I have lived in the desert for nearly ten years after after living in a city all my life<\/p>\n
The reason that I took this decision is still unclear to me as sometimes I miss people<\/p>\n
There is a hippy commune about fifty miles away and a few times a year some of them check me out<\/p>\n
But although this is done out of love I suspect that they know that I still have connections in the art world<\/p>\n
They bring me paintings and sculptures<\/p>\n
I am not fooled by their innocence<\/p>\n
But they are nice people and are fun to have around<\/p>\n
I used to be a poet and had a number of books published and was popular on the circuits<\/p>\n
But I grew tired and retired to a miners shack to collect my thoughts<\/p>\n
I have yet to collect them<\/p>\n
My publishers contact me from time to time<\/p>\n
I am still writing poetry but I am not as prolific as I once was as I see silent poetry everywhere<\/p>\n
There is poetry in the quiet winds of the desert<\/p>\n
There is poetry in its ever changing colours<\/p>\n
I have no need to articulate this into words<\/p>\n
But my publisher does not understand this or they choose not to<\/p>\n
I am being pressured to return to the city and reconnect with my previous life<\/p>\n
And sometimes during the plainer months I must say that I am tempted<\/p>\n
But this longing does not last long and I soon ignore its advances<\/p>\n
As although I am cut off from the city it often disturbs me<\/p>\n
I am often interrupted by passing tourists or poetry freaks who are puzzled that a well known poet has chosen to live a Thoreau type of existence<\/p>\n
They can be overwhelming but I treat these people with a kindness as they have taken the trouble to find me and the least that I can do is offer hospitality<\/p>\n
I think that they see a romance in what I am doing<\/p>\n
Occasionally a magazine will ask to do an interview and all I ask is that I see the finished article before publication as my city paranoia still haunts me<\/p>\n
I am open to sharing my life but I do not want to be a curious exhibit because of my success as a poet<\/p>\n
That is unfair<\/p>\n
About a year ago I was visited by the cops as a body had been found near the highway<\/p>\n
It appeared at first glances to have been a random homicide and they thought that a psycho might be on the loose as a couple of hippy girls had been murdered whilst hitching on the highway a few weeks previously<\/p>\n
They suggested that I armed myself as they thought that I might be in danger but I did not buy a gun as I felt quite safe in my surroundings<\/p>\n
\u00a0Nothing happened and the killer was finally apprehended when trying to rob a gas station<\/p>\n
I am often asked if I will return to my previous life in the city and to be truthful I do not know the answer<\/p>\n
People write of my reclusive nature but that is untrue as if my mother died or became unwell I would be on the first bus to Austin<\/p>\n
I am not trapped in the desert I just live here quite simply<\/p>\n
One day the desert might ask me to leave or then again it might share its poetry with me until the last second of my last day<\/p>\n
I am living only for the present as the past has passed by and the future has yet to arrive<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have lived in the desert for nearly ten years after after living in a city all my life The reason that I took this decision is still unclear to me as sometimes I miss people There is a hippy commune about fifty miles away and a few times a year some of them check […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5408"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5408\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}