536 Philosophy poems

_______________________________________________________ there is no door, almost nothing, oblique figures _______________________________________________________ beneath the columns of false marble _______________________________________________________ returned, removed, moonless as an estimate, circle dancing _______________________________________________________ like a mineral _______________________________________________________ possibly a raised sanctuary _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ verse 7 informed my lingering curiosity _______________________________________________________ pallor than grass _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ was not red (J’ai ta lettre datée “En Mer”) _______________________________________________________ minor litanies _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ misshapen pearl, problem or promise _______________________________________________________ walls & windows, crawling graveyards _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ Do not write this version. _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ The manuscript has been lying for centuries _______________________________________________________ groaned or grunted. passed on _______________________________________________________ was it Sappho or Telesilla _______________________________________________________ the space between re- and in- _______________________________________________________ a long-broken line. _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ is it or is it or not either _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ of some oblate vessel _______________________________________________________ of some ageless stone _______________________________________________________ alabaster or avenue _______________________________________________________ pressed perhaps, or rather _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ This will be counting. _______________________________________________________ This will be the blank new page _______________________________________________________ (C should have been inserted above) _______________________________________________________ compressed & chromatic, semi-tones & minor ninths, broken chords _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ polysemous, radiating. If there were _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ Two mirrors stare at each other _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ terse. (“a dactyl equals a spondee” or “one citadel equals two cities”) _______________________________________________________ straight lines blocks boxes binds _______________________________________________________ models originally real deathless _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ the principal protagonist was never painted _______________________________________________________ forgotten or perhaps the opposite _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ reliquary jar in the shape of a jar _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ symphonies on a dead left hand _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ spent horses & hyphens _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ taut fibers _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ of nows millimetric measure reciprocal blues _______________________________________________________ equivocal and faint _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ with no organs _______________________________________________________ A child’s dream of a mouth—fugue fingers _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ vertical to the horizon _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ (someone was mumbling about 76 ways of looking at a black word) _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ of the no need of the moon to shine in it _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ It was not a story to pass on. _______________________________________________________ mummified intact neutral tones in turn _______________________________________________________ moving towards _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________

Infinite nesting pushes all matter towards emptiness: child-nodes, tree-droppings with a root element of null. None is always included in every cluster of children. Nothing in nothing prepares us. Yet a fresh light was shed on immortality for me climbing the stairs firm foot first. Everything was in the banister: crows on branches, crickets, architects, handsaws and democrats. Red moon at 3 am .

The lords of life, the lords of life,— I saw them pass, In their own guise, Like and unlike, Portly and grim,— Use and Surprise, Surface and Dream, Succession swift and spectral Wrong, Temperament without a tongue, And the inventor of the game Omnipresent without name;— Some to see, some to be guessed, They marched from east to west: Little man, least of all, Among the legs of his guardians tall, Walked about with puzzled look. Him by the hand dear Nature took, Dearest Nature, strong and kind, Whispered, ‘Darling, never mind! To-morrow they will wear another face, The founder thou; these are thy race!’

I Like Crusoe with the bootless gold we stand Upon the desert verge of death, and say: “What shall avail the woes of yesterday To buy to-morrow’s wisdom, in the land Whose currency is strange unto our hand? In life’s small market they had served to pay Some late-found rapture, could we but delay Till Time hath matched our means to our demand.” But otherwise Fate wills it, for, behold, Our gathered strength of individual pain, When Time’s long alchemy hath made it gold, Dies with us—hoarded all these years in vain, Since those that might be heir to it the mould Renew, and coin themselves new griefs again. II O Death, we come full-handed to thy gate, Rich with strange burden of the mingled years, Gains and renunciations, mirth and tears, And love’s oblivion, and remembering hate, Nor know we what compulsion laid such freight Upon our souls—and shall our hopes and fears Buy nothing of thee, Death? Behold our wares, And sell us the one joy for which we wait. Had we lived longer, like had such for sale, With the last coin of sorrow purchased cheap, But now we stand before thy shadowy pale, And all our longings lie within thy keep— Death, can it be the years shall naught avail? “Not so,” Death answered, “they shall purchase sleep.”

Said the Eye one day, “I see beyond these valleys a mountain veiled with blue mist.  Is it not beautiful?” The Ear listened, and after listening intently awhile, said, “But where is any mountain?  I do not hear it.” Then the Hand spoke and said, “I am trying in vain to feel it or touch it, and I can find no mountain.” And the Nose said, “There is no mountain, I cannot smell it.” Then the Eye turned the other way, and they all began to talk together about the Eye’s strange delusion.  And they said, “Something must be the matter with the Eye.”

After John Milton Our light is never spent. Is spent. Thus have we scooped out maceration reservoirs. We will blaze forth what remains as pixels. Great angels fly at our behest between towers, along axons and dendrites, so that things stand as they stand in the recruited present.

Two women with the same claim came to the feet of the wise king. Two women, but only one baby. The king knew someone was lying. What he said was Let the child be cut in half; that way no one will go empty-handed. He drew his sword. Then, of the two women, one renounced her share: this was the sign, the lesson. Suppose you saw your mother torn between two daughters: what could you do to save her but be willing to destroy yourself—she would know who was the rightful child, the one who couldn’t bear to divide the mother.

Ar. Now you have been taught words and I am free, My pine struck open, your thick tongue untied, And bells call out the music of the sea. From this advantage I can clearly see You will abuse me in your grovelling pride Now you have been taught words: and I am free To pinch and bully you eternally, Swish round the island while the mermaids hide And bells call out the music of the sea. I watched you closely from within my tree: Explicit fish, implicit homicide, Now you have been taught words, and I am free To hear, who has the real victory? For you may drown as I draw in the tide And bells call out the music of the sea. You lust for Her and bare your teeth at me. Your roarings only mock the ache inside Now you have been taught words. And I am free While bells call out the music of the sea. Cal. Have you no feelings that you cannot tame? Ar. My target’s everything, and in my aim, Achievement, while another, Lesser lusts may drive: Legs hate their lazy brother Who saps your precious Five To keep alive. Cal. Have you no visions that you cannot name? Ar. A picture should extend beyond its frame, There being no limitation To bright reality: For all their declaration And complexity, Words cannot see. Cal. Are not the object and the word the same? Ar. Words are but counters in a childish game; Each move you make is token Only of the rules: Any rule may be broken By the boy from a clever school Or a bored fool. Cal. How is it, then, that words can hurt and maim? Ar. If words do that, you are already lame, Bowed down by words like firewood, Clenched with words like ice: Language is for the coward Who thinks a rule is nice At any price. Cal. O then unteach me language, let the cool Sea sidle up and draw me to its deep Silence. Teach me how to break the rule. Ar. Once in the game you cannot make that leap. The sea will cast you up again if you Pretend to break the rule you really keep. Cal. But tell me, then, if what you say is true, What was your knowledge when you could not move? What instinct told what function what to do? Ar. Words would not help the channelled sea to prove It was not ocean-free, nor pine no fuel: I just existed, wordless, in my groove. Nor do I use words now, though you In innocence may think I do: We’ve left the island and engage In conversation on a page Sand-white and, like it, bounded by A vast of dull eternity. And I (since I can understand) Am master of this paper land. Think I am quick? I am so too, But when I’m bored with biffing you, Eve’s monkey, still that is not all, Nor Milan’s ghost, his beck and call To all the fancies that I can. You are too human, Caliban. You lunge and ape the human dance. Music and love are sustenance Withheld from you like tinkling charms Beyond your crying outstretched arms. You think I did not want my tree? Or tire of showing off? Being ‘free’ All of the time is like your choice Of endless fireworks of the voice: You splutter, gasp and madly shout, But dampness seeps up: you go out, The silly words trail off your tongue. So wings get tired, flapping among The fussy spirits of the air. You curse. I sulk. Always He’s there. The bullet’s speed is not a feat. Of time, but photograph of wheat, A summer fly caught in a flash Of speckled stillness. Hear a splash? You think a glacier does not move? Brilliance of struggling wings can prove Treacle of amber, and a spark The universe, my world my bark I long for, longing for the dark. Cal. A language learnt but nothing understood: Now you at large, and all I owned before Lost like my name within the magic wood. No word for saying ‘no’ to fetching wood. The marvellous Glove splits on the hairy claw: A language learnt but nothing understood. At first I framed what syllables I could: She laughed at me and left me on the shore, Lost, like my name within the magic wood. Think of my rage then, Ariel, as I stood, (A picture in my head I could not draw, A language learnt but nothing understood), Weeping into the sea, hoping She would Turn back to lead me through that little door, Lost like my name within the magic wood. Our Master calls: I think it is not good To be unhappy with your freedom or My language (learnt, but nothing understood), Lost like my name within the magic wood.

I. did you say August ponds ought to have been surrounded by September fences? but did you say September fences ought to have been climbed over by October peoples? what did you say for October padlocks that ought never to have been attached moreover to November handcuffs? II. You'll remember us for our dark Hungarian laughter That tickled when it laughed, that dug at the limelight Why, I'll send you a dark silver Hungarian coin From the mines that never saw the light of day yet Why, I'll send you a dime's worth of Hungarian damage That has been done to a cave that is full of Rhapsody Why, I'll send you a silver key to the cave of despair I'll send you a violet tonight, I'll send you a silver sword I'll send you a silver hammer that'll hammer night and day I'll send you a pail-ful of our kinds of blue revolutionary stars. III. Who are you? Weren't you their prisoner in the sedge dark? Where has been your search for freedom? Will you count the trees again in these dense woods Wherever you have been tonight? Will you look backwards where you have been? And tell me whoever you are. What have been your escapes? Nevertheless freedom is as ever an intense girl angel That speaks to me one in the inane wilderness Where has been your phantasmagoria? Are the dark trees at war with the darklike trees? Where has been your light Where has been your swordy well, Where has been your darklike table? Did you ever search for another star?

My mind’s a map. A mad sea-captain drew it Under a flowing moon until he knew it; Winds with brass trumpets, puffy-cheeked as jugs, And states bright-patterned like Arabian rugs. “Here there be tygers.” “Here we buried Jim.” Here is the strait where eyeless fishes swim About their buried idol, drowned so cold He weeps away his eyes in salt and gold. A country like the dark side of the moon, A cider-apple country, harsh and boon, A country savage as a chestnut-rind, A land of hungry sorcerers. Your mind? —Your mind is water through an April night, A cherry-branch, plume-feathery with its white, A lavender as fragrant as your words, A room where Peace and Honor talk like birds, Sewing bright coins upon the tragic cloth Of heavy Fate, and Mockery, like a moth, Flutters and beats about those lovely things. You are the soul, enchanted with its wings, The single voice that raises up the dead To shake the pride of angels. I have said.