"descartes" poems
if you drill down,
past the hair,
flesh and bone.
into my mind
where the ego
and id reside.
then turn to the left,
and follow the i.q.
down the alley,
you will find
a place.
where on thrones of
cogitating thoughts,
king big questions asked,
reigns in conjunction,
with, queen yet unanswered.
they watch with interest benign,
over a field of an eternal tourney,
split roughly down the middle
by a chasm quite wide.
on one side
of the gorge is arrayed,
the banners of philosophy.
at the vanguard,
the epistemological knights;
plato, descartes, ferrier,
kant, hume,spinoza
and bosanquet.
the major forces ride beneath the banners, of their schools of thought.
followed by the lesser lights,
and those,
obscure or forgotten,
who walk at the rear,carrying the gear and
to set the tent poles.
as to the other side,
that is given to,
the seminaries of religion;
bhuddism, taoism,
islam, hindu, juche,
rastafarian, sikh, diasporic, parsis, tenrikyo,
judaism and christianity
with all its clans.
they array themselves in cadres,
according to belief.
and to the rear,
there rides,
an interesting guerilla band,
of intertestemantals,
about 3 or 4 hundred years wide.
these are the few who are accounted for,
when god spoke nothing,
or perhaps
a lot but the message just got lost.
they number in their disparate clan,
alexander the great, ptolemy, the hellanic masses, seluecids, maccabeans, hasmoeans
and pompey the great,
not all, but the noteworthy.
across the divide,
by arrowing thought
were fought rallies of acumen
and battles of wit
and occasionally,
a persipacious fire was lit.
but there is one more player,
to mention.
apathy,
the great hulking ******
who for want of gumption, and get up and go,
sat crouched,
(quite uncomfortably so)
on a spire.
made of mediocracy,
cemented by woe,
in the iddle of the rifted abyss.
unable to decide
with which team to go.
Mar 31, 2014
Mar 31, 2014 at 5:37 PM UTC
Who on Earth were these people
From the past, who made sense
Of a world without iPods, iPads or plumbing?
What’s up with those towering minds of yesteryear?
From where did they come and how come?
Goethe standing so tall
Voltaire you tower!
And bend over Beethoven,
I can’t reach your low five.
What grant of Gods favor gave them sight?
Awesome mighty minds of the past.
Descartes, I think so you are,
So smart that I think I am not.
Galileo you saw heaven before I had eyes.
Einstein, Da Vinci, Archimedes
You and your kind will all live forever,
Men will stand upon your shoulders
And then die.
Dec 11, 2012
Dec 11, 2012 at 10:00 PM UTC
[Fanfare, obviously]
This poem should begin with the call of a bugle,
as is fitting for an ode of Braveheart Macdougal.
Children of Parklands, take heed and be wary,
as I relate now, in verse, a tale cautionary.
Benigna Murdie was a most virtuous lass,
blesséd with promise and a penchant for sass.
To peer pressure she was admirably immune,
and ne'er did she bow to the temptation of goon.
Nary a drop of ***** has e'er passed her lips,
save for politeness and church-mandated sips.
Yet even the mightiest fall-- what a pity!
(harder than I did that night in the city).
So I hope you all glean a moral from this,
and your interpretation does not go too amiss.
But all is self-evident, to quote Descartes,
so allow me to recount this tale from the start.
She hails from a country renown for their piety,
for their pacifist ways and universal sobriety.
The Scottish are known throughout the land
for their temperance of character and lightness of hand.
And our poor Bennigles was no rule-exception,
she subscribed quite wholly to this perception.
A more reserved and reclusive girl you've not seen,
virtually a saint at only nineteen.
Passed out on the couch, liquor was never the root,
only strain from the studying and academic pursuit.
A paradigm of virtue, a pillar of purity,
no “that's-what-she-said's” to compromise maturity.
But that all changed one day touched by fate,
when Rachel realized that hedonism's great.
She took to the streets to revel in her glee,
and legit nothing bad happened cause this isn't tv.
Alas, now I'm drunk and the screen is a-shaking,
perhaps of wine I should halt my partaking.
I cannot continue with this facetious ode,
as we all well know that this is a total load.
But I'll miss you, my Brit, and our shitshow nights,
our Australian exploits and your culinary delights.
Sorry I couldn't finish to detail your demise,
but perhaps I'll conclude after an Australia-reprise.
Feb 13, 2013
Feb 13, 2013 at 6:20 AM UTC
A cave crawls into me, turns inside out,
Captures my heart and saves my skin for last.
Slimy shadows spread like faith to doubt.
Is this the Jungian Shadow here to lambaste
While all the photons of the sun depart
As quickly as they come--an original sin--
And stop my thinking like Rene Descartes,
Affronting twistless logic like particle spin?
Now perceiving nothing it must exist,
Like Freud with OCD made Oedipus blind--
Becoming nothing nothing can resist.
Finally into earth my mind confined:
Create in me a ***** heart, o earth.
Perhaps a worm will have a ****** birth.
Feb 3, 2012
Feb 3, 2012 at 12:51 PM UTC
voices, mirror glance inward-outward
-inward-outward-inanoutandinward
in simultaneous disease-like passion--
divine like bacteria kneading and bleep
-ing up to one to one against to one toward
a unity, a collective evolutionary force begin
-ning in a marshy wallow-- forward to a creature
slithers rocks unsure if fish or finger-- beyond unto
a sharp-claw carnivorous terror (the Divine Right of
Kings) and slowly, in the wake of the destruction the
shattered continental plate lifted like a carpet during
renovation violence, the bacteria stayed away and
under soiled-earth to slowly form toward the muddy
saliva of a strangely-fit mouse-rat....
through the dissipating wake of molten mist, a
sabertooth tiger yawns with a growled-tremor
and an after-bath shake-- ends a trampled scrap
under mammoth foot having indicted this panic
in its desperate mammalian hunger-- this bacteria,
kneading and bleeping, continues its one to one
against to one as a meaty slab metabolized by
opportunistic caveman feeding his cubs and his
loves before courage became the theoretical pond
-ering of Voltaire's and Descartes's and Camus's...
Nov 23, 2014
Nov 23, 2014 at 6:56 PM UTC
Philosophical epistemology strumming adventures
Albeit, coherent mental decoding stratifications structured
Supposedly our world rests in our minds, revolving knowledge
An entwine of conceptual abstract flowing within oneself
The mind in the “I” the “I” a reality lived in my experiences
George of Leontini, a mine mind approving solipsism exploring innatism
Imaginative insights that nothing exists, the secrets secreting secrets
The knowledge behind the veils that remains un-communicated
A reverse of normality and known existences, moral disposition
Hypothesis of depersonalizations, adventures of self internalization
Justifications for what lies outside the Medulla Oblongata
Skepticism and just alternatives to western philosophy
Subjective unapproved experiences only robust in one’s mind
Descartes abstraction of inner experiences, reciprocated paradigm
Intuitively, perceived lived formulations of "Cogito Ergo Sum"
Psychological conscious undoubted individualistic thoughts
Berkley explored perspectives that physicality is an embodiment of the mind
The mind a decoding visualizer, that encompass the non-existent
An idealism marriage of ‘metaphysical’ and epistemological philosophy
The intense esoteric “dualism” verses the fiery “monism” reality
Mind boggling differentiated truths bleeding with blinking unresolvable hypothesis
The jiggered methodological, streamlining the un -logic sequential beats
Feb 19, 2016
Feb 19, 2016 at 11:56 AM UTC
What is the dream,
the diary I keep with notes etched to the seam?
What is the goal,
the endpoint at which I determine my role?
The world only skims off the top it seems,
loving only the cream of the crop.
Lost am I,
having strayed from the path,
a world split down the middle,
cut and dry,
and if so,
where can I live,
who can abide my wayward soul?
A soul assembled from the ashes of Descartes and Kant,
a contradiction in continuity,
can I or can't I,
change the hand that I've got?
Listen to the song,
the siren's polyphony,
the refrain rate familiar,
the color tone wrong,
discern for yourself,
what is the bane of the crown?
Stifle your fear and strike at the root,
with shovel in hand bury your sin,
always striving for truth,
rend the tree at both ends.
Yes,
I am a pariah,
***** in purpose and soul,
the wayfarer's failure,
refusing to pay the pathfinder's toll,
and although my map is imperfect,
all roads lead to Rome.
Retreatist,
rebel,
jester,
fool,
gladly I'll claim the whole lot,
each title a badge,
a step towards my goal,
this society is sick and refuses to see,
each individual is a person,
gay,
gypsy,
Muslim,
Jew.
Nov 19, 2013
Nov 19, 2013 at 4:07 PM UTC
Is humanism Utopian?
You really have to think about it.
Or is it rather more dystopian?
No, then I think you’d never doubt it.
It seems that disbelief is best.
Humanism owes a debt
to thinkers of the Enlightenment,
although I haven’t paid it yet,
I think of it as my entitlement
to settle it at some behest.
I very early cleared my mind of Kant,
experiencing a vast relief,
approaching his chef d’oeuvres extant;
removing knowledge to allow belief;
the opposite of what he had expressed.
It occurred to me I ought to dig up
(or should I say instead ex-hume?)
what constitutes at least an egg-cup-
full of wisdom that I might consume
with non-platonic zest.
But wondering how on earth to do so
and thinking he might hold the key,
I fixed my sights on Jean Jacques Rousseau
and set sail for my destiny,
while trying not to feel depressed.
Voltaire’s voices loudly rang in deaf ears
as did the Persian Letters of Montesquieu
and failed to still my latent fears.
And thus I felt no need to rescue
Adam Smith (morality-obsessed).
To put Descartes before the Horse-
men of the Apocalypse
War, famine, pestilence and worse.
Who could guess it would eclipse
my thought, wherefore I was oppressed.
Or take the case of Denis Diderot
a friend of Hume and others seedier.
and one you might consider so
rash as to produce an encyclopedia
to get his knowledge off his chest.
That precious quality of truth
was Mary Ann’s# description of it.
It would not take a Sherlock sleuth
to simply thus produce a conviction of it:
an elementary request.
I cut my questing teeth on Russell.
His secular logic had a profound effect
and seemed to stir each red corpuscle
inhabiting this fervid non-sect-
arian but doubting breast.
I later turned my eye on Dawkins,
and his concern with my divine delusion.
A sceptic whose inspiring squawkings
validate my disillusion
and emphasise an ill-starred quest.
And so I felt the pointlessness of it.
Progress is the best end for a man to see
And belief simply produced less profit
for reality’s dispelling of my fantasy.
So, in the end, I acquiesced.
#Mary Ann Evans, aka George Eliot, in Adam Bede
Nov 16, 2014
Nov 16, 2014 at 10:21 AM UTC
Tell me how,
One person can divide into
Three perfectly psychotic sentiments
While still appearing to be whole
Tell me how
Multiplying your kindness only
Creates a rift between myself and patience
And ends with nights of contemplation followed by tumultuous
Back-and-forths with imaginary numbers
For I am no mathematician
I cannot find a solution to every concrete problem
I do not bother with equations or substitutes
I only skim the symbol, rewrite questions and leave the answers hanging in the air
Tell me why,
Subtracting victims from my life
Only added a murderous sentiment
To every repeating decimal that couldn’t find its’ place
Tell me why,
The quadratic formula is emblazoned in my memory
But everyone keeps throwing opposites at me
So forgetting whether to add or to subtract becomes hazy
And the square root gets suspended until next class, so the
Four drops off the plane, two goes insane, and
Letters lose their fictitious meanings
For I am no mathematician
Archimedes is finding the constant of my triangular coffin
While Newton is rolling in his gravity
Carl Gauss is busy laughing his *** off with fundamentals in his eyes and
Descartes keeps whispering incoherent Latin, migraines sprinting towards me
As if in a race
So don’t ask me
Whether or not you should divide by zero
Or whether it requires sine, cosine, or a tangent
My logic will not tell you anything you want to hear
I am through trying to piece together this imaginary puzzle
And I’ve had enough of playing this never-ending game
Because I’ve been through two continents, and 4 different states
And I still don’t know the meaning of my name.
For I am no mathematician
The only pie charts I am fond of,
have to do with sugar and preheating an oven to 450 degrees
And with every cubic centimeter
I start thinking of cubes of cheddar cheese
For I am no mathematician
I can’t graph a simple line
I don’t understand the dimensions of the polygon shown above
And I’m tired of wasting precious time
Oct 2, 2015
Oct 2, 2015 at 6:15 PM UTC
Sentience is life
Sanctity a lie
Sayin it alive
"I think therefore I am"- Descartes
So may as well be a slab of ham a part
Ship the guts off to a lab grow a heart
Social value before Science breakthrough
Society lies before Society lives
Public hysteria some Hateful euphoria
Cloud regulation
With false allegation
Corrupt litigation
By holy congregation
A rights desecration
In an uptight nation
Dec 29, 2018
Dec 29, 2018 at 2:35 PM UTC
I promise you that we will make love
On a bed full of philosophy books
So that the depth of our hunger
Matches the depth of our thinking
Every press of my nail upon your flesh
Will have you question your existence
You'll feel more alive with every thought
Then you will understand Rene Descartes
Our smoldering bodies radiating pleasure
Will have you disregard the material world
This passion will posses the highest reality
Then you'll understand Plato's forms
Amidst my guidance toward your ******
You will hold values and aspirations close
And form your most perfect self with me
Then you'll understand Friedrich Nietzsche
On this bed full of marvelous thoughts
We will lay tangled exhausted overjoyed
For our love our lust and our everything
Will have the immensity of philosophy itself
Feb 24, 2016
Feb 24, 2016 at 12:00 PM UTC
normality isn’t the same as the chaos we evade.
The truth is, normality alludes us,
we are formed beyond our minds declination.
Somebody stole my freedom,
using outside of the box thinking,
in your mind and mind.
And I was minding my business,
just trying to take my own sweet time, again.
and deja vu came through the window, again.
the repetition of the rain
cool calm and collected,
the pain subsides,
when i lived in my hiding place
and the raindrops made the gutters flow.
obviously,
yet never expected;
is it you? is it true?
the juxtaposition of you.
but they stole our souls before they attacked the weakened body.
We didn’t hear them coming through the car crash TV;
Are you and I the zombies?
Is your mind in control,
do you mind if they take control,
or do you not mind at all?
When the mask falls the I hide behind isn’t alien in dreams.
not who i saw in the soul.
is it true, deja vu.
so benign in idyllic lies,
a million miles away.
tribes hide behind nothing but a little something to be unique,
maybe a little something else
to be discreet.
But other than that,
food and air,
and company.
there’s not much else we need.
Make up?
Make up your mind -
who decided who you needed to be
it certainly wasn’t you.
Lost in the illusion of choice,
like deja vu,
like Descartes knew,
in collusion with the muse of normality,
by what is true to you,
not actually the truth.
it’s the perfect ephiany in alliance with deja vu.
but what came first ?
my mind, or yours,
through closed doors of inspection;
deception - they let them tell them.
inception - they let them tell them
And I know this fact to be true,
because I’ve seen you in dreams before
and I couldn’t believe my eyes;
or change my view.
I couldn’t believe it was you,
deja vu,
deja vu.
Apr 24, 2016
Apr 24, 2016 at 10:39 AM UTC
Descartes and Isaac Beeckman,
Monsieur de Chandoux
and Jacob Golius
are talking
Monsieur de Chandoux
asks if Descartes will attend his next lecture
and Descartes replies: “I don’t think so”
And Descartes disappears
Jan 25, 2014
Jan 25, 2014 at 3:52 AM UTC
My first sense of the aversion raised by Frost,
Walls swelled under, yet, I could not exhaust
The barriers confronted on life's twisted path.
Too enervating loosing one's sole ****** wrath,
I pierce the wall that poets have not crossed
And speak to you, my audience, in verse,
Trusting the directed words that I asperse
Will convey the meaning hoped to impart,
Even more, some verbal beauty from my art,
Into which, fair reader, you elatedly immerse.
Gratified, I, the poet, have but you to thank,
The wall of separation loses one more plank,
Between us communication is not lost,
Better that understanding be dispersed.
We speak and therefore are, Descartes,
Worth much more than gold or any cost.
Aug 14, 2014
Aug 14, 2014 at 11:13 AM UTC
a clairvoyant sketches a gravedigger
retrieving a dead child
it was midnight inside his heart
and in the drawings
a limo hints at a tale
murmurs in the crevices of night
trying to find a way out of
or onward beyond
the cul-de-sac
Mar 31, 2012
Mar 31, 2012 at 8:41 AM UTC
I am the wind of thought
that flows through time.
I am Homer and Achilles
Sophocles, Shakespeare
Verdi, Ibsen, and Williams.
I flow through the generations,
following imagination,
leaving dark Chaos to rule the past.
I am Zeus and Hera,
And deeper, Mnemosyne
Ananke
and
Chronos.
I flitter it seems as I pass
from moment to moment,
memory to memory,
soul to soul.
I am
Cleopatra, Jenny Lind, and Jolie
teasing, singing and dancing
to the delight of the Muses
I am Jesus and Buddha
Epicurus, Epictetus
Even Chinese too.
I am Descartes and Newton
Einstein and Plank
Math and logic
Love and hate.
I am God.
I am the wind of thought that flows through our minds.
I am the wind of thought that flows through our time.
Feb 23, 2015
Feb 23, 2015 at 7:55 PM UTC
I would humbly put forth the idea, quite prostrate, that it would do us some good if we were to put aside, for a time, our epistemological certainties and archetypal savior fixations and, instead, opt for a more robust, ocher-hued ontological preeminence: putting the what before the why.
Only then can one, say, sip hot herbal tea from an old pink bone china teacup and, without thinking about all the things all the time, for once -just- feel the sun's warmth on your aged face as it begins its set over a half-eaten cotton candy sky that is epic af and reminds you of Peter Pan and then Robin Williams and then whywhywhy and then something random and weirrrd, and, in doing so, you can watch the lack of shittogetherness, of which duly occupies the very seat of your character like a bully usurper that hits you bc "he loves you," melt into a very (very) temporary oblivion and revel in what is before you without feeling paralyzing angst that is, usually, soo angst-y that you gotta pronounce that **** in German as if you were Schopenhauerly sitting at some non-descript desk in some non-descript room with your hand stroking your truly descript crazygeniusguy hair that is some kind of proto-Wolverine hairdo (and you wonder if Stan Lee was cryptically tipping his cap to S's philosophical pessimism with this peculiar gesture; consider googling it but don't because you've already googled too much sheeyt today), thinking (or brooding) about how much of a ******** Descartes is with his whole, yuhknow, theory about some ******* secret nanoputian angelic chemist that sits at the pearly gates of the Pineal Gland and performs the sacred transduction of the divine ghost, or whatever. Otherwise you are, like, consumed with analysis, which is a complete ******* bore and - let's face it - a thoroughly transparent attempt to sound smarter than you actually are.
This herbal tea I'm currently drinking has "rose hips" in it. Dear botany, that image is fun.
Feb 4, 2016
Feb 4, 2016 at 4:07 PM UTC
René Descartes rested his pen,
to take a Parisian stroll -
stopping to order a cup
at his favorite patisserie.
The waitress queried "with cream?"
and René who sipped his brew black
testily scoffed, "I think not"
and immediately disappeared.
August, 2013
Aug 22, 2013
Aug 22, 2013 at 1:11 AM UTC
juice box and soda pop
and post modern electronic rock
and
all these various things
ringing
through the halls of my dreams
where the memories
they slip and stack
and some come forth
and some push back but
in the end they'll return
for just,
one last look and I'll learn
about
all the things i never knew
were part of who i felt was true
i'll,
fin'lly see for myself
all these,
thoughts i've left on the shelf
like the
juice box and soda pop
and post modern electronic rock
and
all these various things
ringing
through the halls of my dreams
but as
nostalgia loses its grip
and memories begin to slip
back
to where they reside
buried
deep down and inside
my mind
will refocus on the now
and point forward
deciding how to
carry on with my days
find my
way through maze after maze
and at
days end when I lay to rest
i almost always feel my best
when
i return to my mind
free to
take whatever i find
and its
only in my dreams i feel
that maybe afterall i'm real
and
descartes would agree
if i
said i think i was me
back to
juice box and soda pop
juice box and soda pop
juice box and soda
pop
Jun 20, 2010
Jun 20, 2010 at 3:20 PM UTC
---
I think
therefore I AM
- Descartes -
---
I AM
therefore i
thank!
- soulsurvivor -
Jun 24, 2015
Jun 24, 2015 at 3:31 PM UTC
I heard of a man
who never owned a
television.
Instead he bought
a set of solid oak
bookshelves stained
like mahogany.
With the money
he saved on cable,
he filled them with
classics like Plato,
Aristotle, and Dostoyevsky.
He studied Darwin
and Descartes, and
memorized poems by
Whyte and O'Donohue
Because he never
made the switch to
high definition, he
could afford trips to
Rome and Tuscany.
Walking those ancient
streets and resting
in those heavenly fields,
he learned the art
of attentiveness,
minding the
genius loci
of a place,
and setting
one's cadence to
the breath of the wind.
And in the end,
he had a few books
of his own,
but they taught
nothing new
other than
how to truly live.
Jan 16, 2017
Jan 16, 2017 at 10:16 PM UTC
I have a tattoo of Oregon on the back of my neck
so when your attachment issue
physically manifests itself on my bed
and you flip me over
so you can "hit it from the back"
you'll see the sharp contrast
of the black outline against my skin
I hope it reminds you
that I have a home
a mother, a brother, and two dogs
that are more excited about me than you are
despite the height difference
I need you to know that I am in control
that you are a pawn in my game of recklessness
and if I was closer to the edge (my edge)
I would stop reading Descartes on Mondays
I would stop forgetting my name on Saturdays
I would take out the last 15 dollars
and 75 cents on my debit card
to buy a one-way ticket to the city
but until then
I will try to fill the abnormally large abyss inside of me
with your average-sized ****
while wondering, if tomorrow
I will be able to distinguish the hangover
from the self pity
(perhaps I'll get out of bed before one)
Feb 5, 2013
Feb 5, 2013 at 9:15 AM UTC
Almost two years ago I wrote about how he told me
that we always had to question ourselves,
Almost two years later I read about the works of
Descartes, Aristotle, and other influential philosophers,
I begin to question all I know,
from whether the finger I write with writes what I or what it wants,
I’m skeptical of whether I am;
If I am, why? Why me?
I also realise how irrelevant it is
for me to worry about feelings and love and pain,
Almost two years ago I wrote daily
about myself as an object with experience
Now I write with skepticism
What’s the point anyways?
Mar 27, 2017
Mar 27, 2017 at 3:03 PM UTC
there’s usually two ways of writing an abstract
like one might have written one for
a chemistry experiment, a debriefing, a plot
summary as you might have it, although
in philosophy it’s either geometric of algebraic,
to take into account a chance meeting between sartre (b)
and descartes (a) i can only utilise the algebraic
in a framework of a platonic schematic, i.e. dialogue,
and since dialogue then casually, in conversation, like so:
example no. 1 (exercise of good faith)
(a) i think i had
a brain haemorrhage
(b) i doubt it.
example no. 2 (exercise of bad faith)
(b) i had
a brain haemorrhage
(a) how do you know?
(i.e. i’ll deny this statement.)
it really is as simple as that, after all, all the ball of wool
untangling in the standard philosophy books is meddled at times,
it is hard to craft an entry of a decent dialogue without
the one-sided stance of monologues that fill the pages of books,
but take any major tenet of the two philosopher’s works
and set a scene of two buddies talking in a pub, and that’s you
having skipped the best 200 pages of untimely meditations
and about 400 pages of being and nothingness - not out of rudeness
but on the simple basis: **** i understood it!
so if anything can be relevant in modern philosophy, and that’s
modern from 17th century to the present era
it is only relevant when applying a platonic schematic,
because it has to be talked about, and when talked about
simplified, because why would anyone want to over-complicate
and apply an aristotelian schematic of inspection
by writing very crude philosophies by the simple process
of over-complicating the thinking process as that, which
does not necessarily need thought attached to it - like at present,
with western society debasing any original theology
by forcing all the ills of the world as the adequate justification...
the origin of this, you will find,
is not from the people who suffer as such,
but from people who are safe, healthy and satiated with
adequate materialism,
the kind to have a very english middle-class sentimentality
to care for whimsical sensibilities, prudences and etiquette in general,
that's how placebo atheism works, it's still a ****** theology,
the real atheists? hmm, guess... the list is pretty dramatic
in the way they approached coupling freedom and will
and others - that's why i prefer my invention of coupling
a placebo effect with atheism... rather than writing out
a theology of absence - look... here's a trick:
a theology of indefinite absence (a) / theology of definite absence (the),
and then the ism from empiricism.
Oct 22, 2015
Oct 22, 2015 at 8:43 AM UTC