Seeking Obsurity: Wandering in the Wilderness of Self-Indulgence

I know why my blog stats are not numbers with lots of zeros after them; after several years I gained a daily double digit audience. I know that most people don’t have the time and mental energy to read a broad range of literature. They are working and dealing with life, family, maybe trying to figure out some of the immense problems facing the world. Mainstream literature is accessible and  useful to many people and therefore has as much value as anything else. If I wanted to I could write more mainstream material and so sell more or get more notice. I write what I like to write, and actually I would love for other people to be interested in my work, but I won’t change what I write to suit others so I don’t expect others to change their reading habits to suit my taste.
There is a reason why Ron Paul or Ralph Nader or any other fringe politician will not be president, because they refuse to compromise their values for votes. Borack Obama, George Bush, Bill Clinton and anyone else who became president moved toward a middle position at least a little, or pretended to do so. They compromised in order for the moderate middle to accept them. It’s not that their values are necessarily better than more middle of the road people, but there are ideas included that are often challenging and need a bit more time to digest. The same goes for literature. If you want to gain an audience, you have to write for that audience. Maybe like Obama, you can be intelligent about it and shift things gradually in ways that reflect your values, but you can’t expect people to jump off a cliff for you, especially when they have to work hard to understand your message. Sometimes I don’t even know what I am trying to say, and I am sure that all that fuzzy, gray area drives some people away. But, I write what comes when it comes. Inspiration is my muse, not popularity. And, so I am resigned to toil in obscurity for myself and that handful of people who, if they don’t always get my message, are patient enough to stick around until I say something worthwhile for them. To those patient readers I wish to say I will be here plugging away trying to make sense of things from my own small point of view. I hope that you are out there looking for the things that inspire you. Maybe I will read about it or see it or hear it as I wander around off the beaten track. I hope so.

Sunday Walk at Dusk

I walk back from the asphalt of the school playground

where I picked up a piece of wood

in the shape of a tree thought

blown from above in the wind

of  two nights ago.

I walk along the sidewalk home thinking

someone might mistake this branch for a gun

in the headlight glare.

so I carry it loosely swinging by two fingers

pointing the delicate web of lichen into the headlight

to reflect pale green above the gray silver bark.

maybe they see me and think

about the darkness that I am not.

maybe they only see me vaguely with no comprehension

simply a blank silhouette against the dark shadow trees

and the sky holding the last of the day’s blue around the edges of

oncoming clouds.

Maybe they see me and think.

 

 

 

I don’t do enough walking at night. It is strange how it makes me feel younger, a little adventurous, but not in danger.  My mind opens up in different ways when I walk in the dark. I become much less a visual creature and stretch out more with my thoughts, trusting my feet to fall right.

Before my walk I was feeling a bit harassed by thoughts of things I wanted to get done before my weekend comes to a close. Now I feel calmly ready to get what I can done. And I will let tomorrow take care of itself.

A Novel Project

I am starting a project that has had several false starts already. I think maybe this time it will work. It is a multi-stranded novel based on a central character (in his early twenties as of 2009) written in the first person. The strands will include people from his family as far back or forward or sideways as it is possible to go and still be connected to this character.

I am calling it The Silk Weaver’s Tree.

I am hoping for it to be a cooperative effort. I really have no idea how it will look when it is finished. With Anansi’s help along with anyone else who is interested, I am hoping for a huge web of intriguing stories all connected.

Grasping Poetry

Receiving Messages From Separate Individual Realities

grabbing a handful porcupine jello, or  the space contained in a floating soap bubble,

lips vibrating, tongue clicking, throat coughing strangled groan,

staggering, shuffle leap into the blinding wall.

How can each voice be different and call

us on into what might be

oblivion.?

Could be life is in voices speaking not to be understood, but felt.

Feel the song of edges

Knife and saw, feather and leaf,

Twang!

vibrate and tilt until something not yet solid shakes into

the periferal field.

Don’t look! it is not for seeing.

Don’t listen! it is not a sound.

Feel it there, not in words

but whispers of grunting fetishes

ground into a powder and taken by the wind.

It sticks in the eyes stinging, muffles the ears and

leaves us arms stretched out waving about

frantically for something

real

to hang on to.

A Poem From Random Thoughts

From Reach to Tilt

The light shot strikes the corrugated pattern of the stone wall.

A lip accounts a tube,

undulating throughout a cruel century,

The spirit ventures,

a lonely tooth shaming the agony reflected in a

delicate molecule.

Cement coughs through stone.

Above the worthwhile danger faints the invented effect.

Can wealth summarize stone?

Tilt originates from reach.

The toe retracts under the tremendous shift of stone.

Reach walks in the gut.

Tilt leans the spirit forward.