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I’ll take a stroll
through wintry night air
to free my mind
from its dark wisps and snares.

While walking in the night’s leaden fog
that weighs upon both eyes and mind,
a building emerges from dampening slog
adorned with columns of marble refined.

The fog oppresses all the known world,
with eyes and ears slammed shut by fear.
Its thralls have spread, its pall unfurled
to wring out all sense of what was clear.

And yet: Here rises
from black fog’s embrace
the lights of a campus
that spite fog’s dimming wastes.

Upon building’s brow, above the main gate,
two words inscribed. Letters gleam through gloom
and icy tendrils of iron mist’s weight:
“Auditorium Maximum” —

— the place of the greatest hearing.
If only this hall could vastly hold
the sum of all in fog a-fearing,
to teach each to hear and be thus consoled.

To live in more than piecemeal peace
in a heartily hearth-warmed hall
where all must learn the art of hearing,
to share in the greatest art of all.
Inspired by seeing the building as described and named in the poem while walking in a dark foggy night through the New Palace and University of Potsdam grounds in late December.
I know the power of the rising tide
For beneath my feet rests the shifting sands of time
Always ebbing and flowing the water dost erode
Each wave tugging and pulling
The tiny grains betwixt my toes

As the surf rises my foundations wither
Casting evil eye to swollen sea my thoughts swell bitter
When my balance is interrupted by systematic crashes
Gradually displacing and replacing
My position along its axis

Until finally I am interred within that salty tomb
Buried under heavy weight of time ne’er to be exhumed
Less the tide decide to recede and expose
The monument to a man
Who had once claimed to know
Zywa 7d
I keep weighing up

what is good for me, do I --


want to know or not?
Philosophical study "Ignorance and Bliss - On Wanting Not to Know" (2024, Mark Lilla)

Collection "Actively Passive"
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2024
~for you, girl~

words have definitions; shades; moods,
even within the contextual moment,
the coloration sometimes is discolored,

one person frantic is another’s
normal
passing fancy
insanity
quiet
overwrought silliness

frantic is a continuum’s conundrum

and oft the hubbub coverhup lends
a veneer of urgency importance
when knowledge acquisition is iron
irony, best when well chewed, quietly
considered and consumed with the
perspective of addition and subtraction

what we know is more than yesterday,
and less than what we will one day own,

for the only purity of learning is that’s
final refining is never ending
the artifice of deadlines,
gradation vis-a-vis
all the rest, is not a
distinction  worthy of
distinguishing

your human value is beyond compare

exactly!
the greatest of valued adders to the world body of understanding put the race of
ego to one side, and so should we all,
not
be ****** in by the imposition of qualifiers

you are quality, and that is the only
qualification you will ever
acquire and require

and in my naïveté
I reflect looking back
and give you here the
free use thereof,
of its worth, you will
determine
but in summary judgement:
always keep thinking
ridicule is ridiculous
but best when applied
by oneself to oneself
with a

“***, did I really think:say that?”
and laugh out loud at our human
foibles, especially our own,
with a wry smile, admitting
some of things we conjure up
in all seriousness are

are the funniest things we’ve ever heard
a bit preachy, but too bad😉
knowledge acquisition
Johnson Oyeniran Dec 2024
-Sound Advice



Listen oh reader to my advice I have for you,

You'll find it deeply unsettling but I swear it's true.

Now, I am very sorry, I hate to be that guy,

But real friends dont exist, it's all a big fat lie.

Human nature is so fickle, that's just who they are.

People come and then they go just like a shooting star.

So, do not let yourself get attached to anyone,

Treat everyone as an acquaintance under the sun.

And if you take my advice, your life will be stressfree,

No drama, no sorrow, no abuse, I guarantee.
Jeremy Betts Nov 2024
If I knew then
What I know now
Would every new decision
Lead to the same place somehow?

©2024
Man Nov 2024
Think it a wound
That has been cut open,
All of this
Pouring out of some person.
As blood like ichor.
Of Uranus a pouch, a receptacle, a quiver;
Time in consumption,
Like an arrow autochthonic
In the breast of existence.
Nursing the young.
Of Cronus a reflection, a refection, a ripple;
Time in digestion,
Like an innominate derivation
From the navel of continuance.
Bringing them up.
Of Zeus a reverberation, a spark, a sliver;
Time in expression,
Like an aborted secret
From the honey of speleothemas.
Shaping them out.
Of Apollo a radiance, a ray, a participle;
Time in extension,
Like an auspicious countenance
From the mucilage of angiospermae.
Birthing the echo.
There was more to this, perhaps I'll finish it.
Ejiro Nov 2024
I wanted it so badly
I needed it within my reach
but you knew that already, didn't you?
the glory of knowledge
the power of wisdom in its truest form
the answers of what intelligence can uphold
this is what thrived me
but that feeling soon passed away
and went directly to you instead
with open arms you embraced it
you let it take control
while I watched in the side lines
this type of curiosity was consuming you
but you knew that already, didn't you?
Carlo C Gomez Nov 2024
~
Unusual and cloudless

This slippery world

Today is still contagious

Here is heat, here is rain

Here is love, regardless

Shadows in the scaffolding

Look like a broken alphabet

The sun in its anger

Just won't set

Life and how to do it

Perfectly absent

~
Francie Lynch Nov 2024
We can't know them
By their religion.
Too much hypocrisy.

We can't know them
By politics.  
It's ever-changing... or not.

We can't know them
By country.
Zillions emigrate and immigrate.

We can't know them
By their clothes.
Emperor or not.

We can't know them
By their words.
Too many equivicators.

We can't know them
By their jobs.
At home or away.

We can't know them
By their family.
Nuclear or extended.

We can't know them
By their deeds.
They say one thing, and do another.

But look to  the roadside.
In the ditches.
By the curb.
In the bins.

Ye shall know them by their garbage.
"Them" is us.
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