Living Hell & Untapped Abilities Poem by Margaret Alice

Thank you Colin Wilson for taking the time to explain
the why, what and wherefore of the depression and
pessimism of a Sartre and Dylan Thomas – I’m sure it
helps in some way to know why they felt so horrible
and wrote such disgusting stuff

But hell, why did they have to contribute to the fount of
unhappiness in my life? Why did the idiots in charge
feel it incumbent upon them to teach second-year varsity
students all about the depression of the so-called greats,
thus augmenting all pre-existing despair

Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn why Sartre felt caught
in his left-hemisphere brain, the fact that he was and that
Monsieur Jaques in second-year French felt compelled to
acquaint his students with Sartre’s pain was the bane Of
my life – increased by the determination of the

Philosophy department to teach us art theory - using Sartre
as an example – I experienced sinking in the dustbin and
laying face down in the mud with all his characters – my habit
of Shamanistic reading that took me high when we did Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight and Althochdeutsch

Changed my life into living hell while we studied Sartre and
Thomas Mann; our lecturer used to escape from Existentialism
by reading ladies’ magazine stories before falling asleep at night –
while I had lost the ability to be amused by such trivialities and
could not escape at the time –

Though today that problem has been rectified: I read children’s
stories and Terry Pratchett; all accounts of non-physical
consciousness and life after death - though running the risk
of worsening my left-brain inadequacies; my best attempts
at being less emotional simply left me with

A compelling allergy - the most convincing argument for
continuing my studies into the super-conscious and its
powers to transcend the limits of our reality – though you
are stumbling your way to the same insights, you cause me way
too much pain by digging up the sadness of my past…

Untapped Abilities Of The Right Hemisphere

It became difficult to read Beyond the Occult
because Colin Wilson refers to the development
of the Western pendulum-mind swinging between
boredom and pain – and I don’t want to return
to it again: That was my experience of life
when I was small, and all through the years

At school and varsity and the dreariness of a
negative existence poisoned my mind and my
soul until I was a mental case; Colin refers to
Schopenhauer’s ideas, life is totally pointless
- a vale of tears - what a painful memory that is;
my life in deep, dark depression; believing

Love to be a trap in which I would never be caught,
I promised myself; the pendulum-swing between
desire and disillusion seemed too primitive for me
with my wish to escape the rotten life into which
I was cast without my own choice - I only started
to live when I put my trust in ‘joie de vivre’

And the belief that man was free to choose
in which kind of world he wanted to live; after
discovering material on psychic powers and the
untapped abilities of the brain’s right hemisphere…
Though my brain is corrupt and I cannot transcend
the limitations of the sensory left-hemisphere;

I read and believe everything on mystics and the
existence of a consciously loving energy creating
all-that-is; I believe all men have high ideals; even
when their deeds are bad – only highlighting the
effect of mean theories on the human psyche – and
as long as I focus on their good qualities

It is the only aspect they ever show me – so I have
chosen to live in a wonderful world; Schopenhauer
and his pessimism is a bygone stage and age that
I will never return to again – even T.S. Eliot and
his sad, cynical take on love will never see me
again – I believe in goodness and beauty

Now that is all I see!