

Discover more from Poetic Outlaws
A place for the outlaws of poetry and the written word.
Over 20,000 subscribers
Continue reading
He is unfit for this life, this unduly managed era devoid of poesy and freedom, a time of useless haste in honor of the illusion of progress, a life starving of life, a life dripping with chains as dull-witted bureaucrats and political imbeciles run amok. There’s something dark and peculiar in him that forbids his full participation in the blatant absurdity of today’s world. Even as a child he felt something fierce was there in him — an unrest, an unrealized freedom, something shadowy but knowing, a deep-seated primordial power groping endlessly in the apocalyptical night. It’s still there, stirring in the inmost abyss, this esoteric ghost, this daemon, dwelling in the shadows of the soul, convulsing and throbbing like a diabolical gypsy in the throes of ecstasy. He tries, at times, to wash it away with morality and decency, bowing down to the sanctified normalcy of his fellow humans. But still, it’s there, raging, taunting him, hounding him, forcing him out of the prison of SELF and into the creative realm, the destructive realm, into the elemental kingdom of existence. It calls forth the spirit into a higher dominion of being and yearns for expression, this enigmatic drive, even at the cost of reputation and alliance and it tempts the body, the vehicle of the soul, to thrive with Dionysian defiance, and it wants to flip over the table of conventionalities and go to war with all customary forms and cultural norms. It’s this archaic force that burns from the most profound depths of his being, an insatiable rapture that coalesces the dark of the unconscious with the universal light, arousing the sheer realization of his utter nothingness — the true awakening. He could hardly put on a mask and endure the typical occupation, or partake in the social games of the ordinary, blindly acting out his role on the stage of culture, following the fashions of the day, living uncritically as a conditioned child. Undefinable, with no creed or title and a fierce contempt for conceptual reality, he’s in spiritual exile from the place and time he was born into. Terribly alone among his contemporaries, misunderstood by an arid society, an aimless wanderer, he is, laughed at by the well-adjusted, their minds chloroformed with low-grade entertainment, their meanings and desires built into them from the outside. The more emaciated they are inwardly, the showier they become outwardly. But he cares nothing of status and spectacle or the unimaginative interests of the bourgeois, so he ventures onward towards an austere existence, choosing the possibility of poverty over pointless labor, autonomy over dependency, art over it all – an unconditional renunciation of a secure existence in search of the sublime. He’s in flight from the endless trivialities that make up the modern world, choosing instead to live perilously close to the primal forces within. His fate, he knows. He is doomed to suffer alone. When uninspired, the firm grip of melancholy takes hold and he becomes the unhappiest of mortals, endlessly sloshing around in a cesspool of despair, nourishing his apathy with whiskey and mascara-smeared love. But when enthused, he’s lit up, galvanized, electrified, and his heart is filled to the brim with poetic rapture and the forces at work within him become relentless. He is transformed into a mere instrument of supremely powerful forces, consecrating and sacrificing every fiber of his BEING to the supreme task of CREATION – quenching the thirst of a bone-dry generation. “O melodies above me in the infinite, To you, to you, I rise.”
Thanks so much for reading. You can find me around the internet at the following: Medium.com: https://medium.com/@erikrittenberry Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/erik.rittenberry IG: https://www.instagram.com/erik_rittenberry/
The Artist and his Shadow
I really like this one. I had to re-read it a couple of times because the mental imagery reminded me of something, but I couldn't think what it was ... but I think it's William Blake illustrations! It gives me that same feeling, an uneasy balance of beauty and menace. I like that a lot.
This is wonderful