As I look back, thinking about my life my travels and poetry, I’ve
been
afloat in the boat, of world travels per se, as long a time as I can
remember, some fifty-years, or more!
Out in
the cold, out of the cold!
More than
once, stomach empty!
Dreaming!
Following my dreams.
Talking
to people who were not really listening, hence, wasting my time
listening to their complaining, doubts,
negativism…
On things
they could change, but were not going to—
People
duped, turning a blind-eye to this and that, because the truth didn’t
fit into their reasons of failure to
have followed their dreams.
But it
all started one day, as everything has got to have a start, a first step, I
said: “I don’t like being tied down, or
anchored!”
The more
I thought about it I said, “Minnesota is just a place to start from,
not necessarily end.”
I said to
myself:
I want to
see it all, the Andes, the Amazon, Cape Horn, Asia, Europe, War,
Africa, the Artic, China, India; and the
list goes on and on…!
Thus,
Minnesota was a good place to start from, period!
I asked
my second-self, “What is beyond the beyond,” that is to say, the
hill in front of me, the ocean in back
of the hill, the landmass at the
edge of the ocean.
I cannot
express the vastness of my outfall desire in adventure, travel, and
the waves of my hands that swept to
reach them places.
To circle
the world.
My mind,
thrilled at the prospect!
My
spirit, save, if I lived long enough, to do it, I’d do it!
I always
knew the world would be to a certain degree a nightmarish
horror, in transversely —
That it
was a place most people wanted to avoid, lest they go in groups as
tourists, here and there, for safety
reasons; I preferred travel any-
which-way, sole most of my days… And why
not?
The world
tugged at people, I knew this too, but it was not reason enough
to stop me, it was man-made, let the
bewildered and fearful, stay home!
You got
to live life and not be afraid to! (but you better know how to fight!)
Had I
stayed in Minnesota, I would have died idle and helpless long before
I’d would have been able to write this,
poetic prose…
Drunken
on my ass!
At an
early age my mind was made-up, my neighborhood was no place for
me, the way out was simple, I would
leave and lean my head to fate,
face fate… Like a fish on a hook, if need be, and I’ve
been on that
hook, believe me!
For just
one person, the world was large enough I figured.
On a
second thought: what would come, would come.
If there
was something for me to find, somewhere I’d find it!
If others
have traveled the world, why not me?
I was not
going to be left behind! Nor beg, one
must not do that, lest he
become unworthy of the world; and God’s
angels to watch over you.
Hence, I
was wandering from one corner of the planet, to another, like my
old grandpa, would pace back and forth
from the porch to the kitchen.
I had
found my resolve, at sixteen, and now at sixty-seven, it is no less
Diminished—
Traveling
was simply, no more than a matinee at Harold’s for me, to
present a simile.
I could
pack up and leave in a moment’s time!
Yes, at
times life was exacting: traveling the globe is not easy occupation
You must
quench your thirst, by and by, and take chances;
Go to
where the few have gone: if not, if unquenched spaciousness
envelops one’s life, squeezes, this is
torment! For a man like me.
But if I
had not gone to San Francisco, at twenty, I would not have gone to
Germany at twenty-two, nor been in the
Vietnam War, at twenty-three.
I would
therefore, not have went on to college at twenty-seven, for seven
years, and would not have written
forty-seven books in thirty-four years, and acquired a number of degrees, to
boot, a: Doctors of Honoris
Causa…
Or become
Poet Laureate of Peru! (that would not have been possible)
Nor would
I have ventured into real-estate, and acquired a small fortune. And I could go
on and on, but begging your pardon, it all started the day, I
said, “Minnesota is a good starting
place.”
It all
started when my thoughts, my unuttered thoughts, sank down and
dissolved to give place in other
thoughts, and I moved on: liken to my poetry—slimly penciled in my darker
sleep, penciled picturesquely into my
cerebellum, only to be written out at a
later date.
And not
wasting my time to all those people who were, talking,
complaining, and not listening, nor changing,
not wanting to listen to
the things I was saying, had to say, not
hearing not encouraging the things I was
trying to explain, as if they could not receive!
Yet still
they talked on and on (perhaps still at the bar!)
Nonetheless,
I confess I kept on writing, traveling, knowing if the fulfilment
of life does not come to you, you go it
it—
Yes, I
told myself, I’ll die a poet, read or unread, and if I’m the only one
that knows it, I still know it, for no
matter what, that will have to be enough, that will have to do, for I have to
scratch the itch that itches at my
soul!
And I
learned not to mind what people think, it’s them that looks that
finds. Plus, the majority of the time,
whatever they’re thinking, isn’t what I think they’re really thinking at all.
Note: No: 5461/9-28-2014
