Spiritual Poetry by David Peter Swan

Spiritual Poetry is a reflection of a ten year spiritual and not-so-spiritual period in my life. It is not all my life. Just a period. It spans a Silent Retreat through the Sahara Desert with the Poem, ‘I Am’ which in many ways was the most natural and sane experience I have ever had.

It also contains poetry that tells tales of my travels and experiences such as ‘Junkie’ which was also a brief memory from when I was drunk in Rotterdam and invited a homeless man back with to my flat. The next day I realized he was a serious drug addict and had to ask him to leave but before he left we discussed Ginsberg and he read me some poetry.

‘Food’ reminds me of the Tibetan Buddhist ritual of leaving the dead out in nature for the vultures to eat. Quite gruesome but also brutal like human nature sometimes.

I’ve just read ‘God is Dead’ again at a time when I was just starting to read Neitzsche again at 47 but like Neitzsche I like to think I and he are just killing the idea/concept of God but not the experience.  I keep going backward and forwards from The Bible to Neitzsche.