who am i?

i’m just a hippie kid who grew up.

i am pollen on the breeze

drifting...

i am a shaman, a healer.

i am sick.

physician, heal thyself.

i am on a journey.

i am searching for a golden thread of meaning

in the tangled tapestry

of my life.

i seek wholeness

because i am still woefully incomplete.

i am a revolutionary.

not a political revolutionary,

not violent.

i represent the revolution

of love without limits,

the evolution

of life without rules,

without rulers.

without rulers

it is hard to measure the distance

between us.

it is hard to measure the distance

between me and myself.

i feel it.

i am a mystic.

i am at home in the infinite, the eternal and the unknowable.

i thrive is gray areas

where definition itself

is undefined.

i devour paradoxes

as happily as i combine

macrobiotic rice and vegetables for dinner

with a trip through the fast lane at Burger King for lunch.

i think

you must get lost in the mist

to find the mystery.

i get lost a lot.

occasionally, as I am wandering in some out of the way place

i glimpse something shiny lying

amongst the rubbish in the gutter.

often i find treasure

in what other people discard.

i am a parent.

my relationship with my child

redefines my relationship to everything else

including myself.

i have grown up by helping her to grow.

i am a husband.

not a very good husband, much of the time,

but a husband who is

still very much in love with his wife.

i am an worker.

now i work in the software mines.

we mill information

the way our forefathers milled wheat.

before i worked as a fortune teller,

prostitute,

porn star,

drug dealer,

activist,

accountant,

school teacher,

massage therapist,

healer.

but i still believe

writing is my real work

and calling.

i am a widower, of sorts.

my boyfriend died of AIDS

my girlfriend committed suicide

another boyfriend died of an overdose

and another died in an accident.

A dozen more of my best friends died of AIDS.

but i am not alone.

there are still many people in this world who i love,

who i know love me, too.

i am an artist.

all life is art.

it is a joy to create.

the more i do,

the more i want to.

i am an anarchist.

i believe in the virtue of being

out of control.

i practice just being

free.

i am a philosopher.

i believe in a power called Choice,

the power of imagination, inspiration,

compassion.

Choice is different than choices.

choices refer to what’s on the menu.

Choice refers to the power to design a meal

that wasn’t on the menu.

My ethical philosophy rests on the understanding that

any time a person does something that

touches, inspires, heals or liberates someone

they have created Choice, which is the essence of good.

whenever anyone does something that is

coercive, manipulative or violent

they destroy Choice.

to destroy Choice

is my definition of evil.

i am a wanderer.

i still go where the road takes me

and when the road ends

i go on a bit further.

i want to see what is on

the other side of the hill.

i am a poet.

and though my pen may falter

the song

will not rest in me

until it is fully sung.

1/7/2003