirsting for experience…

Physical problems reveal thought’s futility;
its empty hands.

Mind, fails to help: adding suffering.
Reflections undermining will.

 

Illness constrains activity…

 

Intensifying an unhappiness which going out might reduce,
at least, via diversion.

I remember once giving things up prematurely.
Now, persistence increases pain.

 

A phrase haunts me:

“You always love your second talent best.”

In my case, dropping art for music, and these struggles
to fit words together.

Occasional reveries still arise, about unexpected skill,
being found by experiment.

Though women and chess soon exposed my limitations
at new kinds of challenge.

 

Reality can become a stage for humiliation.

 

There are nights when even my dreams resemble third-rate TV:
inconsequential, or showing repeats.

Perhaps sickness also diminishes the unconscious?
Some inner shrivelling
as I endure this lasting absence of human warmth
across continued solitude
carrying an unwelcome burden
that is my sexuality.

Isolation tightens a cold embrace
while my genes get slowly deleted
from the database of existence.

I contrast the glamorous dead,
whose images stir passion beyond their graves,
with my own disappearance
seen as aesthetic cleansing.

 

The longer I remain alone, the uglier I feel.

 

Hence those fantasies of transformation
envisaging exile’s distressed profundity, yielding,
amid a comforting, attractive,
shallowness.

 

Beauty may only be “skin deep”
but that is as deep
as many want to go.

 

 

 

(1993)

 

(beauty/blogging/depression/ideas/loneliness/mental health/poetry/thoughts/writing)

 

Beloved other

 

 

Lostness   (57)

 

 

In art, I seek a beauty denied me by reality.

 

My current creative sterility prompts the question…

Having stopped making art I wish to see, why expect strangers to produce it?

Should we anticipate satisfaction from those who do not share our needs?

 

In any case, art leaves untouched longings
for human presence…

 

Some single
beloved other
so far unfound.

 

Can I even picture her
while lying here
lovelorn and useless,
unable to heal
my own wounds?

An existence less about freedom
than rendering confinement bearable
when trapped by invisible bonds of sickness
which frustrate escape
through worsening symptoms
until prostration results.

Constant pain and fatigue grow familiar
yet loneliness remains harsh.

Being submerged under nature’s injustice
physically and aesthetically challenged

 

Life becomes a grey trudge of disappointment
marred by desire.

 

The city turns into a more exhausting place
for feeling isolated.

Staying in saves energy
and self-esteem.

Irrational hopes occasionally propel me toward social situations
but efforts go predictably unrewarded.

I remember my father’s voice, saying,
“What woman in her right mind, would want to go out with you?”

Unfortunately, he had a point.

My relationship prospects seem dismal
across this health divide.

 

Each time I come home alone, marks another failure.

And I always come home alone.

 

 

Caged by illness
like punishment
without a crime

 

My body
is my fate.

 

 

 

(1991-1993)

(beauty/blogging/drawing/depression/mental health/poetry/portrait/thoughts/writing)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tormented by blue sky

 

 

Lostness   (56)

 

 

Craving touch, in a rather un-English way…

 

At times, feeling like some warm person, misplaced,
amid cold cultures…

I still have romantic dreams about unapproachable women,
who might sneer, behind tinted glass, as they pass me:
sitting by the bus stop
with library books and photocopied poetry,
in a carrier bag.

Then, while lifting my telephone
(which, being very long silent, I check remains working)
there comes an autobiographical idea for a story, called
“Not having friends”.

But was that situation entirely my fault?
People could have made attempts to befriend me.

I remember little interest, toward myself, emerging from anyone.

 

---

 

 

Impressions

 

 

Impressions move
among solitude
and disappear.

 

Mornings
waking too far under
for faith I shall rise

Illness
taking so much away

Alone on a bed
sensing things fade

Forced letting-go
yet wanting return.

 

 

Around open windows
curtains wave softly

Light
bouncing off leaves.

Tormented by blue sky
this body
hungry to respond

Against existence, slipping
through
these unheld fingers

Where each day sees an absence
of grace
love
or beauty
from my world.

 

Later
with evening closing in
I noticed a faint shadow
resembling smeared pencil-marks
across the white wall.

It evaporated, gently,
as the sun
went down.

 

 

And
I wondered
how many others
now wane
neglected
in their rooms?

 

 

 

(1992)

 

(beauty/blogging/depression/ideas/loneliness/mental health/poem/thoughts/writing)

 

Fragile immunity

 

Lostness   (55)

 

 

For living each day as if it were my last,
I need to be fitter than this.

 

Not spending the time exhausted, housebound, and alone.
With a sensation of wearing an invisible, full-body,
pain suit.

 

Fewer things connect me to life, now.

 

I recall certain people reacting to my distress like a threat,
directed at the fragile immunity of their optimism.

 

Yet perhaps it could seem less oppressive to see suffering as meaningless,
rather than stemming from a higher power intending destruction?

 

 

---

 

 

I turn, clutching my pillow.
Falling, briefly, into a dream about absurd music theory:
describing relations between dominant and submissive,
then its perversion, via the demented fourth.

 

 

---

 

 
I wake, aching thoroughly…

As though beaten by unknown assailants
during sleep.

After forcing myself to wash and dress,
comes a need for more rest.

Energy winding down
across wasted hours
spanned by emptiness
where nothing is resolved.

While I lie, pressed with visions
of oblivion:

one that leaves no legacy
or love
only flawed attempts at beauty
amid some art and thoughts
which remain
unread.

 

Soon it grows dark, again
as, silently, I whine
against such fading
into night.

Any efforts to move forward
still find me squirming
around the hook
of fate.

 

How useless knowledge can feel
when we are unable
to act
upon it.

 

 

 

(1991-92)

 

(blogging/writing/philosophy/poetry/mental health/illness/depression/loneliness)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First blogiversary!

Purple phase

 

As a teenager I attempted to visually evoke sensations of energy and beauty,
stirred in me by music.

(I include some pen images, done at age 16.)

Later, taking up guitar, Hendrix was a major influence.

Even now, after 30 years of being too unwell to play,
I remember wonderful feelings during improvisation,
ascending on a solo,
ideas flowing from my fingers.

Not realising how short this phase would be, I made no recordings.
Nothing remains of those musician days.

Art, poetry, music, philosophy, chess…
multiple interests eroded by illness.

Reading or writing are left to me.
And the struggle to put words here;
while I still can.

 

 

 

 

One year ago, today, I posted my first poem.

No-one noticed.

118 posts later I almost reached 100 followers,
but have got stuck for several weeks,
like a runner unable to step across the line…
at 99.

Growing an audience is difficult for me.
Due to poor health I lack stamina for social media, networking,
or spending much longer on other blogs.

Hence I gain new visitors by chance: via the WordPress reader.
A rather slow process.

 

On the positive side:
I managed to maintain a regular weekend blogging schedule despite many problems;
and “likes” are up in recent months.

 

So, to all my readers…

 

Thank you!

 

(I hope you will return next week for…

Lostness  (55))

 

 

 

 

(Mental health/drawing/art/music/beauty/blog/blogging/poetry/writing)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Illumination’s alchemy

 

Lostness   (54)

 

I fret upon the rubble of stories my ancestors fought over.

 

Should I turn from masochistic truth
toward lies to live by?

 

Once reality seems unbearable, faith may appear essential.

 

Yet, what if current religions fail to inspire?
Despite unwanted needs for community and authority
festering beneath victorious individualism.

Where a sacred vocabulary reveals hierarchy…
does holiness subvert equality?

 

 

---

 

 

Which path to follow?

 

Some decisions expose reason’s insufficiency.

 

Doubts are so fertile.

Not merely when facts can be cited on opposing sides,
or that assertions occur within time,
and memory is fallible…
but, since being taught to speak by others,
can one even be sure about the meaning of words
used to describe inner experience?

Moving away from philosophy
a personal question arises:
do I lack metaphysical capacities?
Am I simply deficient in certain feelings,
required for belief…

Like those associated with beauty:
as yearning lights up the beloved
in an aura of attraction
while strangers fall outside
illumination’s alchemy.

 

 

---

 

 

I consider my empty life…

 

If everything desired becomes unattainable, why continue to strive?

 

 

---

 

 

Now
amid enduring isolation
and illness
any rare examples
of female conversation
involving myself
tend to resemble an interview
concerning a job
for which
I am unqualified.

 

Though
occasionally
I meet women
who are indecisive
about their passion

they always know

it isn’t
me.

 

 

 

 

(1990-92)

 

(aphorisms/blogging/depression/ideas/mental health/opinions/poetry/thoughts/writing )

 

 

 

Jangled inertia

 

 

 

Lostness   (53)

 

In an indifferent universe, not loving oneself invites adversity.

 

I am also wary of conditional self-esteem:
which only accepts a “special” existence,
being intolerant toward the ordinary.

 

Could self-hatred make us incapable of a happy relationship…
even with ourselves?

 

Inner severity undermines attempts at kindness.

 

Abuse lives on through psychic forces.
Internal voices.
Always ready to attack.

 

I remember the child, looking to its mother for protection,
not realising she was a source of his father’s power.

 

Against injustice, hatred may feel like strength.

 

Prejudice as a default condition.
Ethics to rationalise aesthetics.

 

I was trapped behind this face.
Rejected for lacking beauty.

 

Could these perceptions be fought?

 

Many things might jangle the inertia of beliefs
but resistance needs overcoming for them to change.

 

I recall meeting people whose desire for control led to a doctrine
of personal invulnerability.
Claiming nothing happened without their assent.

As if illness and death were for wimps.

Unfortunately, they all had at least one
unpleasant surprise due
in old age.

 

 

Sensing my mind wander
after philosophy
then
a question loomed…

 

Am I still romantic enough
to imagine that some verbal answer
for the problems of life
will banish
despair?

 

 

 

 

(1990)

(psychology/mental health/depression/thoughts/ideas/opinions/aphorisms/poetry/writing/blogging)

 

 

 

 

Peripherality

 

 

 

Lostness   (52)

 

I had an idea for a story
about being always in the wrong place.

Just missing events that could lead to love,
beauty,
purpose.
By rounding a corner,
crossing a street,
moments too early
or too late.

I was going to call it “peripherality”.

But inspiration faded
through my lostness.

I never wrote it.

 

Unable to step twice into the same stream of consciousness.

 

Currently I lack energy for basic activities, let alone literary ones.
Once exhaustion strikes, mitochondria become as important as the muse.

I suppose it might be useful to train for leisure, like a job.
Yet illness ruins free time, along with working ability.

People retreat from me.
Perhaps they find even the thought of suffering unpleasant,
or threatening.

 

I especially regret not having friends,
now I’m too unwell to make any.

 

Does “Know thyself,” imply access to a library?
How about gaining knowledge in relation to others?

 

 

---

 

 

Lying here, isolated,
mind wandering,
imagining what is elsewhere…
am I truly present?

 

 

Dozing a little
I envisage
one day emerging
from this labyrinth
of unhappiness
via some dream-gate
blinking
in a radiant
new life.

Instead
pain has colonised
my body
which wakes
cramped
with emptiness
where bones ache
from the pounding
of nightmares.

 

 

 

(1989-90)

(philosophy/psychology/mental health/depression/thoughts/ideas/poetry/writing/blogging)