Category Archives: philosophical

FROM THE SOUTH

FROM THE SOUTH

South gives you an
wrong-way-up perspective

right way up
as we
see it
    though

blood rushing
    to your head, helps
you think better

in the Tarot
      nobody clearer
in thought

more clued up
on the road to redemption, than
eye to the sky hanged
upside
      down man

and so
    I spoke to this soul
looking for liberation
and he
      told me what to
tell you

which I
do relay here:

          you are not
              free from
and will
never
be
    free from discrimination
(by the
sharpest of logical
definitions)

if you
do not
    free yourself from
the Liberty
to discriminate against.

BROKEN

BROKEN

poetry is sublime
code

bought you a nut-
cracker best
to crack it

heard the thunder, saw
the lightning created
by yout exertions

thpught if this
             be the reaction
of what we call Nature
tag
   as the cosmos

and if sweet Lennon-
McCartney lyrics be
the end
   of civilization

what would the lightshow be
like
      in store for us
   
  if we were to collide the
exposed
    God particles of the cosmos
                           (beyond
hypothetically)

in order to create singularities
         deep underground?

ANCHOR

ANCHOR

I am
at anchor

around me deep currents
connive; slurry unseen

so what
    can better can worse
move you, break you
topple towers

    leave our whole world,
your world, my world,
                    entire planet
hanging
    by a thread?

thread my spool less than silken
still deep into the distance
way out
        towards forever

and all that ever amen you
feel duty bound to add

eyes closed
        fingers steepled

so much further than any horizon
beyond what eyes can see
mind
    believe.

SPECKLE

SPECKLE

SPECKLE

whole life I have been
looking for refuge
looking
      for consolation

refuge from so many things
better not innumerate
bore you
        waste your time
with a long, long list

but as for consolation,
have sought it everywhere
in art, in poetry,
consolation in fiction
(and yes, Boethius) consolation
                        in philosophy

but above all
                and below

it is you
      I have sought, thirsted and
hungered for, dreamt of
prayed
      night and day that
      if only

sought each little tiny consolation
that you might give

in every (almost invisible)
        significant speckle in
your
      dark, dark skin

THINGS

THINGS

Things crumbling
imperceptibly changing
and not for the better
all about energy and
closed and
open systems

but bear with me
there is dynamic, much afoot
some strange principle here
amongst all these
swirling particles

and yet
they are not particles
They have only the dream of a particle the whim of a field the thought of a spectacle yes bear with me this is going to be my slowest most considered most laborious poem the one that rambles on and on and on doubling back on itself out Wordsworthing Wordsworth

I guess this is the only type of
poetry genuinely left to write

this is my Solaris Mirror Stalker deep
and dark most Tarkowski of poem

oblique, difficult
conceptually
diffuse obtuse suspicious of words that hide what the carry within them

words that are hollow
resonate with the nothing
they bear within

this is me floating Sub-Zero
this is me looking where no one else has looked not knowing what we’ll be found this isn’t me stripped of human company empathising homing in on the suffering of others the pain of others
speaking dreaming the
dark night darkness we all feel the dream that coldly informs us
there will not be
an awakening

in the centre of the labyrinth
where sonething is there for us to
show (not tell) that
consciousness is meaningless consciousness is nothing consciousness is an accident at
the heart
in the nature of things

the broken
fragmented dark energy
anti-matter

frozen violently expansive imploding heart
of things.

RETURN

RETURN

come back Isaac
all is forgiven

don’t want no multiverse
no wave collapse
restore
my comfort zone

force and motion, quantum
probability tells
me you must return

reinstate the old classics
that were
so ball-bearing

sex that is
simple mechanics
no
this way
and that

love that cannot be
entanglement

is there in the calculus:
mass meets acceleration
(what better
golden ratio?)

SOMETIMES

SOMETIMES

sometimes
I am
just
randomness

Cummings words
      jumping all over the
quantum page

as if
    twin slit experiment

(the smile of physics gone Gemini
getting our minds pretty
        tangled up together
                        you tell me coyly
inform me
    in no uncertain terms)

if it cannot be
          real
                        this everything

if it is lax on locality

        could it
                      be dream?

I asked this of the iconic cat
in the box before it
                        disappeared

and now I am blessed with
the answer but sworn to secrecy

science
          now in uproar

doctoral candidates frayed
fissile

        exploding in clouds of
white chalky dust
as if
    made of talcum powder

all over Tesla’s headstone
thinking of
      the half-life of what
lies
  in that grave

Sent from my iPhone

MANUAL

MANUAL

this is the manual
that goes with
the reading
of this poem

it is not a manly manual
since it has to accept
shifts and slides
facts seduced
and opening themselves
up to
surprise reversals and
ongoing (nigh bottomless)
process of
constant interpretation
leading to
infinite possibilities for
re-
reading, rethinking, reinterpretation

and yet
even though metaphor
is itself a metaphor
is shot
through with metaphor

I do indeed need
to get my meaning across

this stanza break first up
but then
from me to you

so that you might run
with it, or perhaps walk
or at
least crawl

tenor vehicle literature
is a machine says Mr Calvino

but would
not wish for you
to stumble and fall
before
you are behind the wheel

before
you get the feel

before you are writing poetry for yourself