Dionysian Gnostic

The video above involves an amazing performance by Estas Tonne and you should do yourself a favor by clicking on play and listening to it. You can thank me later.

Enjoy! It's what we're here for.

I'm not even a poet. Oh, I make some attempts but if I'm a poet then it's not in the sense of writing in a manner consistent with following a bunch of rules and conforming to specific guidelines. That would not interest me. I prefer to share something raw and true or at least true to the extent that I understand it.

I welcome anyone to read my work and I look forward to making my way around to reading as much of everyone else's writing as I can or at least as much as time permits. I am not here to give constructive criticism because I'm not going to even pretend to be an English Lit teacher. I comment based on what I thought and how I felt about your writing. I'm not here to change you or save you. I'm mostly here to try to understand and embrace what you're willing to share and in turn reveal a bit about myself.

With all the aforementioned in mind I would like to share one of my favorite poems by Charles Bukowski:

so you want to be a writer?
Charles Bukowski, 1920 - 1994


if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it for money or
fame,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don’t do it.
if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.


if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you’re not ready.

don’t be like so many writers,
don’t be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don’t be dull and boring and
pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don’t add to that.
don’t do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don’t do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.