BOBBY BEAUSOLEIL

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