XXXXI. STRANGE CHARMS, TOP BOTTOM, UP DOWN
we think
we live
in a world
of either-or
and this-or-that
yet these are concepts just
of own a making
own a taking
of a view
of distant, oft obsessive class-creation
things can't be uncertain quite
the will we want, we claim to have
(quite freely, that is)
(or rather, should be)
and yes, maybe quite, it's right
there either is something
or nothing
to see ---
to be?
that's the rub:
things may quite be
but the things that we see
may not be the way they are seen:
so how should we know?
yes, I know, that's presumptuous
preposterous
old sophistry:
but really:
who in the world cares
what's what
if all things
that are
simply are
(even us)
no matter
what anyone thinks they would be:
and a particle
can be a wave
and a structure
be another thing entirely quite:
and a thing alive
just another brief moment
in a continuum
of what lived before
what's living around
and what will come after ---
perspective is all:
and always around
XLII. STRINGS TO PULL
shall need we here
a different way
of connecting things?
a different view
on things all primal,
basically,
the picture of the universe, as it was known,
now read on drugs
world-altering
yes
so that in my non-physicist state of mind
I think I've got it:
I can't get it
some strings are metaphorical
and can be pulled:
these may be the poet's domain:
perhaps, like this:
if you don't know
what holds you together:
you may but quite know
what pulls you apart:
there'll always be
forces to be reckoned with
there'll always be
powers beyond your control
can you see them?
feel them?
touch them?
maybe you shouldn't want to be touching them after all:
power means options
means, ways to just do
it also means: over others
so, can do you with others like you wouldn't want it
done to yourself?
yet, strings an abstract concept being
(a concept, no being)
(a concept, not being?)
(sophistry is still alive)
(and kicking)
can kick we off
the knowledge we should have
by just revolving 'round in metaphors
and weird approximative poetry?
let us get postmodern here
and lay some cards right on the table:
this chapter's called quite, "strings to pull",
that's such an easy play on words
as things to say about string theory
are few
and understood by fewer even
so I won't pretend to know
what I don't know:
'cause I know that I don't know
oida oudén eidôs
yes,
why pretend!
why pretend indeed:
if know I 'bout my ignorance
I know more than if believing in potency
where futility
is pulling the strings
what alters worlds
what alters minds
maybe simply just be
nothing else
but bowing
to the flow
and
seeing the strings
pulling us quite
through this web
of space
and time
and sometimes
poetry must cease
and bow
to science
as the more primal stuff
(sometimes, I said)
XLIII. CONNECTING ALL
nothing's alone
the universe
is far too crowded
to allow
for solitude:
(yet still
we all
constantly crying
for company)
and maybe
we could see
ourselves
finally
as the universe
come to have learnt to speak:
for we are its messengers
its children
its voice:
maybe
now
life is just a normal function
of what's otherwise deemed dead
stranger things, I guess, are true
yet does this pan-life-ism then
grant greater importance
and less of a sense of solitude
to each of the oh, so many of us
on the tiny planet of Earth?
XLIV. BENEATH IT ALL
want I not
to know
what's beneath it all?
want I not knowledge
about the inner workings
of it all?
of archetypes of culture
and structures of physics
well underneath?
so that in understanding
control can be gained:
and the empire is mine
?
in the shortness of time that I have
trying to accumulate all possible knowledge -
oh, what a task
yet then, for what purpose?
the longer I live,
I hope,
the more then to know:
yet in the end,
it ain't quite just taken,
I ain't quite forgetting (well, hopefully not),
it just disappears:
for there's death
lurking beneath
the foundations of life:
ashes to ashes
dust to dust
and memes to memes?
could I not just
enter a Golden Age of my own
become a Rousseauvian noblest of savages
simply living
upon the time in my hands:
and the fruits that it brings me:
would not
eternal happiness and bliss
fulfill my life much more
than the construction
of works
and the commitment of deeds
of a material kind?
what then
(and herein quite lies
the Faustian question
posed well up front)
is the point?
and further, once realized
(or accepted as fact)
what would I be able
and willing
to do?
XLV. AND SPEED IS ALL
are living we now
in a world of wonders
of wonderful complexity
and surely, all could be explained,
and is just quite all natural:
still
the explainable
can be a wonder
in itself:
no need for extra-worldly divinity here
and still:
all's so Vast
and grand
and, to human experience, mysterious quite:
and us
what are we doing?
do we take time
to indulge in the thoughts of others, mere decades, centuries, millennia ago?
can contemplate we, still, the emotions (can feel we?)
raised by a symphony (not merely a song)
an image of art (and not just a snapshot)
an intricate novel (and not just a short one)
a lasting series of television (and not just some episodes)
can commit we even (to another living being)
and think just for the sake of thought
and feel just for the sake of feeling
?
ah, well, what the heck
we live in the now
we're tuned to the beat
of the street
the wall street
the walls, however, are closing in
they capture us
in so frenzied a movement
that even when we're standing still
we're racing against the clock
the ticking clock
24/7
there's nothing wrong with speed, of course
(I should know:
I'm German
the Autobahn is my friend)
yet can you still notice it
without, once in a while,
going slower,
or - beware the thought - getting a rest?
I just want to go to a village or town
sit down in the central square
sip an espresso
enjoy fabulous patisserie
smell the flowers
and the lavender
(yes, God is from France, even Italy,
and not from Massachusetts Bay)
and, while idling in thought
or sweet conversation
just by sitting still
advance as a human being
be sensing
what it is like
to just be
so much so now
that I want to review the beginning:
are living we now?
XLVI. IN FLAVOR MYTH
physicists
are more creative
than people give credit:
who else
would see flavor
in a mere energy spike?
and an (originally once) postulated one at that?
so maybe we need to postulate
to create an image of a truth in the making
with a non-abundance of data:
and thinking begins
not with a full deck of cards
but with a mere hand
of odd ones, some jokers:
a mythology
in the making
a modern theogony
and an invitation
to be seeing things
differently
XLVII. IN SPIN THE TRUTH
emit
we the truth through words made alive:
for without Alpha, there's no Omega
let us make it clearer now
and give it form
take virgin soil
and purest water
and speak from the book of creation
for the language of Adam merely can name
but the language of G-d can bring forth
and speak we the truth
and write we the truth
on a body of dust
thus brought together with the blood of the earth
will now combine
to become alive
and walk amongst us
truth is that which is not hidden
not obscured by Lethe's spell
can we nevertheless though see her?
aren't invisibly we blinded too?
through a glass we see, and darkly ---
can we trust the glass at all? ---
remains then
the uncertainty
the lack of will
the lack of truth
(as the original, innocent truth had to cede, yes, sadly, it had)
and now
to tell the truth
is to believe in a truth
is to believe the truth can be conjured somehow
can be found
is somewhere hidden
and can be revealed
through an act
of re-creation:
maybe through poetry?
maybe in writing
find I the truth
(again)
and yet, somehow,
when writing, I feel like another instance within (?) me
is doing the work:
and I, the writer,
am indeed not quite the author
but rather watching myself
write:
whatever memes now populate my mind:
is writing the act of a zombie somehow?
not quite dead - but not alive,
not quite conscious, connected to something -
who creates - the writer,
or the written word?
and why am I thinking
of the Golem right now?
a golem is raw matter
and while it may move
and while it may incorporate truth
it cannot speak:
truth cannot speak for itself
it has to be communicated through someone else -
maybe, though, the truth simply doesn't exist
(ti estin alêtheia)
though I know it does
what - furthermore - is the outside world?
what is its spin applied to my very own truth
and existence?
well, ain't it hard now
to make out sense
where sense-appearance is but trickery
and smoke and mirrors
appear to be all that there is...
and from whatever unshapely rests within our minds
some things may break through
and in the imperfect creation of imperfect beings
a perfect connection to perfect transcendence
may well be achieved:
and the vessel
the writer
can conjure up life
where none was before
see we the world as she's spinning
around and about but herself
a wheel like, the sun as her master
the moon as her silent companion
and the rest of the planets her brothers
in this wheel where the sun is the hub
and again, turning 'round in the galaxy
a turning over and over ---
and in the small, there's no constancy either
were it not for the spin
of all particular energies
little balls
of movement
little wheels
of Fortuna
if find we a center
find we a place to just be
we are the lucky ones
should get we through into the midst of all this
spinning and turning and radiating heat
then heaven is nowhere to find
and the truth
for us
remains lost
the truth walks amongst us
till we remove
that primal letter
if deny we the beginning
without Aleph, there's just death
and the clay of our creation its end has
met
XLVIII. AN ANTIWORLD
and in the garden of the Goddess
snake spake to us
"like I do shed my skin
and then am able to emerge anew
you can shed what's been holding you down"
-- instead though, we've discovered a skin
that's much harder to shed
a poisonous dichotomy
cursing its own transcendence
despising a synthesis which
- once but it's gained -
needs to be burnt in the fire
of human inhumanity
seek we not
a world
beneath our world
an experience
beyond our experience
a life
complimentary to our own?
in mythos, there's life
sometimes, so much more
than quite in our own
there is
a hidden
life
a life beyond
our own
a life
somehow connected
somehow involved
with the life
we know
an affair, so to speak
our life, unbeknownst to us, has
our consciousness is being screwed by our unconsciousness
ain't that not the sweetest thought
innit?
our lives
are lived in the shadow
of so much older types
of seeing:
ain't it quite strange
to see
how we're not quite the masters
of our own quite domain
how we're not that contemporary
as we'd all like to believe
how're we're just not quite modern
but reenactments, almost, quite
of battles past
of fears all ancient
of battles mythological:
yet still, though, present:
and in this dance, this dance of time
coyote meets snake meets the goddess
(meets Joseph Campbell, probably quite,
dancing with Sigmund, Carl Gustav and Charles)
and all our hopes
all our desires
all our fears
all quite our nightmares
will tell us one thing:
quite:
you are now
you have been before
and you'll always be
because no one's alone
it just seems that way
and in the end,
the myth will overtake us all
and we'll be its slaves
unwillingly
unknowingly (?)
and the myth has a name:
and it shalt not be
spoken
XLIX. A MULTIWORLD
there's not one single world
there's several
all contained
within
this one:
how fortunate now
we are
to see a multitude of experience
in a singularity of occurrence:
if only it were so
for caught we are, still,
in the singularities
of opinion
in the dichotomies
of right and of wrong
and even though
deep down
we may know:
this is just illusionary
cling we
still
to whatever little peace there may be:
or may there appear:
that somehow, may we be left alone
not bothered by
the complexities of life
let truth be truth
and lies be lies
let good be good
and bad be bad
let our history be written by those singing praises
and our founders have been perfect saints
and our nations arisen in perfect a harmony
and as we made it
we saw
that it was good:
or at least, we want to believe
in a multiverse of pathways all infinite
does it really matter
what we
deep down
are doing
right now?
L. FIAT
we've come from the woods
crossed but the desert
sailed all the seas
have found then the stars:
and still:
what more do we know
about the inner reaches of the mind
and soul?
and maybe now
even if we don't know
may we still wish
may we still
hope:
let there be something rather than nothing
and let there be being instead of inertia
let there be sense instead of senselessness
let there be love instead of indifference
let there be life instead of death
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