Is belief in
the sentiment of love & of
revolution
a contradiction between
singular & universal:
must one sacrifice the other
or
is the distinction no more than
a mistaken understanding?
To what extent
are the things that we say & do
beyond our control?
Even though
the choice to say “No”
is always present,
radical freedom
co-exists with
profound dependency upon others*,
how can biological compulsion
override the tide of cause & effect:
how can the immaterial
change the course of material consequence?
& do these simple questions
really matter,
because
ultimately
we are forced to exist.
* Simone de Beauvoir – Pyrrhus and Cinéas
Philosophy
The Damned
Consider that colour is given to us
in plentitude
from games played by light &,
that the liquidity of water is
a feature of a particular performance
between specific particles
bonding with each other
& yet
no individual actor has
the property of ‘being wet’.
What does that mean to you?
If it means nothing,
congratulations:
you can thrive in this world, but
if you strove to find any semblance
of pattern
or symbol,
you’re fucked.
The Cave
Those shadows on the cave wall, distorted,
contorted,
grotesque & tall,
they aren’t shadows at all.
Only mutated shapes;
circus images permeating
fluid;
another trick of a sick mind.
Don’t take it too seriously
but if you
listen too closely to the sounds
they start to drift &
float around
without direction, detached from meaning.
Don’t be ashamed
for acting from the purest of instincts:
fight or flight is joined by frozen
fright as well; belief is
necessary
& to believe in what you see
is so natural it almost
seems like blasphemy not
to just
let it happen.
What we can see
From fetus to a handful of ashes;
a brief flicker of light in the darkness;
the thread of our existence,
helplessly passing from past to future;
contingent filaments entwined
within the infinite:
Just another story,
another way to escape the boring
fact that our lives are only defined
by what we think we can see in our minds……
Dancing
Insistent whispers from distant places,
tease & menace;
the hold is held*,
coils then melds, melts & is gone forever.
Solid & insubstantial, all objects
whole & partial
resist or yield,
or stubbornly reveal futility
to be both the cause & death of meaning:
every answer
a more graceful dancer than the question;
never ending
tension between existence & being.
It slips away,
eternally
within the reach,
of a grip that cannot keep what it holds:
grains of sand in the hands of a creature
who doesn't understand
either…
*Maurice Merleau-Ponty
