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TERRY REEVES Apr 2016
Phaedrus was always there: before and after
In this life and the next there was always laughter
which one was wearing the white robe, it didn't matter
when they came, the crowd would always scatter

'Ah, Phaedrus, my old friend - would you wish to be me?'
'No, master - how could I emulate you and the things you do?'
'But you are a philosopher who travels between civilizations -
I would wish to learn from your soul and inclinations.'

'I learn from the Son of God always - your spirit guides
and nothing hides, even the very core of existence rides
on what you have to say and even what you don't say
beacause you are always with me to this very day.'

'Ah Phaedrus, we shall always meet - see the holes in my feet
and hands, remember them, in deserts and distant lands.'
TERRY REEVES Apr 2016
Just imagine that you're standing on a hill looking down
there before you is everything that you didn't own
no one wanted to see you and remembered your song
what you did, the way you conducted yourself was wrong

And yet - there is contrition born out of this condition
even tho the doubters would wish for an explanation
you can't give them one, you are what you've always been
which is a signature in different shades of green

You walked the colonnades and people began to stare
then the whispers: 'You see, isn't that him over there?'
It is no matter - everyone is changed now, mellow somehow
you have to live, try to give, not encounter a silly row

We may all be together again - the way I have returned
and then we'll see just how much we've all really learned
Sarah Clark May 2019
why drinking? Always!
i should try that
i love old knowable things
everything! Bigger out West
generalization, but ok (I do the same)
Phaedrus
morning person for sure
practical vs. artsy
is romanticism irrational, or just differently rational?

put ice under your hat
this whole thing is so **** Hollywood.
i dislike hierarchies- they’re simplifications
but they should!
superficially he’s not really here
ha! (Me)    
he’s trying, rather poorly, to fill the spaces with something other than thought

i see a maze where you take every left
metaphor
whoa guys whoa
but he doesn’t
thought for the sake of thought is dangerous
but what?
never truth, only conjecture
hmm?
but is it a human invention?
ah the perfect example

i am so intrigued by this unusual phrasing
building a base
quite bitter, this one
i’m bringing the whole thing down
the knife!
meet an old friend for the first time
i can’t draw a straight line
as he tries so hard to be
sounds like me when I’m vague
too much trust in technology

this reminds me of Ishmael
*** *** ***!
it’s all making so much sense now
familiar but ever-changing is what I want
a disciple!
when the only possible solution is go nuts- go nuts.
he’s a driven man
let me think
you need to narrow the lens
semi-aggro
yes yes yes yes yes

no immediate penalty
he’s typesetting
why do people need so many rules, rubrics and objectivity?
what’s wrong with a little mystery?
trying to define quality
the problem with philosophy is incomplete definitions to important words
hmmm, I disagree
using a lot more ellipses
a noble ambition

awe
some
should just bend and snap from this wind already
so much of the world is already inferred
i hate Socrates for this
the problem with words
an example, but what does it prove?
eliminate the knife!
hurts my head with its obviousness

aah, I see
a little cloudy, but there’s some sun
he’s entering rarified air
story of my life
he’s losing me
me gusta
numbers are a human invention, after all
this is over my head

be in the open country with someone
a generalist, too
i am most productive on coffee
a philosopher could write a 1000 page novel on the question “Are we alive?” And I could just say “Yes” and be done with it
let’s explode them
so monotone
beautiful  
up the mountain, down to the ocean
he’s getting absolutist again

here- have your cake and eat it too
back on track
getting tired of the lack of transition
like the houses on the way to Atherton
you’ve said this 500 times, let’s see it already
it’s slackening for me
how to BE the motorcycle
i hate twilight depression
i want a motorcycle

the *****
loves dividing things
this is all preparation
completing the flow chart

this used to be me, but I’m getting better
fix yourself before the machine
degrees of specificity, scope
a sense of the inner pressure
time away from noise and people helps him peer into that contradiction, that void
so ready to give in
intense… full of something
i know the problem-

        it’s wild, but safe

too long this has built up
part three was terrible
he’s experiencing universal loneliness
no more dams!
so much between the lines
battle of wits, I’m having fun
stop, eat, drive, eat, sleep, drive, etc
mans burden
never surrender

it’s moving too fast for me to keep up
but this requires a restructuring of thought and

       even

   society.




1988/2019
* Note to the reader. The below poem was 100% taken in order of page from the scribbled notes in an old copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The author of the erudite scribbles is unknown and I am indebted to their depth, humor and zest.
TERRY REEVES Mar 2016
PHAEDRUS WHERE ARE YOU NOW? WITH GREY LOCKS
AND LUCID MINDSET WHICH THE CRADLE ROCKS,
WE KNOW YOU, LISTEN TO YOUR TREATISE DREAM,
WHICH CAN NOT BE MET BY NOTHING AS IT SEEM;
PLATO MADE YOU CRAWL WITH TRUMPETS BLAZI NG,
LEFT YOU SPEECHLESS, STARING, ONLY GAZING
AT WHAT WAS NOT THERE, GONE LIKE A LOST SONG,
NOUGHT WAS THE SAME SINCE YOU CAME ALONG,
AN AGEING INCUBUS WITH LITTLE TO ACHIEVE,
YOU WOULD HAVE US ALL JUST WANTING TO BELIEVE,
THE SOPHISTS WERE ALWAYS RIGHT BUT YOU WERE WRONG,
ABOUT THINKING, ABOUT LIVING, ABOUT ANYTHING;
THE CLASS LEFT FOR THE DAY HAPPY AT DEPRESSION,
THERE WAS NOTHING BETTER THAN LISTENING TO YOUR LESSON.
Aaron Mullin Sep 2014
A diamond of perfect clarity and flawed .... Less
Is more
Uncut or not
Refracting light imperfectly
Through my I am
Perfections
Wit
Less
But less is more
You halfwit
Half my self
Seeking my other
S(elves)
An uncut gem
Maybe
Or maybe a carnonaceous chondrite
Being formed .... Crystallized

Through unintentional pressure

This is love
And Phaedrus always in behind
Gently pushing from sometimes gently tugging from the lead
Trying to stay in the eye

Of the storm
Ken Pepiton Jan 9
My grand daddy taught me to start a rope,
with a Turk's head knot. This be that sort of rope.
-- it takes less time to use
than to make
long enough
for any actual perfect purpose.

Mimetic pretenders,
euphoric make believers,
ritual passage over or under open limen
- cross the t and dot the ego.
- seek and find the missing pages
- all the mysteries in time
- that form our fundamental
- common sense in crazy made time

Lacunae rise from forgotten reasons used
to teach guardians
of secrets reasons
for war, how
to love,
in all the ways love is made worth dying for.
Blut und Grund, das Sein,
und mein, danke Schön

-- time ghosts pass, remarking at the weather-
-fine day, suns ablaze, breeze is light,
bemusing the beguiled thinking
'tis fairy, times fairs became cities, and all agreed,
election by contest, war in the spirit, in truth
using mere words, no audio, no video,
no styling nor fancy letter forms, unicode
alone no secret scripts, only sound marks
accented acutenesses and all,
+

y nada mas, mere words, redeemed, for this.
one new day redeemed for glory story need.
Morning glory teas,
in tiny shell shape cups.

May all magnificence be truth's.
Kernels of truth,
seeds producing tomorrow's
criteria, substance of things hoped for,
picked out details
to see in myths, the accuser's uses,
mysterious roots in ancien' riparian realms.

Oreithyia and Pharmaceia, intercession
for the poor.
Early spring
bulbs and flowers
the maenads chaos wine,
effigy effigial me, burning
for your mis-perception
of procedural authority,
instant re-co-gnosis,
vestigial dreams
time minds
in tow, riding your own
recognition,
around the spiral, down,
you would tell me if you were insane
so would I, the ego, living aight,
this it, you read, that's all she wrote
∞ *+
∞ -> =
aha, you think,
may be so,
say so, or no, go and
find the connection closed,
and energy flowing in to the either real realm,
or the null set, like old never minds, you had
while the circuits were fried
at the fusebox
for pennies
used to save a dime, to keep the energy
flowing to the magi's visual representation
of all that's known to hold attention,
by reflex,
look out, see windsense, energy electricity,
elect to let your curiousity fix all your if-I'da

knowns

open for conjecture, to catch subjects
objectified from the precept wisdom is, whole,
as the whole truth, we understand, makes sense
nets form nodes of both knowing, as a me,
we, each grow old at the same pace,
we become that which is,
at first step, precept assuring the runner,
there is always a place to put your foot,
goat-sense, Ein Gedi balsam eating
'scaped goat,
running down the cliff,
at the edge of annual reboots,
reconnecting reality, and the balm
traded for silk in Giliad, and
entertaing news
of miracles in smoke…
and mirrors of mercury, and
-------- time, out of mind dangling hook
make believe, fishing
we pretend, making be specific
imaginary gravity and survival codes,
for a chosen few, catchholds, grapples
for those not inclined
to lean
on a lesson
that demands experience,
to contend, hold that thought, this ain't war.

- Khai Vinh, set like the roof
- Ai can find the images,
- the place was real
- those were my antennae
- crazy true, after the fact, signal
- now, how much of that was CIA?

proud Mary keep on boinin', 'long
Bayou Bleu,
down Plaquemine way, deep night
on roads made from tiny wet white shells
that something made, while living in it,
- one way trace, wide enough
- for an auto me mover
- tugging my at to here
as we live inside our head, as far as
our fingers reach
from where we stand,
our feeling fingers only reach so far, so good.

Held a thought
a while back,
it may have been a trick, but listen, if it was,
I'd have taken it, and won, for midsent-morphing
turning tropes for the dopes hoping something new.
In fancy forms of wannabets.
Peace on Earth, is real.
Baby,
the price is all the attention you can muster,
and then some, as time seems
to have
modes, like we have moods, hormonal
catch and release reflexes, you know, like…

what, what, who cares why, what must be first
priority, ah
what are we intending to pretend to be?
Wordwise,
entertained, fed to satiation, what more, prior

to the next wisea
* asking me to believe, in hell.
I just came to fish.
I came after the curtain was torn, top to bottom,
nothing kept secret
for the artifactual value, remains
here. You know, free as any knowing, now.
There is no enemy that truth cannot love, once
you understand, the limits
of your learning curve, ai,
you accept, no lie is
of the truth, no wisdom form
is flawed, first glance,
glimpsed, real as war
glory, as valued a common lure
to the unshined …
initiate turn on … flip
the switch.
Imagine Grace.
Riches with no sorrow,
worth the effort, found
pure, then peaceable, gentle

right snap
fit, just right, no excuses, we got the mystery
imagined for us,
in the end, pain free,
in the collective consciousness some say is spirit
of our time, our Zeitgeist, doing what it does

close up, nothing spooky at a distance, eye
to eye, mere words with wishes twisted through

outs and ins and ups and downs, and
wells
deep as pressure allows,
right, I ought to sleep, but buzz…

O' no, I said too much… or did not say enough.

Slowly, Monday came.
Morning harbinger to sailors, says sit tight.

Find a fire
far from the threshold, and wait.
Talk with the locals
from the same boat, survivors,
boast of storms ridden out, and ones
that swallowed brothers
and some malicious captains. Good riddance,
some say, while others flick a libation
offering a drop of grog across time's stream.

Lift up your eyes, look down
from your satellites and see the future
coming on the weather channel, thanking
all the forces fixing droughts and flushing deltas,

with the first of winter's predictable trials.

-------------
Hunker down and listen, feel your self, you
deep down, your sacred feeling, especial self

red sky warning seen
before by wiser men, older
by experience, made
acknowledges your luck,
as a ware for use
by innocents, listen, take heed,

all things work together
for good,
for keeps
for those with hearing ears.

Listen to the wind, and thank the dry truth
for being.

just being used to
form fibers for twisting into ties

---- long lines for this ride pray patient perfecting

Rush to judge the blown away reason.

To whom is thanks given, and why, I
the desert dweller bound for Tarsus, stuck

at the edge of the raging sea.

The whole world shuddered at the blow,
the earthquake, peleg in the old tongue,
timeless
as the story eventually got writ, in a modded
Phonecian script, survivors were mostly kids,
resiliency of innocents,
one here,
one there, some whole neighborhoods,
where all the kids were in the swimming hole,
all around the shuddering islands on this world.

It was as we have imagined,
until the grownups crossed lost time,
using lost knowledge locked in idle words,

deem the day redeemed,
feel the emotion defined

gratitude for gratified if I'd known,
missed terminals, crosst wires,
connect to the sea of God's forgetfullness,
relink the collar think canals on rivers,
holding the course men set for cities,
dhghemed damdamd-dayamd indeed…
No river muses suffer such for ever

we all know enough to be accepting
oddities in timed chance trial understandings,

we all know wills to power, and notions
to jump into the ocean and go on down,
to the bottom mind tele far long now mind

space shared across time, like the snow,
when the tv went native,
in the olden days
my minds child watched the hush of creation,

let it happen, let it be, this is it, or we are lost,
and that
is un thinkable, try.
Try thinking you do not follow the whole idea,
life
is us, all of us in our most common sense,
this one, translation by Google Bard,
passed my Hausa native speaker friend's
blind Turing test,

that happened days ago, next, ah
SYTF
precept, reception tune to the humm,
listen, humm,

call the editor.

"very interesting." Rest assured,
after accessing the way made plain,

Habakkuk habit, make it plain,
make it make the motors turn minds
in to wills, and wills into power,
pure peace
prefects feel good flicked libation.
Perfect.
Print.
The entertainment, many minds
attention paying to the shared event,
today.
Today. EXTRA, read all about it,
death has no lasting sting.
Live to the end. Redeeming your time.
Swiftly passing to the beat of your own drum.

One step past the simple, love,
you find sublime, nothing down and *****,
nothing missing,
nothing broken,

as one learns to think from the heart,
part of me that's thought in you, feels as
mere words some scribe imagined hearing

as he wrote,
line upon line, asangin' twangin'
a strangle hold, twisting hairs into a rope.

A riata, I think they call em.
Horsetail lariat, patiently plaited,
to make my own noose, when the time
comes to put the tool to use.

CLASSICAL LITERATURE QUOTES
Plato, Phaedrus 229 (trans. Fowler) (Greek philosopher C4th B.C.) :
"Phaidros (Phaedrus) :
I should like to know, Sokrates (Socrates),
whether the place is not somewhere here
at which Boreas (the North Wind) is said
to have carried off Oreithyia
from the banks of the Ilissos (Ilissus)? . . .
Sokrates :
Oreithyia was playing
with Pharmakeia (Pharmaceia), when a northern gust carried her
over the neighbouring rocks;
and this being the manner
of her death, she was said
to have been carried away by Boreas."

Morally ambiguous. Us, our we, we know not valid reasons
to do useless things, making
vain repetitions, vain making of many books,
all vanity, the making of many things from nothing.
We live on a living planet, and we have tamed parts of it,
not the part common sense comes from, it is still forest dark and lively.
TERRY REEVES Apr 2016
I strolled out on the lawn and looked at the view
didn't I see Fleming, Steinbeck and Miller too
illustrious company in the fading light
and further, J. P. Donleavy was out of sight

They were commercial, deep, with ****** soliliquy
and down below, J.P. described a strange anomaly
let's write together, fight together like a ghost
when it's done, I'll tell you what I like most

I like Pirsig, Phaedrus with a bit of Zen thrown in
although have to be fresh without being maudlin
now sadness, pathos is a whole new ball game
every time that we write, it was never the same

Sadness for me was alone and different for you
we all agreed to differ as the sky turned indigo blue
TERRY REEVES Mar 2016
HE WAS BACK, LIKE PHAEDRUS BUT NOT
OF THIS EARTH, RATHER TO HAVE SOME FUN
FOR WHAT IT WAS WORTH; I TOLD HIM TO
BEHAVE PROPERLY AND LEAVE THE TALKING
TO ME - EVEN THEN HIS POWER WAS GREATER
THAN IT APPEARED TO BE; AN EMPTY GLASS
BECAME FULL, SOMEONE'S WALLET SUDDENLY
HAD EXTRA NOTES AND A NEARBY DOG TURNED
IN CIRCLES WHEN IT REALIZED THAT NO TAIL
WAS VISIBLE; THE PUNTERS WERE ASTONISHED
WHEN A HORSE IN A TV RACE WHICH WAS
CLEARLY LOSING, SUDDENLY STRAIGHTENED IT'S
KNEES AND LEAPT FORWARD PAST THE OTHERS
TO WIN - PLEASE EXPLAIN, I DON'T KNOW WHERE TO BEGIN!
afteryourimbaud Feb 2017
There is no
calmness
and happiness
in poetry
those things won't
just fit in.
All that's left
in this
is madness
emptiness
and hopelessness.

When Socrates
said in Phaedrus
that poetry
is a form of
madness,
he must
have encountered
a truly, beautiful
mess.
TERRY REEVES Feb 2016
THE RHETORIC IS FALLACIOUS, DOESN'T RING TRUE,
BUT SEEMS GENUINE WITH STRANGE REASONING TOO,
DECEPTIVELY PLAUSIBLE, THE EYEBROWS ARE RAISED,
NO MATTER WHAT YOU MIGHT SAY, HE'S NEVER FAZED;
WHEN PHAEDRUS CAME ALONG, HE SCURRIED AWAY,
HE KNEW THAT HE WOULD BE 'SHOT DOWN' ON THAT DAY,
HE STOOD BEFORE THE GREAT SCHOLARS - SOCRATES,
ARISTOTLE AND PLATO WHO TOLD HIM TO GET DOWN ON HIS KNEES,
WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH THIS MAN? EDUCATE ANEW,
OR LET HIM CARRY ON - WHAT WOULD BE YOUR VIEW?
BUT WHAT IS THIS - HE ROSE FROM THE BARREN GROUND,
HE LEFT HIS ACCUSERS MUTTERING, WITHOUT A SOUND,
NOTHING HAD CHANGED, EVEN WHEN DAY TURNED INTO NIGHT,
WHATEVER THEY SAID, HE KNEW THAT HE WAS RIGHT.

— The End —