An Artist’s Journey in Creative Imagineering
an autobiographical poem
by Bobby BeauSoleil
Once upon a time I was a boy
poised on the threshold of manhood
unsure and untried
badly in need of a rite
signifying a bridge crossing
that mysterious divide
I did not yet know who I am
Young, dumb, and full of cum
as the convicts would say
back in the day
Like so many youngsters
with brains too small
for their attitudes
too underwired
for perceiving the pitfalls
laying in wait of their missteps
who impetuously toss their lives
to the voracious Fates
by committing ill-conceived acts
with calamitous consequences
and repercussions
that go careening
and ricocheting
into the noisy clutter of human affairs
like steel balls in a pinball machine
Not quite a man, truly
and not yet knowing who I am
at the age of twenty-one
I joined that ignoble fraternity
Lost among the lost
in the labyrinthine halls
of unjustifiable justice
under dominion of the damned
Ministry Of Love Denied
With not yet a glimmer
of who I am
and unaware of the Question
that would eventually
guide me to knowing
Battlefield shock
chiseling deep cracks in my mind
choking off clarity of thought
No one came to ask
if I was doing alright
to help me
to fight down the demons
who haunted my trauma
Death and life
in a tangle of ambiguity
dark and light
in a lover’s embrace
The dualities
in their endless dance
and struggle
taunting me
with their ethical dilemmas
in confusing disarray
Besieging my mind
sapping my strength of will
crushing my courage
as with a weighty sack
bulging with moral regrets
the heavy chains of shame
dragging behind
Stumbling in the dark
following blind leaders
who promised proof of manhood
a white lie leading toward the black
bottomless abyss of oblivion
feeling as I would gratefully surrender
and lose all my burdens
in the fall
At the last moment
a guardian angel
pulling me back from the brink
lifting me up by the scruff
shaking loose the glamours
and entrusting to me
this cursed gift:
Who am I?
The Question echoes in the dark
Who am I?
Who am I?
Who am I?
The query became a mantra
that would
step by laborious step
lead me out of the darkness
of my infernal ignorance
But my karmas
had carved such deep furrows
in the firmament of my soul
erecting colossal barriers
steep and forbidding
to where I felt dwarfed
into helplessness
so it seemed my efforts
to climb out of the karmic maze
might take all of an age
And time is a luxury
but rarely an ally
of the imprisoned
With no other redeeming path available
I began clawing my way
inch by inch
toward the light
in arduous efforts
made all the more difficult
by jealous souls
who grabbed at my legs from below
confounding my efforts to make progress
Trying to overcome
seemingly insurmountable obstacles
it can break a man
in more ways than one
My heart has been broken many times
broken and battered and scarred
by trust betrayed
by unfulfilled longings
profoundly aggrieved by losses almost
almost
almost too great to bear
and pierced by a knife
wielded in anger and fear
by a former friend
a menace
derailed from any awareness
of who he is
leaving me to expel my life’s blood
from out of my mouth and chest
A fearsome violence on display
in the cosmic balancing act
a karma swinging back around
like a bird with a sad song
flying home to roost
with a dreadful message:
the experiencing of such a terrible thing
as I once inflicted on another man
Truly,
in this one lifetime
I have killed and been killed
I have died and been resurrected
That I may offer this testimony
and attest that karma does not bend
to misbegotten notions
around vendettas and just desserts
rather that karma is of a higher power
not subject to personal judgement
inevitable and inexorable
that may bring a reckoning
that may bring an awakening
to freshen possibilities
to reveal opportunities
for discovering self-truth
for opening the heart
to forgiveness
to self-forgiveness
expanding space for empathy
deepening capacity for humility
and strengthening the will
to get back up and carry on
No joke,
I have journeyed through Hell …
but fellow travelers have appeared
along the way
and offered friendship
I was not without help after all;
just when hope seemed most absent
generous souls lent me a hand up
gently easing me of my burdens
nourishing me with their kindnesses
and understanding
and encouragement
Whisperings of the ancestors
even the insane ones
offered vague
and sometimes misleading
guidance and inspiration
spurring me on
as I reached up
to grasp the higher truths
and enlarge my understanding
Struggle and fight
study and learning
wisdom dawning
in flickers and flares
more than the eye can see
While the Question
continued to reverberate
down through the years
Who am I?
Who am I?
Disobedient Child
Runaway
Homeless Boy
Wayward Son
Lost Brother
Flower Child
Draft Dodger
Pot Smoker
Sinner
Killer
Absent Father
Condemned Prisoner
Terms and labels
describing behaviors and conditions
not a person
many frequently used to malign
belittle
dismiss
and therefore
can in no way meet the qualifications
for being the Who in this enquiry
Who am I?
Student
Seeker
Mystic
Survivor
Warrior
Life Hacker
Cosmic Explorer
Getting warmer
but such pursuits
if successful
are at best of an ephemeral nature
transient
and so will not serve
to identify that which must be
at the core
ineradicable
Who am I?
Artist
Ah, now this one rings a bell!
Dedicating my focus
my thoughts
my energies
to expressing in the creative arts;
it was clearly my calling
opening a way forward
a path of escape
out of the quagmire
of destructive
and self-destructive
associations
who had infected my life
and the bad decisions
that had imprisoned me;
a calling to transform
negative energies
into a positive force
that might contribute
beneficial meaning
and beauty
to a suffering world
The role of artist
as my path
became multifaceted
encompassing many disciplines
Musician
Composer
Soundscape Designer
Lyricist
Painter
Illustrator
Image Designer
Electronics Wizard
Inventor
Writer
Filmmaker
Warmer still
but still leaves unanswered
the Question
of Who all this is actually for
Who am I?
Family Man
Blessings beyond reckoning
the bonds and ties remain intact
in spite of draconian restrictions
my kindred near and distant
all my relations
an extended family
and my place in it
connecting to one another
in Spirit and aspiration
nourishing my soul
with love and support
inspiring and informing
all of my efforts
as …
Grateful Son
Brother
Husband
Lover
Father
Widower
Friend
Grandpoppi
Wise Man
Teacher
And inevitably
sentimental connections fail
stretched to the limits of duration
the bonds and ties unwind
precious memories fade
and love returns to Spirit
as the memorial artifacts
slowly dissolve to dust
posing now the Question
of what or Who shall remain
Who am I?
Ultimately all
and none
of the above
Ideations of the self
formed around occupations
style personas and life roles
are vagrant but have purpose
like stepping stones
used for crossing
the learning streams of experience
Still, all experience is fugitive
subject to changing
and slipping from view
or out of reach
while Truth remains immutable
only thinly veiled
by the mind’s fascination
with sensory objects
Better, perhaps, to ask who I am not
I am not a personality
fixed by vanity
or taking too seriously
the fleeting identities
I am not a history
least of all one flawed
by too many embellished tellings
I am not
nor have I ever been
anyone’s minion
I am not my successes
or my failings
nor defined by the worst thing
or even the best thing
I have ever done
I am not a measure
of my life experiences
though each one has brought me closer
to the realization of who I am
Approaching the summit,
I become more aware
that the making of a living
and the artifacts of endeavor
have little real meaning
or lasting value
beyond the purposeful process
of meditatively engaging
with their creation in the moment
where striving for perfection
is itself perfection attained
Awakening and remembering,
attachments to the worldly
self-identifications
and their works
are sloughed off
like the husk of a chrysalis
Who am I?
One whose need for a rite of passage
eventually led beyond layers of bondage
to the gates of knowledge
leading to transcendence
to freedom
The keepers of the dispossessed
are strangely oblivious
to the true Master they serve
when they make inward
a prisoner’s only way out
Human civilization teeters on the edge
of tipping across the point of no return
and may well collapse in on itself
under the unsustainable weight
of obscene consumptive excesses
of runaway systemic failure
our fundamental social constructs crumble
weighed down by paranoia and distrust
brought on by too many conflicting dogmas
… and the power-hungry megalomaniacs
with their conniving denying deceivers
scruples twisted by delusional doctrine
may succeed at last
in pushing the human story
off the edge of the page
… and the loamy flesh of Earth
mother of us all
may writhe and wither
under the abuses and tortures
wantonly inflicted on her
by her greedy and ungrateful children
leaving only the furious shrieking
of her windsong wailing
to disquiet the stillness
to disturb the dust
of desolate lands
… and all the forests
and all the forest’s inhabitants
and all the denizens and flora
of all the watery worlds
and all the bodies of all of our billions
may become the fossil fuels
for some distant future race
Yet I …
I shall remain
Unbroken
Untouched
by long imprisonment
Untarnished
by contrived judgements
and epitaphs
Unfettered
from the hostilities
from the bitter resentments
and from the dark moods
that blind and bind the mind
to unreality
Unbound
from the pains
of aging bones
and failing flesh
Unfurling
as the alpha
the omega
the alpha again
and again the omega
again and again
in the eternal cosmic dance
of death and renewal
Glorified in the fullness
of my love loving
and being loved
in a flowering
of everlasting radiance
I am?
Time and time again
the query and the reply
I am