55 Comments

Thank you. Universal truth when spoken resonates deep in our bodies. Swallowing this affirms me.

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I feel the unattended darkness most in the early hours of the morning. I try to write it out of me, create something from it so I can move forward in my day. It stays in my heart,... 💕

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Apr 13Liked by Poetic Outlaws

Here for the unattended darkness within.... 😉

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Wow. What a beautiful poem! The kind you have read multiple times.

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Apr 13·edited Apr 13Liked by Poetic Outlaws

Back from your road trip to where you met the Jedi?

In a world where a depraved presidential candidate

sells red, white and blue bibles

to suckers born ever minute

to line his own pockets,

and his opponent keeps giving money and munitions

to one side of a religous freak war,

I wish I had renewed my passport,

but since I didn’t,

and even if I had,

Americans ain’t all that welcome

to live indefinitely

like they once wuz,

at least not in Canada,

and since I have plenty of

demons running amock nearby

and within,

I’m left with,

resolved,

or not,

to take yet another look

in the mirror on the wall,

old and ornery,

wondering why the fuck

I’m still here?

But since I am...

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Costa Rica is pretty accepting and it is warm and beautiful. Still- you may be needed here where the anti Christ continues to gain power even through the sales of the bible he thwarts at every turn.

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Wow! My feelings given words...

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I nearly didn't read this poem because one quick scan told me it was too long to bother with. However, I read the first bit (as a matter of courtesy, so I told myself, you know, being socially trained to be polite rather than instant-gut-truthful) but then found a deeper truth by reading it right through to the end. I accord with many of the sentiments. Best regards, Josh.

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This resonated with me on so many levels, Eric. Thank you. Identified with many of your thoughts, especially “wondering how to keep the wolf of insignificance at bay,” and “ the unpoetic masses.” Comforting to know I’m not the only one feeling the hollowness of existence in those early hours before dawn.

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Apr 13Liked by Poetic Outlaws

The best part!!

And I will doff the gross garments

of a false existence and

ascend that sanctified mountain,

emancipated at last from the

lifeless stone of reality,

reborn into the eternal realm

of celestial vistas and enchanted

gardens, a place beyond the

illusions of opposites, where the

struggle between life and death,

dark and light, heaven and hell

finally subsides,

Dear writer,

"I wait for that Ultimate to approach too,

So I doff the gross covers,

Of lies and fame too,

Like many of us would,

And ascend to the heaven,

To see what I have been

down here.

All I can do now,

Is to wait for the fate,

With unwavering faith in it to occur."

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Thank you Erik. These sentiments are close to my heart. I appreciate the search for dignity without which our world would not be inhabitable and I hope that force will propel you further.

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Apr 13Liked by Poetic Outlaws

Brilliant

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Apr 13Liked by Poetic Outlaws

Bravo! Bravo! 🌹🌹🌹

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If that poem doesn’t ring all the bells of existential dilemma and angst. But with an underlying current of bittersweet acceptance and requisite disengagement necessary to really live. It speaks to me.🙏

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This was so timely and resonant for me. Thank you, Erik. You perfectly captured what often happens during those ambrosial hours. I love the photograph - there's just something so powerful about mountains, don't you think? In 2020, at almost 67 and living in the city, I had a moving mantra "I want to be able to walk out my door into the forest, and I want to see mountains." An invisible force led me here, where I now sit typing, looking at the forest and at the mountains.

So much more to reflect on in your poem. Certain I will be returning to it again.

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Apr 13·edited Apr 13

Another potent, poignant poem as fitting response:

"I am tired of little tight-faced poets sitting down to

shape perfect unimportant pieces.

Poems that cough lightly — catch back a sneeze.

This is the time for Big Poems,

roaring up out of sleaze,

poems from ice, from vomit, and from tainted blood.

This is the time for stiff or viscous poems.

Big, and Big."

~Gwendolyn Brooks

Thank you, Erik. And the photo is stunning.

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Man it’s so hard down here to affirm hope. I’m not sure what I just read but it felt just right.

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