Here is some poetry I wrote:
labyrinth by Neocon
"He was not intent upon the ingenious web of imagination, but the shudder of thought"....Soren Kierkegaard
I.
(Notes to part one)
Heidegger is one of the main 20th century
philosophers. In his book "Being and Time",
he speaks of the way in which we experience
the solicitude of those around us as a kind
of oppression, for it undermines our own
projects. He also talks about the way in
which we approach objects instrumentally.
In this case, the taking up of pre- existing
thoughts is likened to things to be used.
At the same time, a misgiving about about
approaching life through books and learned
ideas is expressed. There is a poking of fun
at the orderly, almost pat, acquisition of
knowledge, followed by a sense of being
overwhelmed by experience.
There are allusions to Kant, and the idea
that we take the material of experience and
synthesize it into a whole that is our own,
as well as the idea that we get the material
of experience through the perception of time
and space, and the sense that processing that
material is under strain.
An allusion to Hegel (The Phenomenology of Spirit)
and the idea that we recapitulate the stages
that consciousness goes through historically,
with the thought of being stuck at an early,
stoic stage.
The ejaculation "oh christ!" is followed by a
jest about not being developed enough to have
the sort of consciousness that corresponds to
that historic moment.
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.
(Notes to part two)
Trockenberenauslese is the highest grade of
German dessert wine. To get it, one waits
until the grapes are almost rotted on the vine.
The shape of my mind is such that I would
expect the best wine grape to be at the
ripest, purest stage. But that is not so,
better wine is produced by the grape past its
apparent prime, near death.
This is compared to the wonderful palette
of autumn, and the idea that something is
most itself as it approaches death. Somehow,
the individual qualities have a last blaze of
glory, overwhelming the characteristics shared
with others of the species.
Referring this idea to the personal quality
of death, the loneliness of the individual in
facing it, the reflection on one's private
journey. But a sense, too of the uniqueness
of the individual, concentrated into a sort of
harvestable berry, so that we all contribute
to a wine, "filling the flask of history
delectably".
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.
(Notes to part three)
This is a conflation of the minotaur in the
labyrinth, the Golden Calf, and the cow referred
to in Jeremiah.
"Harder than spittle" refers to the sense of shame,
as when one is spat on.
"Softer than flame" refers to the beguiling
amorphousness of flame, its malleability, which
belies its destructive power.
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.
(Notes to part four [A])
A sort of summary, up to this point. Identification
of the churning questioner with the minotaur/calf figure.
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.
(Notes to part four [B])
Trying to make sense of experience, personal sense,
not philosophic sense. To find one's destiny, to find
the path where one can make a difference, or be
transformed, to find a pattern much like a melody,
over time.
What sort of melody? Not mozartian, not the Magic
Flute, something graver, more reflective, like Bach,
specifically Mache Dich.
An allusion to the eucharistic offering of the wine,
and the phrase "but only say the word and I shall be
healed", toying with the hope of God's grace in
affording significance to one's life.
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.
(Notes to part five)
The idea that closest to consciousness is one's primitive
self, before being processed in society, which itself
regards the subsequent changes in one's life with a sort
of wonder, and underlies the face one puts on for others,
contrasted with reductionism and pat answers about one's
identity.
The idea of God as a refuge for inwardness, the way in
which one's individual identity can be preserved as
something of significance in the long run, not just
something to be left behind in the process of
socialization and education, and once more an allusion
to the phrase "but only say the word, and I shall be
healed".......
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. |
