Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Ken Pepiton Jul 12
"What is your aim in Philosophy?”

“To show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle”
(Philosophical Investigations) – Wittgenstein
--------------------
Tell them that I lived as long as I could,
then I died, thinking this was all new to me.

If they line up at the portal from then to now,
tell them to remember, any fly can find its way.

Go on, thinking that said it all.
Go on, knowing it said nothing new now.

The way into the bottle is the way out,
flies all know that naturally…
kitchen windows, though,
those can cause fly insanity.
Wittgenstein's nearly last words were "Tell them I had a wonderful life," so I thought, what might the fly think... the one he attempted to show the way...
Sam Lawrence Jul 2022
the rain falls against my window
the rain doesn't fall against my window
I am inside
I am outside
I am inside and the rain isn't falling against my window
I am outside and the rain isn't falling against my window
I am outside and the rain is falling on me
I am inside and the rain is falling on me
I am outside and I am wet
I am inside and I am dry
I am outside and I am dry
I am inside and I am wet
it isn't my window
the rain isn't falling
it isn't raining
the is no window
there is no rain
there is no falling
there is nothing
Norman dePlume Jan 2016
Should it come to this, without remorse? Like that orange, feeble
and deciduous, while we waited with binoculars through that gray on gray
afternoon for the owl to spread its wings. Perhaps it did, past dusk,
behind the trees, under those vaguely baleen-formed clouds.

The clouds cast shadows on other clouds, as if holding them up against reality, even for our affirmation. Did you think of me this morning, over your Life cereal, and did you miss the fruit?  The “organic wholeness?” What is the determinant thing that dissolves?

The dissolution of the self-contradictory comes from the dissolution of the determinant thing. Arguments formed in apartments over a bowl of cherries or a bowl of ****, or some such. Loss of a determinate thing (under Article 1262, par. 1.) is the equivalent of impossibility of performance in obligations to do referred to in Article 1266. We are left with the form of a bowl, perhaps a ginger bowl, or some form of lost lacquer.

The distinct lack of skyscrapers from SoHo up through Chelsea was said to be a function of Manhattan bedrock. But modern materials seem to have overcome that problem. Getting on the subway, he heard someone say “…as if each word is born with another word, and spends its life on lines looking for the perfect rhyme". "You know they mate for life," he thought, "the swans. If one is killed, the other often dies of boredom.”
(c) 2016. This started as another Ashbery parody, but once Hegel wormed his way in, I took out all the line breaks and flarfed it up a bit.
Akemi Oct 2015
No, that’s not how it goes.
Start again.
Do you remember the tree on the lake?
It was a forest.
No, it was black, like tar. It tasted like broken glass.
I remember the incense on the drapes.
Yes. It clung to our clothes.
You cried.
No, I smiled.
You cried smiling.
Yes.
I hate it when this happens.
What happens?
You know?
No.
Um. Sometimes it feels like the world is too crowded with words. Like it's too dense to speak.
That--
Like there’s something in the air that pushes against my throat.
There was a black dog, just then.
What?
Outside. It’s gone now. Sorry. Start again.
Do you remember the tree on the lake?
There was a raven.
Yes.
It was black like tar.
It caught a worm once.
Ravens don’t eat worms.
Yeah. It just sat there, with the worm in its beak. The worm squirmed, wrapping itself round the beak, over and over.
Is that why you were crying?
It wouldn’t stop. It kept going, digging its flesh deeper into the edges.
What was your father doing?
Smiling.
Why?
He’d filed for a divorce earlier.
Right. I wasn’t there.
No, you weren’t.
Do you regret locking the doors?
Sometimes I can taste the rain before it comes. It’s a skill I’ve had for as long as I can remember.
I’m lost. So your father was smiling?
No, he was crying.
Sorry. I swear I just--nevermind. Start again.
There was a storm in these parts when we were young. The worst storm in a hundred years.
I don’t remember.
You slept through it. I held your hand all night.
Why?
Because I was alone.
You still are.
Yes.
I hate it when this happens.
What happens?
You know?
Yes.
Where have you been?
Everywhere but here.
And where will you go?
Nowhere.
Sometimes when I look at you, it’s like looking through static. It’s like I’m looking at an impression of a person.
I get that a lot.
It’s like all my memories of you have blurred together. Vague feelings rise out of the haze. Feelings I recognise, yet cannot describe. I cannot connect them with who you are, what we were, or where we’ve been. It’s--
Like exiting a dream.
Yes. Exactly.
You feel a gap in your soul. One that has always been.
Always been. You held my hand, once.
During the worst storm in a hundred years.
When was that?
Every night.
2:34am, October 12th 2015

We're all just playing a language game.
Irate Watcher Aug 2014
When the
mess bred
by ancient
logicians
is put to rest
and we dicover:
The chicken
and the egg
hatched
in two
different
places at
the same time;
Love was
an inverse
relationship
between lust
and time;
Infinity was
a universe
we couldn't see.

Will conversation
cease?

Will silence
replace
speech?

Will the larynx
become a vestige?

How will
we debate
the notes
that compose
silence?

— The End —