You Are Not Alone - A Letter

Woke up this morning and couldn�t stand my own writing or the person I have become as a poet and an artist. I wake up many mornings feeling this way. Drowning in a sea of no thank you�s and overdue bills, I am unable to bring myself to look at the words that I put on paper. I cannot write �droplets of water/trembling leaves,� I cannot write about love, and I cannot write a check that will not bounce. Lying awake into the morning, wondering why I cannot be any of the things that all about me are so comfortably, my questions bounce around within my being like footsteps in an empty apartment late at night. I lie awake many nights feeling this way and dread how I will feel when I rise the next morning. Why am I so powerless in the face of this obsessive urge in a world that seems to have abandoned art to an island of its own inhabitants?

Old Man by the Fireside by Paritosh Sen, 1968, Mixed media on Board

I recently wrote a post about poets who blog. I cannot express in words the admiration I have for people who choose to live the life of a poet even though I puzzle at why one would do so. It is like choosing a chronic and fatal illness. Those who are reading this and wondering what I am talking about are the lucky ones. The life of one who chooses to be a poet is one endless struggle, not just with words and a career, but also with why one must do what one must do. I saluted the poets that I wrote about in that post by doing something I have never done - using my own paintings and drawings as images for that post; as soon as I did so, I was seized with the urge to take them off. There will be some of you who will wonder � what does he mean?
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