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Nietzsche's Lament
by jake via shirl - Jungle Drum Newswire Thursday, Sep 7 2017, 12:03am
international / poetry / post

no-one gave me 30
when i was very young,
torn and buffeted by
unnatural, destructive social forces
too immediate to avoid, you can guess

indeed i was a (taught) self-destructive, maniac
but i knew, way down so deep inside
i wondered where that impulse -- the will to survive -- arose
i would persist and overcome
against the odds not to prove a point
but to honour my mysterious comforter

i had learned from the Tao to yield and not break,
overcome as water overcomes by
yielding but not allowing anything to overwhelm essential nature;
water remains water, tho it allows itself to be shaped by external forces
it never forfeits its nature, and by so doing, it defeats without effort
the forces that assail it

how i love that poem by Lao
none have equaled it in 2,500 years
tho the knowledge of my impulse
remains unclear,
tho nearer than it was in my youth

i recall while in the last throes of overcoming self-destruction
how suicidal temperaments were attracted,
nudging their way through my defences
seeking help i thought
i was able without effort to support and prolong their lives
but dependence was their undoing as all relations
must end one way or another
and without self-sufficiency or internal support
the manics finally succumbed

others whom i hadn’t seen in decades would appear on my doorstep
in the midst of nervous breakdowns exhibiting extreme
murderous/suicidal tendencies -- by that time i had learned
and was able to piece their shattered minds into coherence
and send them on their ‘way’

i recall how i was introduced to Nietzsche's works at uni,
poor fellow, he hadn’t learned you cannot force
‘the will to power,’ it must issue like a small mountain stream
at first and then allowed to become a raging river
or scouring glacier or just a trickle until it reaches its source, the sea,
the ‘sea’ of course was/is the comforter of my youth,
excuse the metaphor and allusion
i try not to use allusions or metaphors
in didactic prose

poor Nietzsche and others
bereft of the real will to power, they always destruct
either by internal or external forces -- history is replete --
yet these ‘heroes’ of academia or the battlefield
fall like leaves from static trees
though they are held in high esteem by sick cultures
unconsciously pursuing annihilation,
no-one seems to understand that culmination is the measure,
if it ends in defeat
then why follow?

the wind blows outside,
rain drenches everything in its path;
will she respond to my appeals?
tho few have the courage to engage me these days
they sense something undefinable, disturbing to their minds
(self-sufficiency) people unfortunately wish to dominate

fortunately i no longer attract entropics/defeatists
all seem to sense the power of the will to overcome and survive
tho they are unaware it arises from
pure, unadulterated LOVE,
the unpolluted, unfathomable force that creates, sustains and destroys universes
in one process,
this is the full featured face of
my and Your comforter

we shall see how brave and strong she is ...
i watch, thru the wind and rain

http://jungledrum.hopto.org/news/story-2861.html

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