If I had not been published…

‘Forty Acres, Mist’. (C) Geoff Hall, 2021.

My friend Paul, who was for a long time, a publisher of renown – and infamy – had spoken to me one day and said he had been searching for a new voice; an expression of the deep truths and resonances that stirred his Spirit and that spoke to contemporary culture, with all its problems and dissonances.

He asked me to write something about my journey as a writer, to encourage young poets and social commentators.

 The rest is history.

deeper into the wilderness

 If I had not been published, what would I have become? That is a question which still rises within me, and so, let me answer it now, after all this time.

 If I had not been published, I believe I would have gone deeper into the wilderness, in search of compassion and also become a man who focused solely on writing. These things take time to surface, to disturb the surface after the depths have been troubled by existentialist questions.

 This is so, because there is something within me that compels a response with words; and I respond because I must, otherwise it would be a betrayal of who I am and also how I believe what I believe; that it is a way for the Light to escape from within and cast shadows on the Earth.

world building

 And. And there is nothing quite like a vocation that calls on you to be a world-builder. My only sorrow would be if those worlds were never experienced by others. I write because I must and I must because there is an imperative within me to connect with others who find this world the so-called ‘real world’ perplexing; who seek that connection because they do not wish to dwell in the wilderness alone.

 I am searching for those who find the Church a cultural vacuum and a betrayer of the teachings of Jesus when it comes to the Politics of Power. Who find the politics of this day and age unsettling, insincere, devoid of justice and truth and who are despondent about being marginalised by the Powers of Church and State.

 When you are in a world that no longer feels like home, where you feel alienated from all sense of belonging; cut off, isolated and even then, there is still a longing for a home of intimate Spirituality, that would be experienced without the mediation of another, a priest, or that you need to be a part of social change but you are no longer led to the door of Party Politics, or ideological antipathies to those deemed to be insignificant others.

cultural wastelands

This is why I write, to shine a searchlight into the cultural wastelands and draw together those who want a post-disillusionment world to be born. From the writer who builds worlds and has been incarcerated for doing so, to a community that builds a new world out of the ashes of corruption in this tawdry existence.

Yes, the State likes to appear to be strong, but it shows its weakness when it has to silence the voice of a poet. Which cunning metaphor made them tremble and piss their pants?

 Those who know that this is a quiet revolution, usher a transformational process and will not lose heart. For change on this level is a long process and not a transaction of power that brings immediate resolutions to the problems faced.

 If I had not been published, I would have wandered the waste places of the wilderness, looking for wadis of relief for this parched soul. I would have observed life from a viewpoint of the margins and yes, I still would have created worlds, or poems of broken lines from a broken spirit. Written in the sand.

this thisness

 As for why this thisness should be like this, I would probably not bother the Divine One and Only with my spoken words, but with an intention and intensity of an aching, silent heart. I would, in my discontent, be content with being found by the Divine One, to be redundant in this world, a man without salt, yeast or yes, Light; someone who suffered from Divine scorn and was incapable of seeing any Love in that condition.

 I would sit on a desert dune, look up at the stars and sigh deeply – my only slip from silence – and hope for consolation to arrive in the guise of an earthbound, shooting star.

 This would be my resolve in this abandonment.

 But. But what I really hope for is community; a community that will shake us all from our despondency, our sadness at this lost world, which seems beyond comfort.

Jack Stanza