Rev. Romulus C. Kulik-Draco
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I do not know what my life, my cognitive and creative patterns would have been, if at all, without having Asperger’s Syndrome, or the other Neurodevelopmental Disorders, Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, Dyscalculia, and God knows what else.
Yes, these may have “gifted” me with a an extremely analytical mind; crippled nevertheless to being barely able to use a map, to engage in a non-topical-interest conversation, to recognize and differentiate by association, larger-size coins with their lower value, or memorise more than two words when trying to copy a text. How fond could one be about college memories of mathematics lecturers, calling me “a stupid idiot” in front of the entire class, because of my inability to “see" (?!?) the algebra behind trigonometry and geometry. Yet the same, said "stupid idiot" intellect, has discovered at around 12 years of age, that I am much more easily capable of writing a metric and rhyme poem about a given theme, instead of a narrative. An intricate, peculiar choreography of thoughts, a ballet of words on a canvas painted by musical touches, by an introvert yet defiant, hopelessness. (Rev.) Romulus Campan LTh.(Hons), FDScMH(Forensic), CertEd-QTS, HLA-H(AP), PgCert Special Psychopedagogy, PgCert Autism & Asperger's PgCert Religion, Spirituality & Mental Health Forensic Psychosocial Engagement Practitioner Chair, Disability & Neurodevelopmental Spectrum Network Dyslexia Screening Advisor Disability & Special Needs Advisor |
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DEFIANT HOPELESSNESS: The Dark Side of Asperger's Autism Reflected in My Poetry
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Dark Romantic Philosophical Gothic Poetry
According to his own confession, (Rev.) Romulus Campan has been "without prior consent, conceived, born, raised and condemned to live in the dark shadows of Asperger's syndrome, a form of ASD, Autism Spectrum Disorder." Confined by his brain structure to an existence of peculiar and difficult cognitive and social patterns, he has experienced first-hand "the reality of Asperger's Autism, which in the aftermath of destruction following WW1 and WW2, and the never healing wounds left by the Holocaust, has ruined the lives of my grandparents, parents, siblings, and now those of our own, autistic families." Yet as a token for the improbable existence of miracles, after decades of abused suffering, of PTSD and Mental Health turmoil, he has found his raison d'être in "my autistic wife, and our four, uniquely amazing, autistic children, desperately trying to find some light, and the end of this tunnel called existence, hoping that it is not, again, just another passing train, with its load of pain, suffering and destruction." 
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DEFIANT HOPELESSNESS: The Dark Side of Asperger's Autism Reflected in My Poetry, Vol. 1 2nd, Revised, Updated & Upgraded Edition
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Dark Romantic Philosophical Gothic Poetry
I encounter each and every poem ushered into my heart by voices of unseen muses, nurturing them, raising them, and accompanying them onto pages of old-fashioned paper, by old fashion, black, and royal-blue ink fountain pens. I do not know what my life, my cognitive and creative patterns would have been, if at all, without having Asperger’s Syndrome, or the other Neurodevelopmental Disorders, Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, Dyscalculia, and God knows what else. Yes, these may have “gifted” me with a an extremely analytical mind; crippled nevertheless to being unable to use a map, to engage in a non-topical-interest conversation, to recognize and differentiate by association, larger-size coins with their lower value, or memorise more than two words when trying to copy a text. How fond could one be about college memories of mathematics lecturers, calling me “a stupid idiot” in front of the entire class, because of my inability to “see (?!?)” the algebra behind trigonometry and geometry. Yet the same, said "stupid idiot" intellect, has discovered at around 12 years of age, that I am much more easily capable of writing a metric and rhyme poem about a given theme, instead of the expected narrative. An intricate, peculiar choreography of thoughts, a ballet of words, on a canvas painted by musical touches and an introvert pessimism. This 2nd, Revised, Updated & Upgraded Edition of “Defiant Hopelessness - The Dark Side of Asperger's Autism Reflected in My Poetry - Vol 1”, is the complex result of many months of deep reflections about the miracle of having been able to publish after over four decades of dwindling hopes, my first volume of poems. This humble beginning of a lifetime of literary dreams, was born as I have mentioned in the 1st Edition, and correctly seen by generous reviewers, from depths of pain and suffering, as an irreversible emerging of what for others may be insignificantly small flickers of light, however for me, on my canvas of darkness, these have become star-lights of hope, and a raison d’être together with my family, at the foundation of what I hope to remain a legacy of genuine, classical value poetry and literature, for a posterity planted already in the lives of my children.
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UPSIDE-DOWN, ABANDONED HEARTSTRINGS: Poetry from the Dark Side of Asperger's Autism Vol. 2, Ed. 1 (with Original Images & Artwork)
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Dark Romantic Philosophical Gothic Poetry
When your mind is in the wrong place... "at the age of fifty found his mind in his heart" from Don Quixote, by Nazim Hikmet, 1947, Translated from Turkish by Taner Baybars Strange... Of most people it would be expected to have been mentally settled by the age of fifty; how wrong. Fond of Cervantes' Don since my windmilled childhood, it wasn't though the lone rider's quest for Dulcinea which struck my senses, but Hikmet's absolutely elemental statement, which at the start of this 2023rd year of my becoming six decades old, bears a rather stormy significance. It's been a week before Nazim Hikmet's passing on the 3rd of June 1963, when I came into the world from which he was about to leave. If I would have known everything he knew at the time, I would have rather stayed. My mother's womb's darkness would have been a better place to rot than this hopeless world, where defiance alone still holds me. It's Hikmet's own discovery which bought me on my own knees, realising that it might not be long before being too late of using my mind from the place where it always should have been. I have always been somewhere mid-left, genuinely believing to this day, that a social democracy stripped of its parasitic "leaders", is a much better option than those where "vox populi" is just the number of votes needed every x years, by an elite ruthlessly |
playing the usurped "vox Dei" on their behalf. About 35 years ago, I was advised to quit a political school I just begun, because of an essay which critiqued Romania's ("Animal Farm"-type) "socialism", based on my wept over memories of Friedrich Engels' "The Condition of the Working Class in England", (published in English in 1887), which I have read when I was about, (yes), thirteen years old, as a reality earthquake, between the works of Romanian, French, German, Latin, etc, classics.
I was totally convinced, as I am today, that it's not its philosophy to blame, but its wrong grasp and (mal)practice in a world where (hedge-politics oligarchies) have subdued most aspects of life, to their own mercantile interests...
Back to my mind...
Without claiming similitude with Nazim Hikmet’s tormented existence, I have fled in 1990 my homeland as a political refugee, just months after the December 1989 Romanian Revolution, accused of "instigating the peaceful population, in an attempt to destabilize democracy”, after having initiated a silent, public protest/signature gathering in my home-town, in solidarity with the student protests at most major Romanian Universities, against their state coordinated, brutal and bloody repression, and the new government's subtle, yet clear derailment of our hard paid-for liberty, into a Mikhail Gorbachev inspired, one-party controlled "glasnost and perestroika."
However, it wasn't the coordinated, covert-police’s physical assault against our harmless little group gathered at the feet of the Romanian Soldier’s Monument in the town’s park, which compelled me to leave my beloved Transylvania; it was the frightening memories and the smirking, commandeering tone of the major leading the officers who surrounded us with blue lighting police jeeps, requesting my documents, the realisation that the "gentlemen" of the day were just the "redecorated" "comrades", at times when again, "undesirable" people such as myself any many others, started to “accidentally” fall into allegedly malfunctioning elevator pits, mind you post-, not pre-revolution.
I can't do any better for now, from the wheelchaired “comfort” of my probably temporary, West-Midlands home, than cherish being “allowed” to hold onto either this hope of a free “daylight”, or its deluded illusion.
“What time is it? Eight.
That means you're safe until evening.
Because it's the practice of police
Never to raid homes in broad daylight."
Nazim Hikmet , "After Release from Prison", fragment, https://allpoetry.com/After-Release-From-Prison
I was totally convinced, as I am today, that it's not its philosophy to blame, but its wrong grasp and (mal)practice in a world where (hedge-politics oligarchies) have subdued most aspects of life, to their own mercantile interests...
Back to my mind...
Without claiming similitude with Nazim Hikmet’s tormented existence, I have fled in 1990 my homeland as a political refugee, just months after the December 1989 Romanian Revolution, accused of "instigating the peaceful population, in an attempt to destabilize democracy”, after having initiated a silent, public protest/signature gathering in my home-town, in solidarity with the student protests at most major Romanian Universities, against their state coordinated, brutal and bloody repression, and the new government's subtle, yet clear derailment of our hard paid-for liberty, into a Mikhail Gorbachev inspired, one-party controlled "glasnost and perestroika."
However, it wasn't the coordinated, covert-police’s physical assault against our harmless little group gathered at the feet of the Romanian Soldier’s Monument in the town’s park, which compelled me to leave my beloved Transylvania; it was the frightening memories and the smirking, commandeering tone of the major leading the officers who surrounded us with blue lighting police jeeps, requesting my documents, the realisation that the "gentlemen" of the day were just the "redecorated" "comrades", at times when again, "undesirable" people such as myself any many others, started to “accidentally” fall into allegedly malfunctioning elevator pits, mind you post-, not pre-revolution.
I can't do any better for now, from the wheelchaired “comfort” of my probably temporary, West-Midlands home, than cherish being “allowed” to hold onto either this hope of a free “daylight”, or its deluded illusion.
“What time is it? Eight.
That means you're safe until evening.
Because it's the practice of police
Never to raid homes in broad daylight."
Nazim Hikmet , "After Release from Prison", fragment, https://allpoetry.com/After-Release-From-Prison
