many days have passed since the 2nd and this 3rd night,
from silken grey of frost attaching itself
to stiffened grass, to pathetic snow,
to now, a thick milkshake fog enveloping
a lost eyesight within reach of thirty metres;
i love winter, no disease or parasites survive,
the keen goosebumps like sprouting mushrooms
are no more, reduced to pinching and needle patterns
of the cold on bare skin.*

you can take winter from a european
and advertise ski resorts,
but you can't take winter's attraction
from the bone-skinned ones
who repose on the heights of the mirror
that feeds.

so as an introduction, i confess,
i'm not one of those would-be poets
who write about being inspired,
about being loved, about coffee,
i didn't take the concentrated form of
caffeine (water leaves dry residue at 180°C,
caffeine leaves dry residue at...
don't know) to write... sniffed an ox
while i was at it - cleared the nostrils it did,
esp. the whip of the ox's tail.
i don't do that, bothersome poetics i call it.

you know what the Sibyl inquired of socrates?
she said: know yourself.
sure as hell that's true,
but modern society has to teach that to know
yourself, means reflective (your self)
and means the reflexive (yourself),
given the common over-usage of the word self,
esp. given our current celebrity culture,
we know plenty of improper nouns
but forget proper nouns, e.g.
you tell me leonardo dicaprio i say blanc jonquil,
the former are improper: almost gone,
but the latter have to remain and be absorbed
into a vocabulary universally,
the former share a particular ordinance of care,
guarded by ***-plots and admiration
based upon artistic skill of acting, etc.
to know yourself therefore means to compose
knowledge with a certain anonymity,
after all there are many examples where knowledge
is doubted for the Sibyl's maxim is a quarter of
the real truth:
a. the self is stable, but experiences of realising a self
    are unstable,
b. the self is unstable, but experiences of realising a self
     are stable,
c. the self is unstable, hence experiences of realising a self
    are unstable too,
d. the self is stable, hence experiences of realising a self
     are stable too (realisation for a knowledge of).
but still the anonymity, socrates didn't work from the
standpoint of the academic account of himself,
socrates the noun is something worthy of a third person
analysis / engagement / synthesis,
but socrates the pronoun is a too complex investigation
that's a desert of "allowable" personification,
making the hindu theological concept of reincarnation
impossible, considering the many deviations of
self-experience when other selves dignify a presence:
as i said - a certain anonymity if one is to endeavour into
knowing oneself - with existential quickness
and fleetingness the expression is assured a fluidity of
ambiguity, as sartre is prone to use: to know one's "self",
which is an e.g.

enough already, why would anyone care to quantify
the limit of one's expression to such a degree as to be watchful
of voyeurs? i don't know, but i know that
narcissus spawned two demigods: one superior
to itself, and one a lesser -
the superior alt. of narcissus was known by the name
solipssus (he who's egoism blinded him from experiencing
others, or simply denying their existence / via solipsism);
the lesser? imagine narcissus looking into the lake
of calm reflection, imagine him looking into the turbulent
sea, if only echo and he by the sea, rather than the lake,
but this lesser form of narcissus is a modern ailment
of selfie-sticks and duck-pout lips of girls:
αγαλμιδιος - who was the son of hades and medusa,
and it meant: sudden (αιφνίδιος) statue (αγαλμα).