December 17, 2011

In 1999 I wrote a poem with no name. It was about what happens after the dust has settled at the end of the end of days, and things start to grow again. Interestingly enough, at the time, I did not believe in the end of days, angels, God, soul or spirit, and I thought the world was a great big ghetto full of pain and disappointment. In fact, in a world that was so full of pain, it seemed most likely to me that God did not exist.

 
Over the next 8 years I journeyed through the end of my teens, and into my twenties, believing that, at some point, I would suddenly become an adult. While I waited for this to happen, I bumbled from job to job, experimented with the regular consumption of various drugs and alcohol, and I tried to explore my sexual desires without actually having any sex: this meant becoming addicted to porn.
By the time I was 24, I found that I was working in a call centre, smoking pot every day, taking mind altering drugs most weekends, falling in love with beautiful people who were not interested in reciprocating my love, getting deeper and deeper into debt and, in many ways, wilfully exploring the darker end of the experiential spectrum of life. And when things couldn’t get any worse, they always did.

 
Eventually, something happened and I started to realise that everything that was happening to me was a result of what I was putting out into the Universe, and that if I wanted the script of my life to be changed, I was going to have to re-write it myself. I also experienced a series of miracles that provided me with unarguable proof that I was not alone in the Universe, and that a profoundly benevolent force was willing to guide me if I was willing to be guided. As an atheist I came up with a lot of different explanations for this. God was not one of them.

 
Very slowly, I started to climb back up the ladder of self-esteem and eventually I realised that the world was not worthless, but a profoundly beautiful place, and that out of the pain comes insight. Out of the dark, comes the desire for light.
This series documents that journey and the illustrations that support the poems, are truly remarkable (thank you Adam Oehlers). It has taken a long time to get to this stage, and it was well worth the wait. I hope you will support me by buying the culmination of this project, as a beautiful A5 hardback, fully illustrated, and with an audio CD for your listening pleasure. It has taken 12 years to get here, and I’m thrilled I can finally share it.

Thank you.

http://simonwelshpoetry.co.uk/shop-pd.php?id=38