Here is some poetry I wrote:
labyrinth
"He was not intent upon the ingenious web of imagination, but the shudder of thought"....Soren Kierkegaard
I.
passing through overarching concerns,
the principal texts, private reference point;
(heidegger on solicitude); the ready- to- handedness of
certain thoughts, instruments of design, decline
to schematize or shuffle or deal out the
fancy- pants, stacked deck; the dianoetic
niceties of extension (therefore, form) modelled
after geometry, the interior decoration of this
penumbral skull, this apperception no longer synthesizing,
consequent disunity. burdened
by the manifold. hell, yes. very nearly
without intuitions, aesthesis of space and time
also a strain. perhaps stuck at the stage
of unhappy consciousness--- a crypto- state, behind
the times. oh christ!---- (pardon, i fall not
under that moment----- some pages ahead)-----
II.
trockenberen-
auslese: wait 'til the grapes near
rotted--- curious, odd. this mind's
morphology expects a neater clue, expects
the zenith of the wine- embarkened grape to lie
in fatted healthiness. instead it finds
that dessication yields the finest wine. (maybe there's hope
for this autumnal soul.) yes, there is
color to autumn, richer than the spring. surprise
of textured scents which pierce the nostril, deep---
a stranger iridescence to the afternoon---a finer
quiddity in dying. privacy and shame---
individual lustre bursting through essentia.
(color threatens shape, tone threatens melody----
into the richness, threatening disaster).
shame and dignity---- embarrasssment of
being solely personal, alone in one's travail----
i die for me alone--- thus live for me alone----
am dignified, for i alone contain this richness;
my complexity must needs be pressed, and also
yours, and also his---- else we'll not
fill the flask of history delectably, nor will our
heady bouquet make heaven to sing.
III.
wild calf of golden surface, harder than
spittle, softer than
flame. wild running
beast of ingenious form, an imagined
child of man, required
to inhabit
winding lair and lo, in the doubtful
ecstasy of life.strife- ridden, infantile, and base---
the face of man, empowered by sin, lit with its
glow:
turned- 'round, trapped, back to the wall,
but waiting, watching.
IV.
that calf am i, veal for the devil, served- up
saucily. that idol self-reverenced, that
jeremiad cow, that minotaur-- all three, in one, in me.
part noble, but alive with silliness. a fool, yes.
the fine- woven coat of
preoccupation hugs my mind. a thread
of thought unravelled, pulled at, loosened seam
of busy stitching blather. internal chit- chat, eternal
questioning. many- colored cloak, chaotic
with the various strands of
particular fate,thought, sentiment, suffering
inwardness--- hung on the flesh, effluvia
of the soul's ferment, the froth
of perplexity (strange yeast), the gassy
thoughtfulness which bloats the belly, warm
stupor to spice my meat.
IV.
(reconnoitering,trying to espy
the special course amidst the usual--- the course
marked out for me to tread, once trod, to love
as my own destiny--- and with each turn
to look intently for divine portent
and import, crisis, crucifixion in
a hundred trivial ways-- in such concealed
the melody, no longer trivial).mozaritan
theme, the "magic flute", too spry--- instead
bach's "mache dich"? perhaps. this passion's ripe
for offering--- we have this wine to give you, through
your goodness, we have this wine.
but only say the word and i shall be------
V.
intimate recognition, intimate thought,
most proximate self to consciousness, most keen
and dang'rous figure, wary genesis,
the wraith of infant love and hatred, early fear---
no freudian triviality, more great, more dear,
the ghostly presence of my naked life uncast
in educated rigors, social kiln, outlasts
its civilizing formulae, provides the taste
and savour of my private reverie, the quiet
wilderness without which i am nought
but calculations spent upon a closed account
without resource, beyond an artifice, a plan
without a means.(this is my charge of freud: my dreams
he tried to steal). ah no, old man---
i am most haughtily reluctant to concede
my fears and guilts, my hopes and joys to such as you---
give them to God instead, to tend and ripen--- God
alone meets me where intimate thought is proximate self,
and self is
-----healed. |
