Form is emptiness
Emptiness is form

1. Sunyata (Emptiness) is the profound meaning of the Mahayana Teaching.

Two thousand five hundred years ago, the Buddha was able to realise "emptiness" (s. sunyata). By doing so he freed himself from unsatisfactoriness (s. dukkha). From the standpoint of enlightenment, sunyata is the reality of all worldly existences (s. dharma). It is the realisation of Bodhi — Prajna. From the standpoint of liberation, sunyata is the skilful means that disentangle oneself from defilement and unsatisfactoriness. The realisation of sunyata leads one to no attachment and clinging. It is the skilful means towards enlightenment and also the fruit of enlightenment.

There are two ways for us to understand this concept of sunyata in the Mahayana context. One way is to try to understand the explanation about its true nature. The other way is the realisation through practice. What we are going to discuss now is about its true nature.

Mahayana teachings have always considered that the understanding of sunyata is an attainment which is extremely difficult and extraordinarily profound.

For example, in the Prajna Sutra it says "That which is profound, has sunyata and non-attachment as its significance. No form nor deeds, no rising nor falling, are its implications."

Again in the Dvadasanikaya Sastra (composed by Nagarjuna, translated to Chinese by Kumarajiva A.D. 408) it says: "The greatest wisdom is the so-called sunyata."

This sunyata, no creation, calmness and extinction (s. nirvana) is of a profound significance in the Mahayana teachings. Why do we see it as the most profound teaching? This is because there is no worldly knowledge, be it general studies, science or philosophy, that can lead to the attainment of the state of sunyata. The only path to its realisation is via the supreme wisdom of an impassionate and discriminating mind. It is beyond the common worldly understanding.

2. The Significance of Sunyata and Cessation

The Buddha always used the terms void, no rising and falling, calmness and extinction to explain the profound meaning of sunyata and cessation. The teachings of the Buddha that were described in words are generally common to worldly understandings. If one interprets the teachings superficially from the words and languages used, one will only gain worldly knowledge and not the deeper implication of the teachings. The teachings of the Buddha have their supra-mundane contexts that are beyond the worldly knowledge.

For example, sunyata and the state of nirvana where there is no rising nor falling, are interpreted by most people as a state of non-existence and gloom. They fail to realise that quite the opposite, sunyata is of substantial and positive significance.

The sutras often use the word "great void" to explain the significance of sunyata. In general, we understand the "great void" as something that contains absolutely nothing. However, from a Buddhist perspective, the nature of the "great void" implies something which does not obstruct other things, in which all matters perform their own functions. Materials are form, which by their nature, imply obstruction. The special characteristic of the "great void" is non-obstruction. The "great void" therefore, does not serve as an obstacle to them. Since the "great void" exhibits no obstructive tendencies, it serves as the foundation for matter to function. In other words, if there was no "great void" nor characteristic of non-obstruction, it would be impossible for the material world to exist and function.

The "great void" is not separated from the material world. The latter depends on the former. We can state that the profound significance of sunyata and the nature of sunyata in Buddhism highlights the "great void’s" non-obstructive nature.

Sunyata does not imply the "great void". Instead, it is the foundation of all phenomena (form and mind). It is the true nature of all phenomena, and it is the basic principle of all existence. In other words, if the universe’s existence was not empty nor impermanent, then all resulting phenomena could not have arisen due to the co-existence of various causes and there would be no rising nor falling. The nature of sunyata is of positive significance!

Calmness and extinction are the opposite of rising and falling. They are another way to express that there is no rising and falling. Rising and falling are the common characteristics of worldly existence. All phenomena are always in the cycle of rising and falling. However, most people concentrate on living (rising). They think that the universe and life are the reality of a continuous existence.

Buddhism on the other hand, promotes the value of a continuous cessation (falling). This cessation does not imply that it ceases to exist altogether. Instead, it is just a state in the continuous process of phenomena. In this material world, or what we may call this "state of existence", everything eventually ceases to exist. Cessation is definitely the home of all existences. Since cessation is the calm state of existence and the eventual refuge of all phenomena, it is also the foundation for all activities and functions.

The Amitabha Buddha who was, and is, revered and praised by Buddhists around the world, radiates indefinite light and life from this "state of cessation". This state is a continuous process of calmness. It will be the eventual refuge for us all. If we think carefully about the definitions of calmness and extinction, then we can deduce that they are the true natural end-points of rising and falling. The true nature of the cycle of rising and falling is calmness and extinction. Because of this nature, all chaos and conflicts in the state of rising and falling will eventually cease. This is attainable by the realisation of prajna.

3. Contemplating the Implications of Sunyata and Stillness (Nirvana) by Observing Worldly Phenomena

All existences exhibit void-nature and nirvana-nature. These natures are the reality of all existence. To realise the truth, we have to contemplate and observe our worldly existence. We cannot realise the former without observing the latter. Consider this Heart Sutra extract, "Only when Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva practised the deep course of wisdom of Prajna Paramita did he come to realise that the five skandhas (aggregates, and material and mental objects) were void."

Profound wisdom leads us to the realisation that all existences are of void-nature. The sutras demonstrate that the profound principle can be understood by contemplating and observing the five skandhas. We cannot realise the truth by seeking something beyond the material and mental world. The Buddha, using his perfect wisdom, observed worldly existence from various implications and aspects, and came to understand all existences.

In summary, there are three paths to this observation:

a) We should observe the preceding state and the current state of conditions. i.e., Observation according to the concept of time.

b) We should observe existences according to their interrelationships. i.e., Observation via the concept of space (either two or three-dimensions).

c) We should observe the true nature of all myriad beings. This is like observing the worldly existences of a point, a line and an area. Those with supreme wisdom understand the true nature of all worldly existences by observing vertically the relationships between the preceding and current conditions, and horizontally the interrelationships. Then we can understand the true meaning of void-nature and nirvana-nature.

3.1 By observing the preceding-stage and the current-stage conditions, we can verify the Law of Impermanence of all worldly existences. All existences, be they material or mental, be they the material world, or the physical or mental states of sentient beings, are subject to continuous change.

The world may have certain states of beings where they stay static or are in equilibrium on a temporary basis (for example hibernation). But when we observe them with supreme wisdom, we will find that not only do they keep changing on a yearly basis, but also that this change applies to even every briefest moment. After the current state of conditions have ceased to exist, the newly-formed state materialises. This is the state of rising and falling. The rising and falling of each small moment reveals that all existences are ever-moving and ever-changing.

Conventional scholars have a very good explanation of these ever-changing worldly conditions. However they, including the practitioners of dharma, try to make sense of the reality from the ever-changing worldly existences. That is, they are fooled by the material existences and are not able to understand the deeper truth of all existences.

Only those with the supreme wisdom of the Buddha and Mahabodhisattvas realise and understand that all existences are illusions. They understand that existences are not real from the observation of the flow of changing existences. The numerous illusionary existences may well be diverse and confusing, arising and decaying. But when we look into their true nature, we will find them void and of nirvana-nature.

On the other hand, since all existences are of nirvana-nature, they appear from the perspective of time, to be ever-changing. They never stay the same even for the briefest moment. Impermanence implies existences do not have a permanent entity. This is another implication of the nature of sunyata and stillness.

3.2 From observations of existence via inter-relationships, we can conclude that nothing is independent of the Law of Causation, and that everything is without ego. For example, the Buddha explains that the individual sentient being is composed of physical, physiological and psychological phenomena. The so called ego is a deluded illusion which does not exist in reality. Its existence depends on the combination of both physical and mental factors. It is a union of organic phenomena. Thus we call it the empirical ego. It is a mistake to cling to it as an infatuated ego.

The Indian concept of the supreme spirit implies someone who rules. The spirit is the ruler who is independent of is self-dependent and all causes. In other words, the spirit is the one who is free from all primary and secondary causes (for physical and mental aspects). The spirit is the one who has the soul of his own body and mind. This is the ego or supreme spirit that the theologists cling to. From their view point, the only way to avoid physical and mental decay is to be self-determined and self-sovereign. In this way, the supreme being can stay permanent in the cycle of reincarnation, and return to the absolute reality by liberating himself from life and death.

But from the profound contemplation and wisdom of the Buddha and Mahabodhisattvas, we know there is no such reality. Instead, egolessness (non-self) is the only path to understand the reality of the deluded life. All existences are subject to the Law of Causes and Conditions. These include the smallest particles, the relationship between the particles, the planets, and the relationship between them, up to and including the whole universe! From the smallest particles to the biggest matter, there exists no absolute independent identity.

Egolessness (non-self) implies the void characteristics of all existence. Egolessness (non-self) signifies the non-existence of permanent identity for self and existence (Dharma). Sunyata stresses the voidness characteristic of self and existence (Dharma). Sunyata and egolessness possess similar attributes. As we have discussed before, we can observe the profound significance of sunyata from the perspective of inter-dependent relationships. Considering dharma-nature and the condition of nirvana, all existences are immaterial and of a void-nature. Then we see each existence as independent of each other. But then we cannot find any material that does exist independent of everything else. So egolessness also implies void-nature!

3.3 From the observation of all existences, we can infer the theory of nirvana and the complete cessation of all phenomena. From the viewpoint of phenomena, all existences are so different from each other, that they may contradict each other. They are so chaotic. In reality, their existence is illusionary and arises from conditional causation. They seem to exist on one hand, and yet do not exist on the other. They seem to be united, but yet they are so different to one another. They seem to exist and yet they do cease! Ultimately everything will return to harmony and complete calmness. This is the nature of all existence. It is the final resting place for all. If we can understand this reality and remove our illusions, we can find this state of harmony and complete calmness.

All our contradictions, impediments and confusion will be converted to equanimity. Free from illusion, complete calmness will be the result of attaining nirvana. The Buddha emphasised the significance of this attainment and encouraged the direct and profound contemplation on void-nature. He said, "Since there is no absolute self-nature thus every existence exhibits void-nature. Because it is void, there is no rising nor falling. Since there is no rising nor falling, thus everything was originally in complete calmness. Its self-nature is nirvana."

From the viewpoint of time and space, we can surmise that all existences are impermanent, all existences have no permanent self, and nirvana is the result of the cessation of all existences - the Three Universal Characteristics. But there are not three different truths. Instead, they are the characteristics of the only absolute truth and the ultimate reality. This is the explanation of Dharma-nature and the condition of nirvana. The three characteristics are the one characteristic, and vice versa!

We may cultivate our meditation, contemplating the impersonality of all existences. This will lead us to enlightenment via the path of voidness. Contemplating nirvana and complete calmness leads to enlightenment by the path of immaterial form. Contemplating the impermanence of all existences, leads us to enlightenment by the path of inactivity (no desire).

The Three Universal Characteristics are the other implications of Dharma-nature and nirvana. The paths to enlightenment are also the same cause of absolute reality. All of them return to the Dharma-nature and the condition of nirvana. In short, the teachings of the Buddha start from the observation and contemplation of all worldly phenomena. They are like thousands of streams of water competing with each other, and flowing from the top of the mountains to the bottom. Eventually, all of them return to the ocean of voidness and nirvana.

4. Sunyata and Cessation is the Truth (Nature) of All Existences.

All existences that are recognised by worldly understanding, whether materially, spiritually or intellectually, have always been misunderstood by us. We cling to them as real, physically existing and permanent. Actually, they are only unreal names.

The more precise meaning of the term "unreal name" is "assumption" or "hypothesis". It is an empirical name. It is formed by the combination of various causes and effects. (These include the effects of mental consciousness.) It does not exist by itself. Everything exists relatively. Thus, what is the ultimate truth? If we investigate existence further, we realise that all existences are empty. This is the fundamental characteristic and reality of all existence. It is ultimate and absolute. But we should not think that empty means nothing. It implies the disentanglement from the worldly misunderstanding of the existence of self, identity, and the realisation of the absolute.

In the Sutras and Abhidharma, the worldly understandings are sometimes referred to as all phenomena (Dharma). Sunyata is referred to as "Dharma-nature", and hence there is a distinction between "phenomena" and "Dhamma-nature". However, this is only an expedient explanation that helps us to realise the truth of sunyata through the phenomena of all existences.

We should not think that "existence" and "nature"; or the "phenomena of Dharma" and "Dharma-nature" are something contradictory. They are just concepts needed to understand the implication of sunyata.

We may analyse the exp

then
our granny spoke,
manners are the gate
that opens to the kingdom
where, on the chairs, sit
respect and honour.

then
our granny spoke,
manners are the rainbow
that materialises after
the heavenly grace and bliss
shower on our heads.

so we spoke,
manners are our breath,
our each step on the mat,
on the marble, our bridge
where long-lived fame stands.

papa internet goes wacko with his cybernetic compulsory
esoteric ****, says words like: the person who's to go against
the holy trinity (minus the surd no one really bothers) is no longer
a Jungian fantasy, the trigger and
the detonator of world war une and part deux,
but the paraclete isn't a person of much
relief either - cold war une and part deux -
right now, china's expressionless billion -
you squint, they look sober,
you drink, they look squinty eyed,
can't winde up that cold heart readied for
a billion polymath antonyms of your self
in automaton mobility -
compared with the fragile western championing
of individuality, China looks like a billion
despots morphed into one, you can't win.
back to Catholic bureucracy:
that's two names at your baptism -
matthew, conrad - and a third
at your confirmation (which i never
had, scouts' honour, cross my fingers
mea culpa my heart and count to 100)
would have been: Shiva -
the auspicious son returns -
well, **** me, canned peaches
and some apples and the NATO
phonetic: will you be my bride?
that's a thumbs up on the Rockefeller Sq.;
Isis: blatant espionage: mother of Horus
sister of Osiris - and i'm the Duracell bunny,
******* a clone sheep with a ***** dummy eject;
******, ***** strap-on, thingy magic eek (
the fidgety bit of putting together an Ikea table
for high tea).
you never went to a faith high-school
you never got to grips with the uniform,
or the bureaucracy, some of it invented
to simply rebel against it -
not the uniform bit, i thought that
was clean, in terms of non-discrimination
and how trans gets gendered as both, or neither
being allocated the chance to foster
would-be abortions.
hey! if Elton John can have a telly-tubby, so can i!
but this isn't your song...
and you just made an effort to scrap the idea
of singing in a shower -
poetry is never a sing-along, more or less
a thought-along - thought... a word masturbated a lot...
and i meant a lot - esp. when you're day-dreaming
and nothing you think precipitates into being
what you were thinking about -
so anti Cartesian, fair enough, thinking can precipitate
into a centimetre definition, a centimetre allowance,
self-consciousness bit - but beyond this fact
it's back to square one, daydreaming,
the disagreeing fact of thinking but not being,
or not thinking and being: the latter reserved for
entertainers and sports -
this is the secondary stage of the Cartesian realisation
that Descartes didn't mention... when thinking
does not precipitate into being - secondary meaning
a telepathic joke - or the men that stare at sheep
in the U.S. army and think they can run through walls...
of course the classical model involves the easiest
explanation, ergo as in +, -, x, ÷, take whatever metaphors
from this tetrasignum you want on a vacation into
psychiatry, i'm not one schizoid moment bothered
about firebombing Dresden either (slaughterhouse 5),
it's true enough to say that thought proves existence,
but thinking doesn't necessarily prove being -
whatever that means - it's the daydreaming bit
of the equation - Descartes is really a primer for
the study of philosophy, even Kant comes back to
this vocabulary arithmetic - as does Heidegger with
his bemusement: when people say "i, i",
cognitive identity and otherwise expressed.
the roads are divergent, or let us say the one's
origin from nothing leads to no big bang,
let us just say: a personal rebellion, not so much
that one precipitates into another,
let's just say that the ergo is worth replacing,
given our daydreams... and the fortune of never
realising our fancies... or as some might claim:
our misfortune of not realising our fancies, but
having a personal life without a media microscope
itemising our every movement... poly-diadem
dictator of western media:
                                                cogito para sum.
or, as stated by the benzene trinity affixes -
inclusive ortho- and meta-, obviously shortened
for liquid extraction - or the quip -
as in para: guard against, | |... interjecting / intersecting, i.e.
the suffix -llel (closure? not really, it could be
a nuanced noun, category affix, less familial concerns -
ah yes, an affix -llel, a suffix is a complete word:
pre- agaro -suf phobia, till the no. xi).
so a step beyond the cul de sac of Descartes -
the daydreaming part, when indeed thought materialises
into artificial intelligence simulators concerned
with the question of self-consciousness, paradoxical twins,
where thought materialises into its existential recipient standard
of never fulfilled, always unfulfilled, always demanding...
the bemoaned culture gap between youtube videos going
viral and virology on a canvas of infected flesh -
so forget the Cartesian cascade, that thinking will precipitate
into being of some sort, given current care for celebrity
culture we can't be assorting this equation with a rational
sequence, or the "as it should be", that train is long gone...
we need to defend ourselves against the precipitation of
thought into non-being - to regain a pleasure from mere thought...
not every thought will leave us richer off or as start-up
entrepreneurs - hence the need for non-materialisation,
our perfected mechanisation - the daydream - oh don't worry,
i'm not writing this from an ivory tower...
i have a constant fear too... but this ergo of 1 + 1 + 1 = 3
will not do... hence the revision, as all philosophical
standards are cared for akin to Renaissance canvases -
                                                               ­             cogito para sum:
that my thinking parallels my being - as i indulge in the former
and economise in the latter.

Ever catch yourself
caught between
the light and dark?

Has the stark contrast
blinded you, both
from lack of
and abundance of
luminescence.

Ever rounded a night corner
and prayed that the road
materialises beyond you;
that it follows the path
the very way you
imagine it?

And have you ever felt utterly ALIVE in that
frantic millisecond of uncertainty?

I have.

the English are a very special breed of bigots, they don't engage in hypocrisy to suggest they feel superior with a decent moral compass, or to provide gentelmanly airs: pick out the pointless sorry when bumping into someone on the street - their inherent stage-fright at vulgarity hides something... the biggest asset of this constipated hypocrisy? what happens next... satire... so in being hypocrites they are awash in satirical humour... they laugh it off the minute they make some sort of allusion to a moral concern for something... given the current situation with the migrant crisis: where the majority are single men rather than Jewish families, you get the picture... it's amazing how they can change their hypocrisy into satire, and do so blatantly without a care in a world... i do wonder how the Icelanders would compare, both being island societies and all.

5 sq miles is all i need, to breath new air
and look at the same garbage of what life has to offer,
obviously the chanced and randomised
encounter with some *** on a bench
laughing our socks off, or a retired grandpa
getting away from the wife -
just like today - a fresh autumnal breeze:
i the cooling process to the heating up process,
don't know why, but there's as much
beauty in slow decay as in slow sprouting -
decay and its many colours never feels as ever
being monochromatic winter or summer -
it's the persistence of change - two transition
seasons, two plateau seasons: what a strange balance.
anyway, my usual (see how i invoked:
my life's so ******* boring, i decided to write
about it - like hell would i document it using
photographs: that's for the rich flashy people -
i'm more into the archaic mode - bought what i need,
and now i'm really using it) route was disrupted,
that's all it takes, walk a different English suburban
labyrinth and the world kaleidoscopes beyond
comparison; drank the strong beer (although,
ice cubes do make a difference when poured from
a can into a glass, Oranjeboom used to stand at
8.5%, just half a % shy from the *******
Special Brew - now it's at 7.5%, and, well, it taste
just about like candy-barley) - but that's what changing
habits does to you, my usual stroll became,
for some reason, electrifying - i censored my audience
on that ghoulish website i was introduced to at
university to 23 people, and i'm chirpier than
a sparrow - the newspapers were telling the truth:
for once - it just seemed that i was seeing less
network opportunities, and more ghost,
pointless memories of school, that everyone seems
to exploit in art (notably the smiths' soloist doing
the part of: oh how horrid those days of yore) -
dunno, liked the uniform, liked the topics,
never bothered having a social life in there,
everyone had extra four hours spare, i was doing
4 A-levels rather than 3, and every Wednesday i
would finish at 2:30 p.m. and head straight home
to beat the traffic - i picked up a girlfriend at the end
of my education, passed the exams and ****** off
to Edinburgh - most congregated with their social
networks from school in Canterbury -
the city was all i cared for, nowhere like it -
and perhaps the twinning of what i used to call
kiszka* (sh, or sz) that became haggis - whichever,
the fact that my father was taught the trade of roofing
by Scots, and that my favourite teacher was a Scot
too must have played on my romance at needing
to leave England - shame it wasn't for good, but never mind.
as for the fact the school was Catholic, i didn't leave
it having been confirmed, everyone else got to choose
a confirmation name, i was asking: why would anyone
even make the choice of being baptised in the first place?
too much sniffing in the library, reading about
the Gnostic heretics, who, as i suggested it to the r.e.
teacher (religious education) shared a similar doctrine
with what later became Islam: the phantom being
crucified and what not - now i do wish i could
have had a liberal education without religion playing
a pivotal role in my development, but then i'd
have missed out on the uniform, and the army-style
regime: i swear, no uniform and your whole life
ends up a nightmare from high school - because
we didn't develop an image issue, we didn't really
care to exploit our youth to side with a rebellious
stampede of making a mark - it would look ridiculous,
what with g.c.s.e. mathematics and talk of
photosynthesis in biology - ah, the disfranchised
youth of America, with their high school debacles
echoing a mortal's sense of eternity -
yes, my father was conscripted into the army,
he served the tenure of three years in Warsaw,
because he was tall and handsome we has put into
the household division, schooling in Poland
doesn't exactly use uniforms, well, i was enlisted
into the next best thing (apart from a grammar school),
yep, a faith school - he learnt a softer variation
of arbeit macht frei i.e. arbeit veredeln (work
ennobles) - or some variation of arbeit adeln - referring
to knights - the same rigour in his physical
activities are equated to the same standard in my
choice of utilising the necessary faculty: bullshitting -
not necessarily lying: unnecessarily telling the truth -
                          ^
                  telling the                 funny how you don't
                                           need the words there -
the verb structure already within lies -
                  but with truth, ****, you have express it
further, by some set standard;
but that's all it takes, a different route from the routine
zigzag, and i become more Columbus and less Kant.
a few things popped up -
a. i could blatantly write you a psychological profile
of homegrown terrorists - the filtering process?
grammar - you can decipher everything with grammar.
they're usually immigrants like me,
but they were probably born here,
having spent 8 years of my life in Poland as a child
already undermined any hope of the nicely ethnic cleansing
phrased: "assimilation" / "integration" process -
i couldn't **** the child and his knowledge of a language,
although the ones condemning being bilingual
would hardly bother learning another language,
which is exactly what English people on holiday are:
rude... when i went alone to Paris and slept in a hostel
i had to befriend someone who knew the language,
and managed to, on two occasions, because, otherwise,
i'd look like a complete idiot; great city, circa 2005 / 6.
they homegrown because they haven't realised that
they've been ethnically cleansed, so they take up talking
slang, and monosyllable Arabic to express their anger,
they've got the olive skin, but not the tongue of the desert,
me? i find it easier to write in English than in Polish,
but i could talk to you in the tongue, as i can read it:
i already said - philosophy in English, even with Locke?
nope... no can do... not while you heard such
things as: thinking, a dangerous endeavour...
the English can't write philosophy to save their life,
i can't read Sartre in English... it's just gibberish to me,
you need to know a continental tongue to read philosophy,
where else, other than in England will you find people
associating thinking as a tedium, rather than a medium?
nowhere! and these kids are disgruntled because they
have lost the capacity to identify with their parents,
they only see the insulating anger done unto their parents
by the society they live in and can only communicate
with what would provide an equilibrium to their situation:
their nativity of the mother tongue -
but since they haven't done that, then they act with
monstrosity - slang being their reality, slang as a way
to "modernise" their host language -
or at least change it, meaning that middle class folk
are like: huh?! a big ingredient in urban areas, obviously.
then they feel marginalised in blocks of flats...
a communist reality in eastern europe, and no one
complained... and the new way of housing people?
a bit plushier versions of their concrete counter-parts:
glass people (the social media advent) in glass houses.
b. *******, i wasn't going to expand a minor point
in my cognitive narrative from my walk that much...
this is the epitome of writing and the English suburban
labyrinth - everything looks the same, then take a step
elsewhere and boom... fresh air.
ah yes... what's with this deepest desire to cut off
subjectivity? it's happening all the time,
esp. noticeable in newspapers - the English abhor
the mere idea of subjectivity - everyone's supposed
to be a scientists... ask any chemist though:
the holy grail is subjectivity - i studied chemistry
but i read Milan Kundera - my director of studies
owned an Edward Hopper postcard in his office...
does a scientist really have to tell people who find
science hard and rather read a toothpaste's list of ingredients
(yes, chemistry is the only study area that
shows off English having being rooted in Saxony,
chemists compound nouns like everyday Germans
say: i ate a peppermint after dinner:
               pfefferminzeessennachdemwurst) -
all this desire to look "cool" and atheistic never translates
into collective atheism: of imitating an ant colony
and banishing god forever - all this
angst against subjectivity - the blind pursuit of
objectivity does only one thing: it guises subjectivity
in the dire need for psychology - logic of the soul,
or logic of breathing: a strange possibility,
i could have asked an asthmatic -
                                         and this constant, constant
nagging against poetry, from journalists and
psychiatrists alike, oh wait, you didn't write a 500 page
book which i wouldn't have read anyway:
you must be mad! sure thing doctor, mad as Duracell
bunny - gotta live the life, gotta live the life,
gotta run a marathon, got to travel to India for
a spiritual breakthrough, gotta this, gotta do that...
sit on your *** and enjoy the pleasure of thought
that never materialises into owning toilet blockage...
well, something like that.
pointing that out i don't understand why
the abhorrence of god is later translated into David Attenborough,
          or why there's no O in Edinburgh -
berg... burg... berg.. burg... and they never teach
you plain and simple: we have so many leopard spot
variations in our language, we're betting that it will
have a universal appeal to all of humanity, a true global
glutton tongue, encompassing an empire on which
the sun never sets... and some disgruntled white youths
fist fighting a question: but what's the real deal with
the basics?! too many particulars -
                   and that's what's bothering me,
i don't know whether to feel shame or sorrow,
definitely not happiness - i speak the blimmin' tongue better
than the natives! this is the funny part, i can speak of
English people like they're red indians - the natives -
ha ha hmm... it's probably devastating in terms of
the educational system, but i do, maybe that's why i
mentioned a patriotism to the language, but not the culture
that provided it... a patriotism toward the language,
so, in reality: rewriting being English - so very much
like 1066 at Hastings - Norman steps onto the shore...
right! Domesday Book... dome and doom... never figured
that one out either... oh sure, a few of them got
smart and kept a secular monopoly on language like
the priests used to... but it's subtle these days,
it's not a blatant **** in your face where you can't read...
i'm betting that English has the highest rate of
dyslexia among all the languages of the world...
perhaps the French? n'ah, they love their public intellectuals...
here's it's all: sing sing sing... sing along and Tokyo
at the pub on Fridays;
and they know i speak better native than the natives,
because the conversation usually goes into
not language per se, but the organic side of language,
organic meaning idiosyncratic, a posh way of saying: accent...
and that horrid: where you from?
i usually just say something along the lines
of a Greek: citizen of the world... or was that commerce
deal with China a fake?
that's what it means when acquiring the English language,
the diversity of accents, primarily because
other languages have already implied a standard encoding
of accents, those diacritical marks are there for a reason:
a heightened involvement in specification of the desired sounds,
whenever someone learns English... it's not there!
it's simply missing, given the monopoly, for one,
which means that the language does attach itself to
the host living in a host society - funny dynamic away from
the dust covered master and slave - in a very
specific way, namely whatever diacritical assimilation
the host had with his mother tongue becomes atypically
exemplified in English - since English has hidden
diacritical dynamics - which obviously ****** the natives
off who didn't get a decent education - as in:
someone spotting this out for them - namely
someone who acquired the language like a native,
unconsciously - first come first served dynamic,
and not someone who had to consciously learn it,
i.e. not from mama and papa... from primary school
playgrounds, from teachers... through strife...
and this is my antidote of the central Nietzschean doctrine:
the will to strife...                not necessarily strive,
but a will to strife...                   well, if they're going to
keep shunning subjectivity, leaving it far too late
and in the hands of psychologists, faking it intellectually
but otherwise being fundamental in expressing it
only musically in pop culture... we will never reach
the objectivity of the Chinese and the Indians, forget it!
but that's what we're being prescribed -
and culminating in paradoxically abhorring the idea
of god - but admiring nature in all its glory -
                        i'm not even going to argue a god
of disabled people... they're having a laugh with the idea
of god at the Para-Olympics - i'm not getting into a debate
concerning that idea - just a congested version of
the universal why - but in the variation of constant
bewilderment in a particular *huh?!

15 June:
“...its half way in a morning that glistens with slow reminiscences from last night. We find ourselves a respite for the hour, an oasis of sweet temper and our favourite elixir. We sit at the burdened edge; separated by transparency from passing furies; watching with rapt attention and fascination the range of creation displayed before us...We hunt down todays metaphors on clean pages; virginal expanses that congregate with a sublime notion of the art; death; logic; lust and wonder...we span serial glyphs across our vision to prevent a dissolving into the expanse before us; forming borders; signs; structures...Only to be de-constructed again and again; time dissolving; seconds inverting the quantum flux as HereNow paints the Tao over the moment...nothing-everything...we blink in and out; existence define by our presence; the reason and the way forward...delicately; smoothly; succinctly; we pick out secrets from between our worlds; Heartblood squeezed from the cries of angels; the force of supernovas; the very point of transition...again and again the universe spins us. A point – transition-how we create. This secret way. Again and again we play the Fool...again and again we play the Wizard. The tattooed skull of Intimacy grins from the ink on our backs...”

21.8.2010**
“...Sunday materialises. Its a smouldering glance across the smoky eternity of a crowded room. A lost sonata barely recognised on faded parchment dusty in a forgotten draw. Its the breeze in the wake of an angels wing. The seconds chip away; each tick a foreign language, the dissonance of grace. We're sitting, hidden, in plain sight, a wayward stop-over; a cafe somewhere on the edge of reason, but the coffees good and the service fast. We watch the people; reading signs and portents in the oblivious expressions; each grin and scowl, each glance, each distant look a codex of requite dreams; a subtle picture puzzle colouring destiny’s reverie. We join the dots. The music over the cafes soundsystem; beats with inevitable consequence. We feel deep into the heart of Journey and Moment...”

Your name materialises
From words
Books, adverts, signs
Primed to see you
Superfluous letters fade from my perception
And leave the important few
Yours

Satisfaction lingers
The inherent bliss that warms
The buried fears that flounder,
The abolishment of qualms

The radiant glow materialises
Substantiating to a path
Hop onto the luminescence
Guiding you to your guard

I am a container

A crystalline beaker fills me to the brim
With affection in a golden hue
The amber nectar seeping in abundance

As a tap leeches my soul, my mere essence sways
As I bleed and stand on crystal shards

An empty vessel yields no spirit
From the empty barrel that remains
For a heart devoid of soul would not
Display nor muster

I am the light that dissipates
Yet the darkness brought me back
It does not leave me alone
Why does it clamp itself to my back

Get it off
Get it off me
GET.    IT.    OFF.    ME!

It does not leave me alone
It does not               leave me        alone
It does not        leave        me alone
It        does not leave        me        alone



It
         does
                        not
                                ­    leave















                                        ­                                                         *It doesn't...

I circle around the halo
That stirs what lies below.
Spinning now
Only excess
materialises in belief form.
What is it about the chimera you construct
For those that don’t exist?
Gasping and grasping on
Slivers from a murdered past
You insist on perfecting gems in souls
Where there are none.
Let it rest my friend … or not
For the fury of Zenobia
Is still lighting
What remains of your life
And mine.

Anger
Is a kind
Of pen.

We
Keep it
In our pockets.

In hot
places
It splotches
and materialises
On the shirts.

Not all
But we too
Despise
The defected clothes.

Outside, on windowpanes
the passionate crows
tap their beaks
till their hope is exhausted,
a lonely figure,
in the glass, materialises,
and they, lost in its greatness,
daily wait and think
it will open its wings to see them.
who will tell them
shadows are beautiful rainbows
but never they can wear an image that
will smudge their covert wounds, bleeding.

i need to stop seeing you in my dreams, but it feels like the only way i can have that is if i stop dreaming -
completely.
how do you build a wall where imagination and reality coalesce
where the smoke materialises, but fades away
drawing the line between everything and nothing at all.

i want to backspace every moment that happened
rewrite every line of our story,
but i always get as far as that one chapter and then it
hurts too much to delete.
i am still bound.

The joy of losing, the pain of having
The peace in denial, the wrath of acceptance

The meaning is in the depth of confusion
Paved with pretence and bad action

How do you know when its real?
The echoes that never come to
Loud in my thought- almost in my grasp,
but never materialises

The meaning is in the depth of confusion
Thoughts unseen manifests in character felt

How do you know when your mind is playing tricks on you?
Lips express desire
Heart is non committal
The hope that promises tomorrow,
vanishes before the break of dawn

The meaning is in the depth of confusion
Light in darkness is pure truth

How do you know when its sincere?
The truth isn’t as pretty as the smiles
Shallow expressions embraced to the core
Pain in a distance- approaching at a pace controlled by guilt and shame

The meaning is in the depth of confusion
The heart is decisive

How do you know you found the one?
I want you, I don’t need you
The heart that causes pain, dies in pain
Betrayal is inevitable
Truth compromised anchors our hope

Pain lies with you in a bed of love, covered by uncertainty and indecisions
The meaning is in the depth of confusion

you are more or less what you desire
way before it materialises in sold form
and even then desire will lead you on
so keep checking that compass

I am, as a philosopher,  interested in all things and guilty of a charge if  it causing involuntary thoughts leading to indepth discussion and unfathomable parallells, materialises;

But none,  more so than you.
x

The hotel sits just off Main Street,
between the hospital and the *******.
It’s walls covered in ivy and the front gates
held together by rust and century-old bolts.
The wind whistles through the broken windows
when it travels north from the cemetery.
The old folks in the town tell tales
of curses, witchcraft, devil-worship and ******.
The young folks don’t believe in any of that any more,
old gods forgotten in time, but none venture inside,
the building giving off a sickening feeling.


The grand foyer is overgrown with nature,
the slick walls nurturing the flora.
Rain drips in from the holes in the ceiling,
neglect and time exposing the beams and rafters,
a man-made cave unexplored for decades,
wiped off the map and replaced with a blank space.
It’s dark in here despite the valiant attempt
of an early afternoon sun bursting with light.
A grand staircase rises into darkness
and seems to split in two directions,
to the east wing and the west.
Most stories told about this place were set in room 77,
follow the hallway into the east wing,
at the end take another staircase on your right,
into another hallway, sixteenth door on the left.


The second number seven on the door has fallen off,
leaving behind it the memory of the gold,
that missing number not on the floor, long gone,
taken by a brave soul on a dare.
The door is warm to the touch,
the door to room 76 is cold,
as is 75, 74, 73, 72.
The hallway smells of abandonment, that sickly wet smell
that a gravestone gives off after a thunderstorm.
Maybe it’s the lichen and moss growing on the walls
that gives off this horrible smell of not-quite-dead
but it does not drown out the quiet laughter
coming from behind the warm door of room 77.


The door creaks open, silencing the giggling;
it sounded like children, perhaps, or bats disturbed.
The curtains are drawn so everything within
is hidden from the view of the living.
It smells different in here, like a forest
that hasn’t seen rain for weeks.
It is stifling in the room but the radiators are ****-cold.
Water starts running in the bathroom en suite,
the giggling starting up again, definitely children.
Floorboards damp with the moisture in the air
crack underfoot and cause the laughter to stop again.
In the en suite, the hot water tap is running,
water splashing out of the basin and onto the floor.
The water in the toilet bowl is green with algae
and the smell of ozone is burning hot.


Back in the room, an old photograph of a crossroads
hangs above the bed and it feels uneasy,
as if the photo is telling a story of this room,
that deals were done here as they were there,
selling souls for a gift, cheated out of a raw deal.
Dust swirls and spirals in a vortex in the air.
The door to the room slams shut.
There is a dressing gown hanging on to a hook
that barely has any strength left in it,
and just then, the hook falls out of the door,
sending both it and the dressing gown to the floor.
The mood in that room swiftly changes.


Drawn on the door in chalk is a pentagram,
a crude representation of the Sigil of Baphomet.
Beneath that, an inverted cross with Yeshua written beneath it.
From near the window on the other side of the room,
a hot breath materialises and the curtains close.
In that darkness, footsteps heavy and slow approach
as the laughter rises and fills the room with raw terror.
A deep, gravelly voice grinds its way through the air
and speaks in a tongue not heard in millennia.
יֵצֶר לֵב הָאָדָם רַע
The floor opens up into an abyss and the world falls away.


The old folks in the town tell tales
of curses, witchcraft, devil-worship and ******.
The young folks don’t believe in any of that any more.

i can only suppose that my expectations concerning
life... slowly fizzled out...
once i realised that i had no obligations
moving forward...
  obligation is a loose term:
              investments in responsibilities...
although: i still dabble in a variation of responsibility:
on a bicycle... minding traffic...
esp. at night... with no indicators...
or a front or a back light flickering...
aiming at 30mph downhill...
with my headphones in... not holding the handlebars...

what a silly little quest: at 35 i ought to have
a life resembling my father's, my grandfather's...
although: i'm not having all that much
"fun" that might also be expected in a man's
prime...
once in a while i'll wake up from half
a decade's slumber and shout:
that dwarf in the Game of Thrones will not...
have more fun in the brothel than me...
perhaps it was easier once upon
a time to wield a sword than
seek something from slowly downing
a bottle of wine...

there are moments of absolute terror
when i freeze all over and start
rummaging for my wallet after a night's ride
in my rucksack where i keep
my bicycle lock... for a splinter of what's
time... the entire tree:
that freezing sequence...
but then i find it and i remember
that... that one kleptomaniac in the brothel
didn't steal my debit card...
i guess it must be hard to go about
debit card fraud...
which is why i don't have a credit card...
although: so i heard:
you get better insurance if...
your credit card is... cloned...
but then: you also have the higher risk...
plus... at least with a debit card:
i can't spend more than i have...
i never liked the idea of credit...
it was a ******* nuisance...
i'll spend what i have...
if that involves me spending £120 for an hour's
worth with a *******
once every... half a decade...
by the time i'm through with: "man in his prime"
i'll have about... 3 notches on my belt
of... "conquest"...

while in between all those nights...
there was that handy... cheap... but handy...
£4.99 bottle of new south wales' Merlot
to ease into a dreamless sleep...

ooh: soppy puppy...
  unless listening to some French escort...
the prince charming the white night...
the mistress contra the wife...
such attitudes only French people can have:
of a certain economic stratum...
not among the yellow vests...
no no... the fairground carousel people...
professionals...
limitless: who... on a whim...
want all that: XAOS...

  interlude: just some doodles that kept
me awake before i drowned them
with a slice of bread
and some... pork: BRAWN
(pork tongues, pork jowl, skins, pork liver)...
am i missing something
beside the Swedish sweet mustard?
the gelatine...
but after the red wine:
i'd **** for a raw herring in some...
oil / vinegar and onions...
ooh... slurp me another sire...
this Baltic sushi!

    (that Hannibal Lecter slurp sound
that i will not bother to write an onomatopoeia
for)...
my sunken cheeks! my folding tongue!
tears in my eyes
are the memory of the taste that:
when retested... is always the same...

between what's..
hope... and faith...

  well... nadzieja and: wiara...

hope and belief...

hop along: e-tymological...

be a leaf: of this grand tree with past...
  otherwise the secular variation
of belief:
the negation of doubt...
was... belief ever a certainty...
or a masquerading of:

  "something"... ahem... "else"?

hope is faith
in that hope isn't belief...
belief is rigidity... orthodoxy...
faith is that one on the sly: *****-nilly...
faith is an indefinite article...
belief is a definite article...
perhaps in other related languages
but esp. in English...
the scissors of a-          -the-
  and some variation of -ism...
it cuts through most things, words...
subject matters...

  faith: indefinite... articulation of off...
sometimes even from...

it must be a balancing act... i write a sentence
akin to: hope is faith
i might as well draw a red circle...
or a blue triangle...
of a green square...
by any standards of "logic" and "image":
it's hard to imagine 2...
unless you're cycling for 2 miles...
20mph: but that requires a multiplication
of 2 via 0 and the mph suffix...

2 is hard to "imagine": translate into an image...
it becomes too symbolic:
a symbol isn't an image...
a pair... most likely...
2 would be a 7... with a curved base
and medium: chiral... chimera...

hope is faith = a red circle...
what's more important is...
  the secular variation of: to counter hopelessness...
the antonym of belief:
the negation of doubt... oddly enough...
the antonym of belief shouldn't
be the negation of doubt:
since the antonym of belief is doubt...
well: the antonym of doubt is most probably
negation...
bad faith... alias...
        
a drunk's muddles... muddles...
spaghetti for shoelaces...
now i rather walk either barefoot or in one sandal...
my left foot...
i'm right-handed ergo right footed...
i'd need a sandal on my "weaker" foot...
which foot is supposedly weaker
when i'm peddling?
kicking a ball... sure... the "weaker" left foot...
foot... because not the whole leg...
holding a pen: my right hand...
but i could coordinate left hand fingers
pointing as i would with my right hand... fingers...

- yes... the wine... to oil up my fingers
and to wet my appetite for the tongue
to rummage in its cave of 32 pearls...
then a knockout of a trap of ms. amber...
to put me out of my "misery":

and with these words: what conversation
would i have... a challenging life...
there is so much everyday soap opera drama
to get through though:
eyes glued to the television... perhaps...
the news: i'm still going to vouch for
a higher status of advertisers to that of journalists...
after all: in the editorial section...
the commentary section:
newspapers are sold... they're not pamphlets...
journalists are not... punk:
they're not pamphleteers...
apparently...

  are these words sacrosanct?
          nor are the words in a newspaper
in the opinions section:
are these words... cursed? i imagine they hold
a sway of cruelty about them...
teasing with mottos like:
to make art rather than money...
to forever escape the formality of language:
i'll be perched on a windowsill:
the whole 6ft2 200lb of me
cradling the night and...
one insomniac magpie or a crow...
accomplice of the moon...

ol' baldy... tod-kopf... grinning idiot...
and his nation has the flag
in the following colours:
red, yellow and white...
  i will not make money:
i already don't earn what i wouldn't
otherwise spend...
even in central London i pass these
homeless men and think:
they have achieved the stature
of Diogenes of Sinope...
but they're still... clutter of what could
agitate thought...
i found one mesmerised into a mantra
bemoaning the river of people
imploring them to see him:
the solipsist that he was...

the mantra run along the lines of
the following words: 'some recognition, please'...
on a ******* loop...
if i were down there:
i'd ask for a flute... while rendering the rats
to an obedience...
whimsical me... the charm of a dream...
although not tempting dragons
into the whole affair:
stray dogs is already pushing it!

- a dietary requirement of needing to feed
on... cow intestines...
the thirst word that comes to mind
via my translation: trollop...
tripe soup...
                    and all the edible parts of
the pig's body... including the parts
adorned to be worn as leather:
shoes... belts...
                            mmm... i will never understand
the Semite: whether Hebrew or Arab...
the critique of the desert gods' critique of
pig...
sheep stinks... here's mine...
you can eat almost all of pig:  except the nails
and the oink...

dry ******* a camel's... ****?
in between that... currency of Dubai buck latex:
only-fans: watch an American girl **** into
a bucket?
oh sure... this one time in Amsterdam...
i walked in on one of those peaches
of Puerto Rico...
she kept the window open so she could
moan... entice more customers in...
a little black boy brought me a can of beer...
while she ****** into a bucket...
all gratis...

i'd win the lottery aiming at homelessness
in Amsterdam...
just for the licks, kicks and...
lycra long-shorts... worn beneath...
decent garments for peddling...
the closest material i'll ever come across
to... compare with... mr. and mrs. gimp's latex
full-on... save the church: attire...

- i might have mentioned this once, twice...
thrice already...
a collection of 72: dobbermans,
rottweilers and alsatians stand between
me imagining a middle ground between
Valhalla & Jannah...
forgive me from lying to those timid
creatures... who probably turn out to
be man-flesh eating mermaids...

a ******* tamed by as many pedestrians
as she might already be tamed by:
and a ******? and there's supposedly
72 of them?
**** it... throw in a wrestling with
72 rottweilers...

to objectify a woman with metaphors:
is as close as i'll ever come across
painting an imitation Munch...
  *** like a Lamborghini...
a body of a well worn armchair...
and all the rest of "it": experience of an alcoholic
surgeon...
the whole body: an extension of her
mandible parts: esp. the jaw...
how she pretends to eat "something" would
needing to tease beyond the tease
of the nibble: all the world in the foray
of foreplay... before the "ugly" parts
come together: the eyes come first...
the tongues... the hands... the lips...

the arithmetic of fingers
and the arithmetic of the remaining body parts...
if i were rich enough to: if i were as poor as ****
but had the capacity to paint:
perhaps...
pause... insinuate a punctuation that's: mine...
forget the form... the rigidity of both
rhyme & / or lyricism...
of those brackets of verse of paragraphs...
now i'm looking for an imitator...

- perhaps unlike the analysis of Samuel Beckett's
use of the bicycle...
by none other than Milan Kundera...
come the nacht...
the air thins out...
i receive a jolt of momentum...
i can hear church bells from a mile afar...
and trains: that give of a whiff of
horses galloping imitation:
the air thins out... i gain momentum...
i like the concept of generating my own
momentum: breaking my body...

plus... the bicycle has given me
the added dimension of meaning:
with speed i have an AGENCY...

- i "think" of a woman i think of her
walking into the forest with me
in the zenith of the night...
impossible to come by...
nay: imaginary...
  who's this pseudo-Athena...
this Sophia that never materialises...
this almost Aphrodite deity that bridges
the concept of titan with man?

come night and some flashes of genius...
come day and a return to:
all that's accurately mundane...
the same people talking with their same
lot of arrogance... pride... fakery...
hoisting up their litany of...
          keeping up:
well... it was hardly called
sense & sentimentality...
was it? it was called: sense & sensibility
for a reason...
although: at the time of writing...
prudent girls:
2nd or 3rd or 4th wave of the ****** revolution:
seems to me... only the girls have
progressed...

the white girls are making all the shots:
said one mixed-race guy to a white boyo
on a street...
i guess they are...
do i mind?
i'm into Turkic girls...
ol' raven haired types...
blue-black hair types...
ink types...

              blotches of cull against the wind...
the sensation of pouring some whiskey
into a glass where once...
those red stained ice-cubes entertained
a more sober moi...
a more: deliberative typo...

don't mind me...
but if my freedoms are being undermined
by a polity of objects expressing their freedom
in a fashion:
of... however much they don't wish or want...
but nonetheless do...
here's my: butterfly to their... hurricane of...
nonchalance...
murdering them isn't enough...
living with them is already a ******...

if only i... if only i...
hence my need to remind myself: solo...
cycling in the night...
aiming at the prospect of a traffic accident...
for the thrills for the Parisian
cosmopolitan affair simulation...

goodnight: riddle and riddance.

minds move in shapes
to fit the environment

skull shaped mostly
in the fleshy parts

while the invisible
materialises in actions.

having studied chemistry, i was already predisposed to write in the vein of philosophy, i could never manage to retain a pure humanism, of, say, a novel; how can one truly return to pure humanism of a novel once the shackles of science have been thrown onto a mind? at least philosophy allows a buffer zone between the sciences and the humanities; yet only in poetry is the most perfect depiction of man, in that poetry for all its woes, is but a pristine self-portrait of man: man, ex impromptu; and to add to this: lyricists are paupers in the poetry community, ever rigidity to write identifiable "poetry", as taught by english teachers, mindful of techniques and an arithmetic rigidity is a waste of time... a stake tartar is not a stake tartar if the meat has been cooked... the only poetry that is worth is seemingly mindless (madness, indeed, but there's method to it analogy), yet what it isn't is a rigid rubric; let us not be so predictable as to orientate our writing to be recited / studied in an english class, filled with 16 year olds.

it is strange to keep a memory of a thought,
but i have this most pristine bloom of
memory from a mere thought -
a question, what will be the last song i will
listen to, before i die?
  it was autumn, i just returned from
Ypres, and had just finished reading
dostoevsky's crime & punishment -
it was autumn, the fallen leaves were
scribbling themselves onto the pavement
with a rustic shuffle, while the wind played
the hand holding a quill -
          and that internalised question has
stuck with me, ever since,
i must have been in my teens.
          it must be noted, though,
he was right... art is degraded
                while science is overestimated -
which shows in pop culture -
           the popularisation of science is
abhorring, it's actually sickly -
a ******* gangrene on common sense...
        because these days,
no one will cite a milton, or an ezra pound,
what will be cited is
             a theory, without a name of
origin. i fear that the people who cite science
the most, who have to lean on
the crutch of science, are the least read
people in the world, i.e.
pompous barons of reading a blank page,
and now they want applause and
the word: encore! encore!
                  sure, they'll get an encore,
a baboon's **** and a camel spitting in their
faces.
           it would seem that when you
truly love, you only truly love:
               because you hate, with a passion.
- and a catholic apostate i am,
a catholic apostate i am, i am...
given the bureaucracy of the religion,
         i made my mind up,
confirmation? nope.
                      reading that book about
the gnostics (**** me i wish i stole that book
from the school library like i stole the quran)...
now we're into shrapnel talk, jiggy-jiggy,
        random noise, don't ask, don't know
where it came from...
           back in school we'd have trivia games,
who could name bands in rotation...
       then one day i was playing some music
and a friend asked: who's that?
   guess who.
               deep purple.
  no, guess who.
    creedence clearwater revival.
  no! guess who!
d'uh... american woman...
                 if there ever was a modern
movie i've fallen in with, it had to be
american beauty.
                       or take yesterday -
(by the way, i'm not in cabaret voltaire
pulling lines out of my *** and a white
rabbit from a top hat)
     all i said was:
well, at least he had a conscience -
unlike some sociopaths
         (cf. carl sargeant / weenershteen
an employer for former mossad spooks).
         - see, i don't like this idea,
the idea of a res cogitans,
it's too mathematical for me,
      it has a mathematician conceptualised
it, written all over it.
   to me: that's a ****** coordinate!
  - god? that's just a nudging to think...
i can't stress it enough,
praying feeds the vanity project of a god
in religion, his reply? probably a ****.
i rather think than pray,
less ornamental ******* and lying to yourself.
atheists? they prefer the talking version
of theism, whereby theism is the thinking
version of atheism.
   me? can't be bothered to talk,
talking means i have to engage in the outside
world, where, in the outside world
i'm met cold-shouldered by a res per se
(thing in itself) -
             or to put it technically in kantian
verbiage: noumenon.
               which is like a noun but it's non
   oscillating in M (sine)...
                            d'uh, W (cosine) -
                allah hell almighty -
                  one apostle two apostle three apostle
neunzig-neun luftballoooons...
                                hey, the fetish remains;
so soft, ooh, so soft, the german tongue
is silk, mmmm... i could almost wipe my ***
with it!
               (the degradation of art
and the over estimation of science?
   heidegger, he was right)
                so i propose an aversion of
the whole "thing" and "thought" -
i prefer the idea of movement, rather than
a cartesian fixation...
               after all *sum and cogito are
quantum aspects,
              one precipitates into an outside
world, the other is invited into an inside world -
     i still fail to see how there's a ergo "continuum",
rainfall,
        how one materialises from the nether regions
into a conversation about the weather
over coffee...
                   i simply can't see an ergo
connection, akin to a +, x -, ÷...
                   worded, that's what is implied...
ok, ok...  let's go all fancy dress,
sleepover pyjama party mad: √.
                                i prefer the notion of
a continuum rather than a fixed posit,
    a coordinate -
                    after all no man ever was
considering a genesis, original,
within an "unoriginal" continuum -
   hey, buddy, you were born on a carousel,
it was moving before you were born,
it's going to move, and it will continue to
move after you're... what's that... "dead"?
         talk to the gene therapist -
    don't worry: you're recyclable material.
                       unless you have a different fetish
for a cul de sac existence?
                i do mind the res cogitans approach,
of a graph representation with coordinates
(0, 0, 0) -
                yes, i mind it...
  it's a static point of reference -
                    it's a existentia in stasis -
        an immovable "object" this cartesian
observation...
                              trust a frenchman to conjure
up an existential dead end trap...
     banging my ******* head against the wall...
when i should be headbanging at a heavy
metal concert with all the other meat-heads!
  how can cogito ergo sum ever reach
   a stasis?
                    a static point where everything
is simply ergo?
                          ah... the merging point
of the triad continuum:
                   ergo = the world
cogito = -1
                            sum = +1
      can't think of anything else,
the -1? ~catatonia.
                                      +1?
                                         the boring
   necessity of the cordial affairs of
                               yap yap yap
        in a supermarket.

Sometimes I forget
Not everyone knows I'm a poet.

That's okay because sometimes
I forget too

I forget the weight that words have on my chest
I forget the feeling of my fingers moving freely across my keyboard
A million thoughts clouding my mind until one materialises through written word
I forget the freedom of writing

I sometimes even forget the meaning of a poet.

What is a poet?

An artist?
A lover?
A fighter?
A hater?
A cynic?
A critic?
A human?

Human.

Poetry is art
Humans create art
Art makes us human

It's funny how that works
Because poetry is like a therapist
Some will never set foot in their office
Others will have scheduled appointments weekly

Me?
I forget Dr. Writing exists until my life turns to shards
While I smell the daisies, she hears nothing of me
While I break down in pieces, she is all I know

Now I greet Dr. Writing as an old friend
I greet her with open arms and open heart

And yet sometimes I forget I am even a client of hers


Today someone didn't know I was a poet
And this shocked me
I thought it was obvious
I thought poetry was all I could speak of
I thought poetry was all I could speak.

And yet
I was shocked

Because up until I had been reminded
I had forgotten that I was a poet.

There is a strange symbiosis
occurs when natural light
attempts to escape the earth.

The sun takes a shortcut in a
low arc just above the horizon,
but cloud factories make snow.

Reflecting in its frosty glitter, a
luminosity of a different format
materialises, I think it's arranged.