The Poetry, Essays and Personal Journals of Larry L. Dill
by Larry L. Dill
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy
--William Wordsworth, Intimations of Immortality
But they that sin are enemies to their own life.
--From the Book of Tobit in the Apocrypha
The courage to be is the ethical act in which man affirms his own being in spite of
those elements of his existence which conflict with his essential self-affirmation.
--Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be
Once upon a time I thought I wouldn't mind
Going to prison for something or other,
Preferably some courageous act of political dissent
Or human compassion,
because then at last, at least
I would have time to write without having
To worry about a roof over my head or food to eat.
I was young then, maybe late thirties, forties.
I thought, too, in that period, about becoming
A monk. Not for religious reasons, of course,
Not even, as in the case of the Berrigan brothers,
Because I might be able to carry out courageous acts of political dissent
Or human compassion. But for the same reasons
I had thought about going to prison. Purely selfish reasons.
Imitations of immortality.
These were the years when the realities of my literary aspirations
Were beginning to fade to impossible dreams.
Desperate times call for desperate acts.
Or, at least, desperate imaginings.
I got over it of course. The prison idea. The monk idea.
Alcohol and sexual passion are great diversions for failed writers.
Now that I'm approaching 65 and my debts have finally caught up with me-
Fiduciary, familial, spiritual, moral-
I've turned myself in to the debtors prison of the mind
And joined the ranks of the truly troubled living and the restless dead.
At this stage the writing doesn't come as easily as I had hoped it would.
It's about all I can do just to find the strength to decorate my cell.
They let me have alcohol in here. And I can still dream.
But in solitary confinement
Only nightmares are currently allowed.
April 2009 New Hope Journal
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copyright 2009, by Larry L. Dill