I’ve been struggling for some time now with the ongoing conflict between my need to make a living and my need to follow that which moves me most deeply. I’ve written about that struggle numerous times, in posts like “go crazy or starve” and in poems like “soul versus survival” and “rush to nowhere” and “dot” (as well as several others). It’s been a theme in my work going all the way back to Iron Man Family Outing, a tormenting puzzle that I’ve simply been unable to solve. In the last few years I’ve begun to wonder if it can be solved.

In any case, now I’m free again, for a while anyway, for the first time in almost six years, and it feels strange. I’m so used to running against the clock, so used to cramming all of my meaningful creative activity into a whatever time I had left on evenings and weekends, that I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be able to slow down, to breathe, to be with my body and my feelings. It’s actually a bit intimidating. I’m surprised at how much anxiety and disorientation I’ve felt these last few days. I’m finding it a lot harder to settle down and trust this strange new freedom than I expected it would be.

Part of it, I’m sure, is that I’m pretty exhausted, both mentally and physically, from trying to survive in a work environment that had become increasingly oppressive and psychologically toxic. One of the reasons for my decision to leave was my realization that being in that environment was beginning to burn me down, and that I’d wind up in cinders if I tried to stay. But the damage had already begun, and now I have to deal with it.

I’m also finding myself feeling a lot more fear than I’d expected about having an interruption in income, and about how long that scenario might last. I’d become very accustomed to a certain level of financial stability and now I may have put it at risk. But the risks I was facing if I stayed put were worse, they were certain, and they’d already begun to transform from risks to realities to consequences for me. I wasn’t sleeping, I wasn’t eating right, and I wasn’t taking proper care of myself, and previous experience tells me exactly where that path leads me. As I told one of my coworkers before I left, it didn’t make a lot of sense to me to destroy my health in order to keep my health insurance.

So here I am, free, tired, and a little (sometimes a lot) scared. I expect I’ll begin to settle down over the next week or so, but it’s going to take some more focused awareness and some better self-care than I’ve been giving myself for a while now. I have a strong sense of why I need this time (aside from punching out of a bad situation) and what I want to do with it. The Scapegoat’s Cross manuscript has been sitting almost completely idle since I broke my wrist and shoulder last October, waiting for me to get the artwork together and develop a scenario for publication. There’s still more to do with Iron Man Family Outing, too. I’ve got some other projects in mind as well, actually lots of them. But my first order of business is to settle down and allow myself to get back into my own rhythm.

Maybe then this new freedom won’t feel so strange anymore.

I drag myself off to work
one more time
so I can drag myself back home
one more time.

I wonder how much smaller
my world can get.

can I live
on a dot.

(PDF version)

I’ve posted some preview material on my web site at rickbelden.com/new_book, including an excerpt from the introduction and some of the poems that appear in the book.

I’m also making preview copies of the complete manuscript available to those who’d like an early look. Please see rickbelden.com/new_book for information about getting a preview copy.

treat your body like a poet
not a whorehouse.

treat your body like a park
not a war zone.

(PDF version)

today I don’t poison myself for a pension
today I don’t soil my spirit
today I don’t split my soul.

yesterday I was
lightning in a bottle
a watermelon on the vine
a rocket on the pad.

today I’m a rusty old pile of railroad spikes
tossed together in a heap by the tracks
wondering why the trains don’t come anymore.

today I’m quiet
today I don’t speak
today I listen.

today I walk the circle
that leads to the center
from the outside
to the inside
and back again.

today I know that I’m only a sparkle of sunlight
shimmering on the surface of an ageless sea
today I hear the blade cutter in the distance
but I know it’s not for me
today I know the scariest thing I’ve ever known
that I can’t make my life
the life I thought it would be
not today
maybe tomorrow
but not today.

(PDF version)

what’s the half-life of a lousy childhood?
stranglehold tentacles
come out of a house where
nobody I know lives anymore
body and soul clench like a fist
when that hairy hand tries to pull me down
I need lights
I need noise
I need naked female flesh all around
else I implode.

how do I give up what I don’t understand?
this home isn’t broken it’s blown to hell.

now here’s a place where I can be unhappy in peace
totally safe and unbelievable
a crime against everything I was brought up to be
a slap in the face to that guy who thinks
he knows how it’s supposed to be done
a tight connection to all those old friends
I thought I’d left behind
whores just like me
who knows what they sell themselves for?

last chance for ro-mance
take care of these ladies and they’ll take care of you
why do I need this?

the weird thing is I don’t even see
most of these women anymore
not even as objects.

can’t buy a thrill?
sometimes I can sometimes I can’t but
I don’t need a thrill
I need a break.

(PDF version)

If I Stopped

If I stopped for a year
to read the classics
what would happen?
If I stopped for a year
to visit art galleries and museums
would I ever work again?
If I stopped for a year
to dance and climb mountains
would the boardroom bell
not sound for me?
If I stopped for a year
would I learn who I am
in the angry eyes of our tender youth?
If I stopped for a year
could I feel the seasons change
and hear ants talk?
If I stopped for a year
would I learn how to breathe
and wake up the senses
I have long since forgotten?
If I stopped for a year
could I remember the birth canal
and the bright, white light called life?
If I stopped…

Sean Casey LeClaire

Sean is one of the facilitators of the upcoming 2nd Annual Arjuna Men’s Conference, which will take place June 5-7, 2009 in western Massachusetts. Sean’s work is practical, vibrant, and deeply necessary, and I’m sure the conference will be beneficial, encouraging, and inspiring for all who attend.

I’m tired of trying to hit targets
I wanna float
meander
get there when I get there
stop for snacks
pull over and take a nap
absorb the local color
check out some flowers
see the sights.

I’m tired of aim and speed and straight lines
I wanna let the wind take me where it takes me
I wanna zig the zag
loop the loop
go backwards
act on a whim
get lost for a while
and wind up right where I need to be.

I’m tired of my blue steel skin and my gunpowder guts
tired of making holes in things
tired of the bang and the bam and then …
… nothing
I wanna be ancient and new
soft and light
fragile and strong
I wanna migrate
flutter in the breeze
join my tribe in the trees
I wanna go home.

(PDF version)