THE ENIGMA OF TIME IN VERSE: PART TWO
Dear Friends, having introduced ‘The Enigma of Time in Verse’ in Part One, along with few selected poetic quotes, I now mention what some of the important Philosophers thought about Time down the past centuries. But while doing so, I have tried my best to simplify some of those early concepts for better understanding and appreciation of my readers. If you like it, kindly re-post the poem. Thanks,  – Raj Nandy of New Delhi.

          THE ENIGMA OF TIME IN VERSE : PART TWO
   I commence by quoting Sonnet 60 of Shakespeare about Time,
   Hoping to seek some blessings for this Part Two composition of
   mine!
“Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
  So do our minutes hasten to their end;
  Each changing place with that which goes before,
  In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
  Nativity, once in the main of light,
  Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown’d,
  Crooked elipses ’gainst his glory fight,
  And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
  Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
  And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow,
  Feeds on the rarities of nature’s truth,
  And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:
  And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.”

              PHILOSOPHY OF TIME
Animals are said to live in a continuous present,
Since they have no temporal distinction of past, future,
or the present.
But our consciousness of time, becomes the most
distinguishing feature of mankind.
Though we are mostly obsessed with objective time, -
As the rotation of our Earth separates day from night.
With the swing of the pendulum and the ticking of clocks,
Which regulates our movements, while we try to beat the clock!
But the ancient theologians and philosophers of India and
Greece,
Who were among the first to ponder about the true nature
of all things,
Had wondered about the subjective nature of time;
Was time linear or cyclic, was time endless or finite?

GREEK PHILOSOPHERS ON TIME:
I begin with Heraclitus, the Pre-Socratic philosopher of 6th Century BC born in Ephesus.
He claimed that everything around us, is in a constant state of change and flux.
You cannot step into the same river twice Heraclitus had claimed,
Since water keeps flowing down the river all the while and never
remains the same.
This flow and change in Nature is a process which is ceaseless.
The only thing which remains permanent is impermanence!
Here is a quote from poet Shelley reflecting the same idea:
“World on world are rolling ever
  From creation to decay
  Like the bubbles on a river
  Sparkling, bursting, borne away.”

Now Heraclitus was refuted by Parmenides, born in the Greek colony of Elea,
On the western coast of Southern Italy, as his contemporary.
Parmenides said that our senses deceive us, since all changes are mere illusory!
True reality was only eternal and unchanging ‘Being’, which was both indivisible and continuous - filling up all space.
Zeno, a pupil of Parmenides, through his famous ‘Paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise’ had shown, that when the tortoise was given a head start,
Swift footed Achilles could never catch up with the tortoise,
Since the space between the two were infinitely divisible, resulting in the impossibility of movement and change in motion!
Now the Greeks were never comfortable with the Concept of Infinity.
They preferred to view the universe as continuous existing ‘Being’.  
However, unlike Heraclitus’ ‘world of change and flux’,
Both Parmenides and Zeno have presented us, with a static unchanging universe!
Thus from the above examples it becomes easy for us to derive,  
How those Ancient Greeks had viewed Time.
Time has been viewed as a forward moving changing entity;
And also as an illusory, continuous and indivisible Being!
To clarify this further I quote Bertrand Russell from his ‘History of Western Philosophy’;
“Creation out of nothing, which was taught in the Old Testament, was an idea wholly foreign to Greek philosophy. When Plato speaks of creation, he imagines a primitive matter, to which God gives form as an artificer.”

PLATO AND ARISTOTLE ON TIME:
For Plato, time was created by the Creator at the same instance when he had fashioned the heavens.
But Plato was more interested to contemplate on things which lay
beyond the sway of time and remained unchangeable and eternal;
Like absolute Truth, absolute Justice, the absolute form of Good and Beauty;
Which were eternal and unchangeable like the ‘Platonic Forms’, and were beyond the realm of Time as true reality.
Plato’s pupil Aristotle was the first Greek philosophers to contemplate on reality inside time, and provide a proper definition as we get to see.
He said, “Time is the number of movement in respect to before and after” - as a part of reality.
To measure time numerically, we must have a ‘before’ and an ‘after’, and also notice the difference objectively.
Therefore, time here becomes the change which we see and experience.
Time takes on a linear motion moving from the past to the present;
And to the unknown future like a moving arrow travelling straight.
Aristotle had developed a four step process to understand everything inside of Time and within human experience:
(a) Observe the world using our senses,
(b) Apply logical rules to these observations,
(c) To go back and consult past authorities, if your logic agrees with their logic,
(d) Then only you can come to a logical conclusion.

No wonder in our modern times, experiments conducted by the LDC or the Large Hadron Collider, located 100m underground near the French-Swiss border,
By going back in time simulates the ‘Big Bang’ conditions, that moment of our universe’s first creation.
The scientists thereby, study the evolution of our universe with time, which  resulted in the  finding of the Higgs Boson !  (On 4thJuly 2012)

NOTES :  All elementary particles interacting with the Higg's Field & obtain Mass, excepting for photons & gluons which do not interact with this field. Mass-less photons can travel at the
speed of light with a mind boggling 186,000 miles per second! Now this LDC is a Particle Accelerator 27 kms long ring-shaped tunnel, made mostly of superconducting magnets, inside which two high-energy particle beams are made to travel close to the speed of light in opposite directions, and the shower of particles resulting from the collision is closely examined, presuming that these similar shower of particles must have been produced at the time of the ‘Big Bang’ some 13.8 million years ago, at the time of Creation! Sound like fiction? Well, Prof. Peter Higgs got the Noble Prize for Physics, for locating the particle called ‘Higgs Boson’ among those shower of particles, on 10th Dec. 2013.

NOW TO LIGHTEN UP MY READERS MIND, FEW TIME QUOTE I NOW PROVIDE :

“TIME WASTES OUR BODIES AND OUR WITS,
  BUT WE WASTE TIME, SO WE ARE QUITS!” – Anonymus.

‘Time is a great Teacher, but unfortunately it kills its Pupils!’ – HL Berlioz

“Lost , yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two
   golden hours,
   Each set with sixty diamond minutes.
   No reward is offered, for they are gone forever!” – Horace Mann


PLOTINUS & ST. AUGUSTINE ON TIME:
Now getting back to our Philosophy of Time, there was Plotinus of the 3rd Century AD,
The founder of the mystical Neo-Platonic School of Philosophy.
He had followed Plato’s basic concept of Time as “the moving image of eternity.”
Mystic Plotinus tried to synthesize both Aristotle and Plato by saying that the entire process of cosmic creation,
Flows out of the ONE  through a series of emanation!
This ONE gave rise to the ‘Divine Mind’ which he called the ‘Realm of Intelligence’ and is an aspect of reality,
When everything is understood in terms of Platonic Forms of Truth, Justice, the Good, and Beauty.
However, the later Christian theologians had interpreted this ONE of Plotinus, -
As the Christian God, the Divine Creator of the Universe.
For God is eternal, in the sense of being timeless, in God there is no before or after, but only a timeless present.

Now this lead St. Augustine, to formulate a very admirable relativistic theory of Time!
St. Augustine, the greatest constructive teacher of the Early Christian Church, had written in Book XI of his ‘Confessions’ during  5th century AD, -
His thoughts about the enigma of Time which had perplexed the Greek philosophers of earlier centuries.
To simplify St. Augustine’s thoughts, I now paraphrase for the sake of clarity.
Time can only be measured while it is passing, yet there is time past, and time future in reality.
To avoid these contradictions he says that past and future can only be thought of as present: ‘past’ must be identified with memory, and ‘future’ with expectation.
Since memory and expectation being both present facts, there is no contradiction.  
“The present of things past is memory, the present of things present is sight; and the present of things future is expectation,” - wrote St. Augustine.

This subjective notion of time led St. Augustine to anticipate Rene Descartes the French philosopher the 17th Century,
Who proclaimed “Cogito, ergo sum” in Latin, meaning “I think, therefore I am”, and is regarded as the Father of Modern Philosophy.

Now cutting a long story short I come to Sir Isaac Newton, well known for his Laws of Motion and Gravity.
Newton speaks of ‘Absolute Time’ which exists independently, flowing at a consistent pace throughout the universe, which can only be understood mathematically.
Newton’s ‘Absolute Time’ had remained as the dominant concept till the  early years of the 20th Century.
When Albert Einstein formulated ‘Theory of Space-time’ along with his Special and General Theory of Relativity.

Now the German philosopher Leibniz during 17th century, had challenged Newton with his anti-realist theory of time.
Leibniz claimed that time was only a convenient intellectual concept, that enables to sequence and compare happening of events.
There must be objects with which time can interact or relate to as ‘Relational Time’ he had felt.
Ernst Mach, like Leibniz towards the end of 19th Century, said that even if it was not obvious what time and space was relative to,
Then they were still relative to the ‘fixed stars’ i.e. the bulk of matter in the universe.

CONCEPT OF TIME AS 'SPECIOUS PRESENT' :
During late 19th century, Robert Kelley introduced the concept of ‘spacious present’, which was the most recent part of the past.
Psychologist and philosopher William James developed this idea further by describing it as ‘’the short duration of which we are immediately and incessantly sensible’’
William James also introduced the term “stream of consciousness” into literature as a method of narration,
That described happenings in the flow of thought in the mind of the characters, - likened to an internal monologue!
This literary technique was later used by James Joyce in his famous novel ‘Ulysses’.

TIME CONCEIVED AS DURATION: HENRI BERGSON (1859 -1941)
Next I come to one of my favourite philosopher the French born Henri Bergson.
The Nobel Laureate and author of ‘Time and Free Will’ and ‘Creative Evolution’.
Will Durant in his ‘Story of Philosophy’ says Bergson was ‘the David destined to slay the Goliath of materialism.’
It was Bergson’s ‘Elan Vital’ that life force and impelling urge, Which makes us grow and transforms this wandering planet into a theatre of unending creation.
For Bergson, time is as fundamental as space; and it is time that holds the essence of life, and perhaps of all reality.
Time is an accumulation, a growth, a duration, where “duration is the continuous progress of the past which gnaws into the future and which swells as it advances.
The past in its entirety is prolonged into the present and abides there actual and acting.
Duration means that the past endures, that nothing is lost.
Though we think with only a small part of our past; but it is with our entire past that we desire, will, and act.”
“Since time is an accumulation, the future can never be the same as the past, -
For a new accumulation arises at every step, and change is far more radical than we suppose…the geometric predictability of all things, Which is the goal of a mechanistic science, is only a delusion and a dream!”  
Bergson goes on in his compelling lyrical style:            
“For a conscious being, to exist is to change, to change is to mature,
to mature is to go on creating one’s self endlessly. Perhaps all reality is time and duration, becoming and change.”
Bergson differed with Darwin's theory of adaptation to environment, and stated;
“Man is no passively adaptive machine, he is a focus of redirected force, a centre of creative evolution.”

Martin Heidegger, the German thinker in his ‘Being and Time’ of 1927, had said:
“We do not exist within time, but in a very real way we are time!”
Time is inseparable from human experience, since we can allow the past to exist in the present through memory;
And even allow a potential future occurrence to exist in the present due to our human ability to care, and be concerned about things.
Therefore we are not stuck in simple sequential or linear time, but can step out of it almost at will!

CONCLUDING  PART  TWO OF ENIGMA OF TIME IN VERSE
In this part I have tried to convey what the Ancient Greek Philosophers had felt about Time in a simplified way.
Also some thoughts of Medieval and Early Modern philosophers and what they had to say.
Where Sir Isaac Newton stands like a colossus with his Concept of Time, Laws of Motion, and Gravity.
Not forgetting Henri Bergson, one of my favourite philosopher, of the mid-19th and the mid-20th Century.
All through my narration I had tried to hold the interest of my readers, and also educated myself as a true knowledge seeker.
In my concluding Part Three I will cover few Modern Philosophers along with the relativistic concept of time.
Certainly not forgetting the space-time theory of our famous Albert Einstein!
Thanks for reading patiently, from Raj Nandy of New Delhi.
  *ALL COPY RIGHTS ARE WITH THE AUTHOR ONLY

from the simple email, to now a pitch-perfect complication
of the internet - no performance poetry found here -
performance meaning singing, meaning cascade of rhymes
to help you memorise sentences and shake your hands
about - ekphrasis (εκφρασις) - performance stand-up
but not stand-out - i'm not complaining, i'm just feeling
the fear and loathing too - or according to M. Schmidt (
no, not Martin Schmitt, the ski-jumper, but then again
the two seem almost indistinguishable when said -
counter e.g. gnome - 'nome and schmi'dt'dt'dt'tt stutter
at the end of words rather than at the beginning before
the dam gates open for the word to flow out from).
besides the point, can you imagine Kant using the phrase
a fortiori in his work that uses only a priori and
a posteriori? i only came across it today - but given
the big *** systematic approaches, you'd find it hard
to squeeze in a fortiori into the complex narrative -
an entire blackboard of mathematical proof concerning
disallowing the end product to be ∞: in philosophy that means
explaining something on a universal basis, the entire human
concern for things said, things done, things owned -
inserting the term a fortiori where once came a priori
would be a disaster for the Kantian narrative, he'd
have to write another critique all on its own to insert that phrase
among a complete systematisation of that phrase -
well the funny thing is, this expression goes in line with that
i observed about left and right, hands eyes whatever -
indefinite a- and the definite -the articles and then an ism -
i sometimes feel funny or at least embarrassed that i keep
repeating this notice from time to time -
but you would expect me to include gravity too,
or how i used to be a flower thief in spring bordering
on winter, plucking the eager flowers in the frost around
the countryside - well, i revived that practice today,
plucked two stalks of lavender (they were pinching my
nose when i walked past with a beer) and something
resembling lavender... google-moment... if only they
created apps that could tell you what flower it is you're
trying to identify, search engine impromptu -
well... it's either a coin-toss between
summersweet (clethra alnifolia) or butterfly bush
(buddleia davidii) - but it could be something else -
cigarette, beer and sniffing lavender, just my kind of night -
i swear to god i once drank a lavender-flavoured beer,
or cider... i can't remember -
but by definition, when i look at philosophy books i feel
they're much too bound to something said earlier
and followed by something to support it -
or in the case of a fortiori the expanded-upon basics,
i.e.: from a / the stronger (thing) - which means
it's a dual-carriage way of saying what you want to say:
from a stronger thing - from the stronger thing -
in real life that's like: what we get from a telescope,
or? what we get from a microscope -
stars aplenty - G-Rex 5571 in the Zodiac constellation,
U80802Z from the constellation of Poseidon -
i mean, flimsy answers - sky's the limit - then
the azure cage hovers over us during the day and
we turn to daydreams packing apples into crates -
telescope: oh airy-fairy, somewhere far far away -
microscope: got that needle and thread with you?
well, whatever we have, we know that our minds are
not build for the omni- affix when affixed to anything,
esp. god. Jews never bothered with it - there are just
as many necessary limitations of a deity as there are
as many unnecessary limitations of our freedoms -
that's how you move away from big ideas and narratives
of a Kant, with his chequers of analytic / synthetic
a priori / a posteriori and concern yourself with
knives (indefinite) and scissors (definite) articulation of
language - hell, we can go down the road much further
and say something about indirect and direct articles -
pronouns are the prime subscribers -
you wouldn't talk to a Jihadi directly as you'd talk about
him indirectly - i shared that curiosity with a local
stranger-mate in a park once walking his dog,
an ex-banker - those boom-bomb boys are being prescribed
the same thing that the Lufftwaffe pilots were prescribed
(pervitin) - but i doubt they got their hands on the pure
medical stuff, they're probably on amphetamines...
oh the R.A.F.? yeah, drunk like skunks.
but just imagine rewriting the Critique with a fortiori
and a infirmiori - disobeying "correct" definition,
as already mentioned the pronouns composed from
articles, as in condensed to indistinguishable parameters -
a fortiori - from something stronger            -
             a infirmiori - from something weaker -
(as already stated, the original definition of
  a fortiori was - from a / the stronger [thing]) -
so the articles disappear and couple themselves to the word
thing (word meaning, no grammatical classification is
really necessary, because if grammatically classified it would
be too obstructive) - but because of this lack of
grammatical classification of the word thing,
we are already associating the definitions via only the
indefinite pronoun - rather than a definite pronoun (i.e. nothing),
it would be pointless to write definitions using a definite
pronoun - well, up to a point, i suppose that
suggesting both a fortiori and a infirmiori to be defined
as: from nothing stronger and / or weaker we can create
a self-mechanistic-propeller, a way of self-overcoming that
in the end arrives as self-knowledge, obviously the
ultimate purpose - and this goes against all solipsistic despair,
as it also goes against making too many comparisons
with others, some who are weaker than us, and some who
are stronger than us - for the stronger will make light
of one set of propositions as the weaker will make light
of another set of propositions to suit their demands -
this can only be seen in light of Kantian-Darwinism,
survival of the fittest and what not -
Kant had in mind something simply said historically in
a condensed sphere of reality, Darwinism kinda did away
with historical realism, soon after the English Renaissance
after the second world war, Darwinism picked up again,
as a way to shut off the murk of the Holocaust -
Elvis did his bit, the Beatles too, but once the imagination
dried up, people decided they wanted to travel back
in time to 10,000 B.C. - and you think artistic expression
will end up a concept prog rock album, or a cute 3 minute
synthesizer song while M.T.V. turns into a 16 year old's
******* of a baby? i'm going keep the acronym, and instead
call it MORAL TELEVISION, or? how to buy a ******
or pull out early - but obviously i'd get a wisecrack comeback
from Juno - see a preacher man anywhere around here?
Kantian algebraic (big words, small people, Belgian waffles
too):                                                    ­              a. / s. after
                                           (event) x.
a. / s. prior
                                     what qualifies?
                                    - historical hindsight -
                                    - the current historical catalyst(s),
        THE BIG BANG... or as i like to call our current history,
an interchange on the words: BIG BANG BLACK HOLE...
BANG A ******* HOLE... get a BIG CLOCK...
******* HOLE... which is what it looks like at night...
two catalysts overall - and boy we're speeding
to Groundhog day - the biggest changes in history were
some celebrity's haircut - that's relative to
what happened when the Treaty of Versailles was signed;
BIG HOLE BLACK BANG (and that's thanks to dark matter) -
but to be honest, if i'm given only these two historical
vectors to work with... i'm not surprised so many
Islamic youths are disfranchised, choosing a third,
Jannah - it seems like a natural thinking process that
will never make it into popular media -
just thinking about it probably warms the heart,
obviously to an extremely violent end -
but this is gone way beyond the heliocentric and
geocentric arguments - because up there, where you
can see the earth where the hell is Copernican East
or Copernican West? it's nice to know that the earth
isn't flat... but that won't help you reaching the Panama
Canal from Portugal... will it?!

bandanna knotted in your hair,
you are
eloquently attired, and almost
always a little late; it ok.
you aren't
beholden
to standard notions of
punctuality or
Americanized dreams of
mechanistic triumph over the
virus of Nature.
you are more and less and equal to
the sum of your
constituent parts and
you are exquisite.

Sometimes, I see the God descend to ground.
Lowered on pulleys, creaking as he comes,
He booms his monologue to waiting crowds,
While they - all certain that this God will make
Things right, will get the parents and the kids to talk,
Will mend the broken marriage vows, will fill
The bank accounts, will take the heartbreak out
Of growing old – they hearken to this voice.
But after, when the dummy-God ascends,
Departs in peace to mechanistic skies,
The crowd must stay to watch the empty stage
Repent its trick of mercy by design.

They shiver as it undergoes its shame -
See Faustus at the Hellmouth once again.

The bolt of lightening  touches the ground,
gently
quickly
sewing the world together again
with its static thread and mechanistic jut from the skies.

i think mother nature is trying to hold her pieces together,
even when everyone knows she's falling apart.

I so often get lost on the train
my mind wonders – to strange and thoughtful places,
I seep through the carriages and people like a gliding ghost
half existent in transient memory,

a translucent thin veil membrane separating me
from this reality,
and the shifting worlds of imagination.

My imagination overwhelms me often, it is powerful and I feel lost
in my internal worlds and can't connect to anything external from my own process,

my own neurosis – I want to get beyond my neurosis,
my fears, my stupid little set backs.

Fear itself becomes a huge beast in my mind,
a multi-limbed Kali staring at me with half crazed eyes,
meeting me with the intention of true chaos – a challenge.

I wish to climb the ladder that suddenly appears and become myself;
Infinite in direction and potential

I want to love myself and be loved.
I want to love,
I want to love.

I stare out of the window again, streets, signs and derelict buildings
zoom and melt into one huge encompassing space,
one straight up urban landscape.

And as I am enveloped in this concrete world
via the mechanistic medium of train

I wonder:
/
Will I ever feel better?
will I ever feel peace?
Will I ever know love?
will I ever understand?
and do I really want to?

Truth is such a hard pill to swallow in the end.
I imagine anyway, I imagine.

Do you ?

remember when you sat in asylum
and heard sounds from the other side
when i soothed you with that children's song
high above the lamentation
up on the desert plain

remember when you sat among the violent
and heard through the haze
the passionate rhythm
the voice always with you

remember when your eyes were opened
to sun-colored fields
and to fields of radiant souls
each one cut and multi-faceted
each one perfect in its own poverty

remember when you looked down from that hill
on the sparkling city-lights below
and the city was transformed
and lived and breathed
and ran through you like divine blood
like Zion itself, consumed in your holy communion

I run through your memories
christening them holy
I breathe into your crowded slum
until every rock, and the dung strewn on the dirt path
are all lovely
worthy of worship all along

remember the fury with which I destroyed you
when you paced, heart racing
in your jail cell
when I set my wolves on you

remember the endless, stretching months
that all seemed like years and years
when I unleashed my plague of locusts
into your scrambled brains
when you found no rest in sleep
and your flesh burned through the day
when I breathed fire and consumed your little house
and you stood there naked and aghast
in a mechanistic universe that hated you through and through
a starving animal, you cowered in fear
thirsty longing to find shelter from the sun

i run through my memories
latent and potent in every cell, every member
i remember

MIND

No science can unravel
the mystery of mind
brain-bred alone?
matter first
next--the insubstantial-
the fluidity of thinking that follows?
the chicken first
then the egg kind of reasoning?

but mind is infinite
and has no boundaries-
it can't be measured
or calibrated
MRI is mechanistic
and neurology is but a crude tool
they probe the physicality
but never touch the inner core
which cannot be detected or mapped
and all psychiatry is but guess-work
will o'-the-wisp and
the fancy of the shrink
who is hopelessly inadequate
and an object of pity
(doctor, heal thyself first!)

where  is the birth-place
of thought?

science is inferior to nature
what is unknowable far exceeds
the bounds of the known
mind--the eternal enigma

how is genius born?
how is the unspeakable articulated
through poetry, music and art?
how does the mind create such beauty
as to be beyond the bounds of human understanding
and experience? Isn't it then a mystery within mysteries
and makes reason mute and causes science to weep?

how does beauty so sublime arise
from the non-physical
which knows not its own abode?

the brain
is not the mind
and the mind is not the brain

which is superior then?
that which is beyond
the narrow straits of science
counts for infinitely more

Come On All You Ghosts


<>

I heard a little cough
in the room, and turned
but no one was there

except the flowers
Sarah bought me
and my death’s head

glow in the dark key chain
that lights up and moans
when I press the button

on top of its skull
and the ghost
I shyly name Aglow.

Are you there Aglow
I said in my mind,
reader, exactly the way

you just heard it
in yours about four
poem time units ago

unless you have already
put down the paper directly
after the mention

of poetry or ghosts.
Readers I am sorry
for some of you

this is not a novel.
Good-bye. Now it is just
us and the death’s head

and the flowers and the ghost
in San Francisco thinking
together by means

of the ancient transmission device.
I am sorry
but together we are

right now thinking
along by means
of an ancient mechanistic

system no one invented
involving super-microscopic
particles that somehow

(weird!) enter through
your eyes or ears
depending on where

you are right now
reading or listening.
To me it seems

like being together
one body made of light
clanging down through

a metal structure
for pleasure and edification.
Reader when I think of you

you are in a giant purple chair
in a Starbucks gradually leaking power
while Neil Young

eats a campfire then drinks
a glass of tears
on satellite radio.

Hello. I am 40.
I have lived in Maryland,
Amherst, San Francisco,

New York, Ljubljana,
Stonington (house
of the great ornate wooden frame

holding the mirror the dead
saw us in whenever
we walked past),

New Hampshire at the base
of the White Mountains
on clear blue days

full of dark blue jays
beyond emotion jaggedly piercing,
Minneapolis of which

I have spoken
earlier and quite enough,
Paris, and now

San Francisco again.
Reader, you are right now
in what for me is the future

experiencing something
you cannot
without this poem.

I myself am suspicious
and cruel. Sometimes
when I close my eyes

I hear a billion workers
in my skull
hammering nails from which

all the things I see
get hung. But poems
are not museums,

they are machines
made of words,
you pour as best

you can your attention
in and in you the poetic
state of mind is produced

said one of the many
French poets with whom
I feel I must agree.

Another I know
writes his poems on silver
paint in a mirror.

I feel like a president
raising his fist in the sun.

I am just words
how many did I speak yesterday?
today is making demands on me
what should I say

but about the same words
with some variations-- subtract there, add here?
my words appear quicker than I can think
Oh dear, oh dear!

I am not a robot or automaton
I am human--I should not be mechanistic
but words rule my life and are tyrannous
they know too many a cunning trick

I must study my words-bank
delete what has made me a fool
a new vocabulary I should acquire
like a little child starting school.

When every moment is
Struggling with every
Fiber to inspire, expire
Breath, feeling is a
Dream deferred,
Unrealizable, they say.

Yet, to feel builds emotions,
Power innate, the thread
Interweaving the fabric of life.
Though, pro-science projects
Thought is power, sensing,
Just informing, to be processed
By our computer, brain, for
Exigent programming.

Yet, conscience intuits that
Thoughts are emoting, voiced.
...That fear is naught, but,
Shadows of past's un-integrated
Experiences, cast over our
Presence and future. While both,
Integral to realizing insight,
Growth, balance and movement,
Are necessary to humanity.

"La Machine", uses them to rote
Us into un-being an efficacious part
And parcel of it, an automaton.
More, better mechanistic survival,
The reason for human being,
In societies' eye. Who dares to
Disagree, all in for a penny, in
For a pound, mostly, decay bound.
Sides, delusions, clouding their eyes.

Though, feelings hibernating
Emerge with strength, through
Discipline, which Castaneda relates
As, "the art of feeling awe", they
Can be concentrated. Focusing,
Realizing reality on wing,
Imbued co-creation in flight.

As well, what of our soma's foci of
Attention, solutioning all life,
Through myriad interrelations?
What of the breadth of our
Perceptions, the depth of every-
Ones earthen interconnections?
...Of the intimacy, hearts fathoms,
Touch's immediacy, aural artistry?

Mammon says, "what of it", being
Doesn't make money, take control,
Projections do. "We" say, they're
Le raison d'etre, potentia evolving,
Humane being, alival. I would be
Just for a day, as a mayfly, if I were
More me, rather, than as long as
An eagle flies, selling out, killing.

and generation of heat in particular
cuz yours truly
spoiled with trappings
of Western Civilization.

How ideal I imagine
to dwell in a self sufficient domicile,
where thrum of the central heater...
automatically activated
upon advent of twilight,
or self adjusted/regulated
based on outside temperature
since writer of these words
thankfully linkedin to PECO grid,
(counts CAP and LIHEAP programs

for low income earners a dogsend),
subsequently scribe of Schwenksville
not resident within "smart home",
nevertheless manually pressing button
invites emulation of
Donald Trump zippered smile,
when mechanisms set in motion
to spark convection currents
warming cockles and muscles
versus skin feeling cold and clammy.

One anonymous **** sapien appreciates
basking, and luxuriating,
within climate controlled environment,
whether bone chilling
deep freeze when/where old man winter
furiously blows frigid air
into lovely bones of mine
sets indentured jaws chattering,
as on this dreary
and rainy April 30th, 2023,
or contrarily when sweltering
hazy, humid and hot
dawg days of summer
necessitates setting air conditioner
at refreshing sixty six degrees fahrenheit.

I could never survive
alone in the wilderness,
which dependence on creature comforts
inured me since birth,
but all the more power to people
(such as **** Proenneke
pronounced pren-icky)
who lived off the grid,
and minimize their carbon footprint.

Truth be told, a non impactful lifestyle
tantalizes, teases, titillates...
yours truly, a garden variety generic human
dependent I vow woolly admit
on consonant contrivances
and conveniences conditioned
courtesy capitalistic consumeristic credo
decrying his dependence
upon flow of electrons,
whereby flip of switch
(rather than fight)
when systems of a down fully functional

instantaneously allows, enables,
and provides electricity
with absolute zero ability
to stave off blackout
attributed to sudden disruption
regarding power outage
linkedin with severe
kickstarted meteorological phenomena
or terroristic machinations
(possibly even homegrown unrest)
worst case scenario signaling the end
of the webbed wide world

reducing to rubble
(think being bombed
back into stone age)
annihilating comp fur table trappings
of twenty first century civilization
forcing survivors to learn basic skills
cooperation, integration, proletarian
and utilitarian virtues
altruistic, democratic, humanistic,
mechanistic, and socratic zest
begotten, distilled, and forged
nsync with opposable thumb.

Angst crimps existence
generating dystopian thoughts
despite countless factorial permutations,
differentiations and combinations,
this cyber surfer avails two alms
boot Grinchian genes snatched such balms
when tethered in utero umbilical connection,
etched bromide, which hankering calms
embryonic sensation this corporeal being lacks
constantly subjected to exams
from the school of hard knocks,
which I bewail sets back and gloms

mine aim to revel in blissful contentment
but circumstances decreed otherwise
cursing this chap tubby haunted
exhibited by sweaty soles of feet and palms
by veritable elfin grotto dwelling phantoms
hovering over sweet clover dials a mirage
where dreams comprise psychedelic qualms
yes...Iris sieve blurbs from gals and guys
that spans the world wide web, and exude
premature ejaculatory ecstasy, puzzled if fie
totally tubular trod a tedious trek
along the boulevard of broken dreams.

What happenstance oft finds thyself to flail
amidst difficulty to maximize
optimal opportunities
searching for Holy Grail
or whatever constitutes such lofty
personal objective, perchance being hale
and hearty of body, mind and spirit
spurs the furies of fate tut test this primate
while he aims to gallop with mighty industrial
vim and vigor leaving a virtual cloud

of dust, though mindfulness helps
to pass go, and chance avoid jail
time, then maybe monopolized
feedback offered and accepted
to this married caucasian
nasty and shortish brute
with one percent Neanderthal
toothless though I possess gumption
pseudo quasi-vegetarian
enjoying poetry stone soup,

yet also subsisting
on supplementary vitamin
and mineral packed glue tin free
NON GMO fruity tall tales for a male
thirty six years shy sans bing a centenarian,
which span of life best cut short
acquiring tetanus courtesy
rusty nine inch nail
hammered into faux coffin,
cuz this impossible mission

(aery faced nincompoop) doth turn pale
at the prospect to fill up a space of land
best utilized by twittering
and tweeting birds - such as quail
mongoose, or ibis (though aye ne'er saw
one), where cremated ashes sail
across some verdant plain under
cerulean skies putting to rest every travail,
which thoughts of dem eyes spells
the main impetus explaining

this rambling spiel
warp and woof ova gauzy veil
imperceptibly looms closer upon
turrets of my digital sea faring gunwale
unwittingly capsized courtesy
Moby **** sized whale,
and thus desperation
finds me pleading for salvation
while swinging from vestigial yellowtail.

I spoke with two people at the party Saturday.
A young police officer, short-haired, fit,
chiseled face who had two young children.
He felt constrained by the law, without discretion
to question mopes (perps) aggressively
or to let go those who were obviously no threat.
Even at a family function he seemed straight-backed, correct,
devoted to his role as our protector (and his children’s)
yet I thought perhaps too deeply in debt, indentured
to the rules and laws of legislators and destined
to be disappointed (or worse). I thought his courage
and devotion (to whom or what?) would surely
be poorly repaid and that this lesson
was necessary to ready him with wisdom
for death or further living. I worried like a brother
about the unpredictable dangers, even terrors,
he must daily face, and the pleasure he takes in facing them.
How will he return to the fragility of family,
of the soul alone, after wielding the force
of the state, the blind, combined will of us all?

Next a business exec, retired from a well known
global investment firm. At first we talked about
the lush beauty of the northeast compared to the arid west
(although he loves every inch of the west, too).
Then somehow we got beyond light conversation
when he complained about the perceived decline in values
for instance how the Ten Commandments can’t be publicly
displayed. He said we can all agree on God
but I said I have a mechanistic view of the universe
(although the unknowable always sits just out of reach
of the known). I told him my dad’s theory of reincarnation,
a good man and a corporate seeker of God also, whose shoes
I could never fill unless I swore belief in a supreme being.
No hard feelings. Then he told me the story
of his dying friend, an atheist, not even a deist
like the founding fathers, who opened his eyes for the last time
to correct the exec’s misperception that now he’d meet his maker.
Having exceeded the bounds of acceptable conversation
I went looking for my children. Nothing more to question.

Heard Doc Watson once.
Got a used banjo but the fingers just couldn't cut it
Got the music in me but ****** if I can get it out
Don't like crowds or audiences anyway.

Sometime even fear my close friends.
Don't stand up to their Atheism when it comes.
Science don't get faith and faith seeking proof dissipates.

But these atheist friends don't seem to contemplate the horror within
the mechanistic, physical progression from Big Bang to the end.

One can admire the astute, patient discoveries
about the mechanical; this still discoverable physical world.
Pizo electric charges allow interaction with
this transparent screen smart phone
laid on fingertips miracle

Me?
I get more excited by
The actions of mind upon matter.
I can get lost in the shape of a hammer
As I retrace from its form to conception.

An ancestor of mine once imagined
A tool of simplicity and force.
Created an extension that reached from the mind to the hand to the nail.
And when I heft my hammer in my hand and lift it to strike
The complete marriage of mind, human, tool, and history
Comes to bear on the head
Of that nail
(Whose story entwines with that ancient hammer).

Makes us human
Not machine
Compels us to
Laugh at obscene
Without the instinct
Speciation
Specious,
Merely
Speculation
Artifice intelligence
The origin itself
Distorted
Only intuitions
Sort it
Out
For we are more
Conformed to flout
The mechanistic
Too simplistic
Logic
Carbon  
Organisms
In a rhythmic
River of
Consistent flow
Step in,
Step out
And then you know
This life anew
Not quite
A circle
Its dynamics
Sempiternal

A Fragment Of Infinity

Another documentary:
Scarcely elementary, but charged with energy.
Theme: astro-cartography.
Humans working nights and days
To map the stars and galaxies,
Which mapped this moment, are eight thousand.
Multi-universes moving outward
At four hundred thirty thousand miles per second…
Yes, per second!
A small part of the great whole
A  dwarfish fraction of them all.

In any case, I had an image:
Galaxies drawn by the laws
That govern us, that are our own:
Magnetism, gravity, movement, change,
Known, the speculated and unknown.
There I saw into my brain so much in common.
I connected with the ‘there’
Feeling that the laws out there
Paralleled the mechanistic warehouse
I could use for more awareness
Of my personal existence.

All my zillion cells attracting light
By some magnetic force and might.
I drew it to myself in thought,
Imagining the links of insight
Reaching me.
I felt it come immediately;
Some form of it anyway.

I am a fragment of infinity,
Galactic laws defining this
Small lady’s universe
Exactly as they do in endless space.

Fragment Of Infinity 4.11.2021 Circling Round Everything II; Circling Round Reality; Nature Of & In Reality;  The Processes: Creative, Thinking Meditative II; Arlene Corwin Corwin

It's so futuristic
and mechanistic
those fatalistic
mystics of nihilistic
behaviors
that seemed to mirror
the feudalistic years.

Today May 12th, 2021
at Royersford (Pennsylvania) LIDL,
when spouse stepped into checkout line
(minus her horse drawn grocery cart -
pushed courtesy yours truly).

While passively standing stock still
I (think Stonewall Jackson)
let scenario unfold before
mine myopic eyes,
whereby acquiescing
nonverbally attempting to scooch
closer to conveyor belt
subsequently attempting
to maneuver shopping cart
in front of another patron (an older man)
with small number of items in his cart,
who became irate at me.

He appeared angered
at his thwarted (senior) priority,
especially when mine wife
gave him few choice words.

All that learning regarding
learning conflict resolution
(years gone by)
taught by the late therapist Jean Dole
ineluctably escaped me.

I smart with disappointment
not offering aforementioned
aggravated fellow shopper
right of way
proceeding ahead of us
(initiating at least one daily
random act of kindness).

Figurative astringent aftertaste
left in mouth cuz laudable
good samaritan deed chased
away, thus one generic bloke
felt he disgraced
his credo and ethos that laced
behaviorist paradigm
shouldering virtuous lofty aspirations
as upholding saintiless gone to waste.

Nevertheless foo fighting beastie boy
attains exhibiting motto
viz - doing right by doing good.

Since birth and every
subsequent growing up year
until earth around sun orbitz equalled
lxii plus some months gradual aging

upon this body electric didst wear
major organs as personal choices made to veer
toward folkloric, generic holistic living social
societal, theoretical fabric
minimally didst tear

which family of origin
constituent part (nurture)
nsync verses with nature (genetics)
steeped with ethos to share
with parents, row mans, siblings,
(now offspring), et cetera
superfluity sans abundance,
or paucity per cornucopia rear
neither former plentifulness,
nor latter scarcity respectively
predictable asper
being dynamic

versus static such yield
based, linkedin, and predicated
on a gamut how fate didst wield
one record breaking
catch of the century, and sealed

fickle non butterfinger
Swedish Fish Ma PHEAA filleted
famed schooled
Redmond Efficiency Academy
top of the class for each grade,
whence analogous
viz zit hid had dock
pier fickle lee hooray
randomly cast piscine line reeled inlaid
hallowed sea man tricked treat
once the providence,
which belief informed lifelike
sculpted, Idolized carved likeness

revealed from precious metal or jade
unseen creator mortals prayed
some examples being handily
accorded mechanistic multi-deistic
such as Manichaeism, Mithraism, Muslim,
et cetera belief, credo,
divine entity man made
attempting cosmic explanations
grandly incorporating
limitless mysteries splashed
throughout universe visually displayed

decrees ordained requiring unbridled zeal
only the dead privy
to espy secret seventh seal
hence ne'er did plentiful spirits reveal
themselves as flesh and blood,
nonetheless, despite lack of sects ap peal
fervent humility, integrity, magnanimity...
prayers preceded before each meal
or any exploitative endeavor,

especially those which did heal
instilling positive influences to hopefully
sway sought after immortal deal,
and ethos, figuratively drilled into arboreal

predecessors minds of highest
saint seeking achievers
and/ or ******* faithful devout believers
who oft morphed into zombie
thrashing maniacs seized cleavers
a yen to revile against heretics,
not moost ideal to breed largesse,
whence possessed by fevers

toward simple axe of pious,
who indulgently pulled levers
no matter feigned actions hash tagged
reciprocating masquerade
i.e. facade, charade afraid
but, nevertheless a Good Samaritan renegade.

Flourishes amidst freedom
once invisible (alice in) chains shucked
when soul no longer kept linkedin
to jane's addiction
with corporeal duty, entity, fealty...
while formerly shed body electric
gendered as former googly eyed hotmail
actually a prodigy, whose outlook
arouses suspicions regarding him
as person of pinterest living social
in a webbed, wide world of uncertainty

precariously perched atop pinnacle
pirouetting at light speed,
nevertheless defying the laws
of centrifugal and centripetal force
as spirit blithely ushers forth
along a straight line
of orthodox dogmatism, idealism
opportunism, and volunteerism
hemorrhaging, purging, and xing
staunch archconservative
punishing outdated edicts.

When after the final countdown
to the global apocalypse,
(according to Doomsday Clock
January two thousand twenty three  
ninety seconds to midnight)
one beatle browed, foo fighting nebbish
departs the land of the living
and joins rank and file
among the grateful dead,

he (more specifically
the physical and spiritual
embodiments incorporating him
will separate) at long last,
thence latter day sainted essence
can freely exit from the cares
and concerns of an uncertain tomorrow  
no longer plagued by earthly travails
particularly the necessity of money.

Within heliocentric/ Copernican theory
broached sixteenth century promotion
sans scientific paradigm
dogmatically hefty, kinetically lofty,
and poetically thoroughly,
xyz beliefs misalign
wherein mechanistic Ptolemaic,
static venerated yin yang benign
choreography describing elementary forces
governing heavens inviting jinxed, kooky,
loopy measures necessitating

normalization, pacification, rectification,
transformation, validation
to guarantee spatial objects remain in line
which notions trotted out
a cosmic deal with invisible ink
omnipresent, omniscient omnipotent
benevolent creator linkedin
synonymously affixed terrestrial
firmament (planet Earth) nsync
with bedrock as Fred Flintstone
beatified, certified, deified,

edified, fortified, glorified Gibraltar
until undisputed supposedly
figuratively hermetically sealed
fostered religious (church) fathers
to do more than blink
when inquisitive minds (undaunted
though invoked as heretical martyrs)
blaspheming solidly entrenched
blind faith no more functioning with charm
mingly quaint association
with amulets, churinga,
exquisite fetishisms guiding humanity

innumerable journeys kickstarting
legendary modus operandi initially harm
less lee sounding out,
what manifested into a schismatic alarm
regarding millennial questions
undermining liturgical moorings
strong lance heaving arm
irrevocably toppled geocentric mindset,
nonetheless this oblate spheroid dance
sing with the stars redoubled
devout hangers-on fixed

with barnacle cleaving
devotion stalwart stance
populace behooved
(as would be expected),
when Doubting Thomas'
(Paine) revolutionary screeds
threatened (prior to unending)
universal schema just by chance
and despite proclamations pronunciations,
and provocations roiling status quo
hashtagged as evil rants

eventually zealous warfare between
growing heliocentric individuals  
with sacrilegiously blatantly deranged
fiendishly gnarly heathens –
perhaps the Renaissance own
groovy, nutty, and trippy Timothy Leary
the dawn of a quantifiable, explainable theory
(minus all those concentric
embedded orbital paths)
diktat preachers eventually became weary
to challenge recalcitrant

(purported hell raisers
****, I would have fit right in
as a rebel rouser)
whereby agents provocateurs
spout vestigial claim
to Gaea remaining front
and center of galaxy
on par clubbing with Mother Mary.

The deer, for one
Know better than to fraternize with humans
And their mechanistic ways
With coffee and love and oil to burn
Les their own natural pattern be disturbed
And lost
In our perceptive order and ignorance
Of the ways of the turning world
Beneath our very feet
They'd better not
Learn

She sees your bleeding dark side
She feels your angry heart
Her voice, shapes forever
An amber waterfall
Powers of healing and damnation
The shadow of skepticism
I gazed into the Eternal Blue Sky
That shiny and deceptive glaze of delusion
I long to experience
This mechanistic-mystical civilization
Murderous machines and Gods
In the dark and hollow spaces
To drift with wave and tide
In the weeds of common things
Amongst the dry leaves of the heart
Spirituality, the quicksilver moments
The blind force of the world
To take burdens from the weak
The sorrow that lay cold in a mother's heart
Shaded with dark and dappled with light
Her eye of love
Reveals forbidden places
Such death and chaos
A thousand bonds of delight
On that Everlasting Staircase

Gypsy

Traditional religions emphasize constancy,
the Modernists with their mechanistic
models emphasize predictability, but the
cosmos is much more dynamic than either
a pre-designed world or a dead machine ...

each jump is a great mystery.

- Charles Jencks

Found in Hotel World by Ali Smith
(which I have not yet read)