I was in the process of digging through all the piles of files I have, as the wannabe writer I collect papers full of ideas, thought, cryptic scribbling's. If I were inclined I would drag them around in shopping bags and in my pockets as we all have often seen here and there, but these piles of papers and files are to precious to me. I would probably go berserk if I lost one of my paper thoughts.
I have such a persons purple file of poems. I dear fellow, bi-polar after a nervous breakdown. Mr. D. was driven over that brilliant white hot edge of mental illness by the Penn Square banking blow-out. Few in the state of Oklahoma were un-touched by that lead up to the savings and loan robbery.
Mr. D. came from a well known legal family, well respected, but like so many of the high society of many places, Mr. D was a shameful blot. He crumbled under the weight of the loss of everything including his wife and two sons to the greed of bankers. Apparently his legal family couldn't or wouldn't help him and into that "dark night" he went, alone.
Mr. D. had a creative response to the inequity of the world, once he realized his being "touched" by greed and power, driven to madness was not his fault and that healing could come in time, but how never to be "forced to bow" to the hyper-masculinity called commerce?
Poetry. I found Mr. D.'s poems, the ones he gave me to record for his sons. He liked my voice and knew my extensive work in theatre and oral interpretation. I was flattered. I had read many and discussed at length his work of clarity that can only come from the fracturing of the mind as it pulls itself together.
White men are killing themselves in droves in this country. I know why, which I will go into at another time...but Mr. D. fought it, expressed it, the madness in the method called manhood. Patriarchy chewed my friend up and spit him out, and like some heroic sci-fi character pulled himself from the ooze and wrote and wrote and wrote; in between cigarettes and coffee.
by W.H.Durbin
Some Man
I stand erect
Amidst the Universe
In all else
It is I...immense
I step
planets set axes
My eyes fix
stars find bearing
In all else
It is I....immense
Before there even was.....
My first breath blew.
In Praise of the Mechanic and the Poet
The touch of a Poet's hand is soft.
Leaving the calloused hand twist the rusty bolt.
A poet's joy - to touch only lightly this stubborn rod,
then extol in stanza its sure fix.
Yet, our world is cold and hard - Its great
Steely Bolts demand and cry out for a crucial turning
_ and finds a poet's timid hand wanting
and inept.
So I sing praise for the hardened hands -
strong in the world - That deny the screwed
and set way of some Eye or Stove Bolt.
I sing praise of knuckles - - cut and red
and so cold so wrench any man's will.
There is not a more courageous unyielding than here.
This I know - for those were the hands of
my wife's good father.
And too, the hands of this poet before he bolted
from their cause - to take up the turn
of the phrase and the twist of a meaning -
in cause of his gentler yet more
binding pen.
A Poem of No Consequence
How we treat the powerless - those with
never redress nor remedy
That is the only measure of our humanity
When, in their abjection there can be no objection
When our allowance is absolute and they not of
any manner of retribute.
When we may do as we will - what is it we will do?
Only you and he - and the insane man's torment
will be unknown at its completion, to only reposit in
your conscience and his heart -
what is it we will do?
Strike the homeless man in solitude but cast
him favors when civil eyes are upon us?
When the Moron is outside of this whole world,
his desperate tendrils severed from any future
reprisals - How is it we would do him?
that is the true measure of our humanity!
For the one - hanging out upon the ledge,
if only one will first call him to his death, then
all may join in and demand his oblivion!
With the water's tension broken, - insanity
ripples through this hydrophobic crowd.
when we may do as we will - what is it we will do?
I was in awe of Bill's strength, his humor and sharp wit born of the shards of a fragmented, glass like mind. Still am in awe as I read his poems and wish I could read more. He must have inspired me to write, we shared the love of poetry like no other friend I have had before or since. And I found my words, a lost paper nestled among his .
by Diane Clare
Love comes to life
When vision opens her eyes to see
possibility flower
From constraints seed of
potential denied.
Love comes to life
When desire, feeling the pain
of fear's contractions
Bears down on courage
and gives birth to passion.
Love comes to life
When dreams, having known only
sleepless nights pacing
dark corridors of despair
Begin to dance in the decadence
of peaceful slumber
Love comes to life
When inspiration wakes devotion
in the dewy sweetness of dawn
and work becomes prayer
Love comes to life
When sacred marries profane
Ordinary no longer exists.
