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oh god how is it possible
to love one another
so intensely
yet rub each other up the wrong way
no saving us
i want to dissipate into mist
invade your pores
This is a Dear John letter.....
are you
******?
when you write
your poems
he asked
as if they were
nothing
more than
that
I recently read
that Brautigan's last manuscipt
had small pieces
of his brain matter
stuck to the paper
which got there
after he blew his brains out,
and today
after I had written a poem,
I had an insight
into the mind
of Brautigan.
It made me cry.
Brautigan was a poet
who wrote tender, funny,
light poetry
which I always thought
had something
underneath it
which was deep and profound.
I found out
that a poet like Bruatigan
or me
had a deep
despair, anguish, depression,
suffering, and pain
which lay underneath
this light, funny poetry.
When he died,
I bought
as many books by him
as I could find
and laid them
on a table
and lit a candle.
When I was in the start
of my mental illness problem,
I exhibited physical movements
which bothered me,
because I thought they
were crazy,
but now, some forty years later,
I realized
that what I was doing
was mental illness yoga,
which was the body's way
of trying to cure me,
and the first yogic movement
that I did
was rocking back and forth
as I was sitting,
so now
I have tried it
by synchronizing
my breathing
and my internal music
along with it,
and it becomes
very healing,
so my mentally ill mother
used to tap
her fingers
on her legs
one at a time,
so I have tried that
and synchronized it,
and a friend
used to pull down
on his sideburns
in a kind of stroking manner,
so that's a good one,
and another friend
stroked his legs
back and forth
just above the knees,
and that one is excellent,
so I move my legs
in opposite directions, fast,
back and forth,
and that one works well,
so I roll my head around
in circles,
and that actually is
a yogic practice
called head rolls,
and I move my head
back and forth, sideways,
like Stevie Wonder,
and that works great,
so I would suggest
that if you have
any kind of eccentric movements
like these,
to develop them
and turn them into yoga,
because it just might be
the answer
to many problems.
I smoke,
so cancer
is probably likely,
so since it is
and I still want to smoke,
I had to learn
how to stop worrying
about it,
so I remember
that as a little kid
my parents took me
to a movie
called, "Dr. Strangelove - Or
How I Learned
To Stop Worrying
And Love The Bomb"
and it was about
nuclear holocaust,
so since I was afraid
of that happening,
the movie
cheered me up,
because at the end
there are these beautiful images
of mushroom clouds everywhere
as a woman is singing,
"We'll meet again,
don't know where,
don't know when"
and so
in the same way
I have learned
how to stop worrying
about cancer,
and in the old days
people didn't worry
because they didn't know
about cancer,
and they lived their lives
and died at about eighty,
but now
people worry
for their whole lives
and fight cancer
if it has been found
and struggle
and die when they're
about eighty.
I have studied
my head
for my whole life,
and I've read
a little psychology
and a lot of religion
and my head
has been studied
by doctors,
so thoughts
interest me
and it seems
like there
is this voice
in there
who is something
that I could call me
and these other
voices
who I could call
voices
or thoughts
or whatever,
but, you know,
it dawned on me
that all it is
is the action
of electromagnetic biochemistry
in my head,
and I think
oh...
so that's what
I've gotten
so crazy about
for all these years.
I recently
got into
a little kundalini yoga
and joined
the Zen group
on Facebook,
and it was like
being plugged into
an electric socket.
I didn't sing
the body electric,
I freaked out.
Panic, anxiety,
and mania ensued.
This ****
can be dangerous.
I saw my doctor
and he gave me
more medicine.
Now, I'm fine.
Whew.
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