THE SUBJECT AS OBJECT,
OBJECT AS GROUND
OF BEING.
ON EDGES
AND BELONGINGS.
Tat tvam asi
(That I am)
How to merge,
how to remain,
how to see beyond corners,
in darkness wells.
In deserts,
the sand-filled mouths of raving saints.
In forests,
the still elegance of shadowed eyed.
How to merge, yet remain.
How to allow in,
yet keep clambering upwards.
I.
Mistaken identity.
The signpost as the destination.
Cleverness and guile all our days,
we forget to let go the tight bands,
corsetted edge, held in,
possessed and unpossessed,
apart, separated,
vulnerable to elsewhere,
withered by time,
an erosion of horizons,
alluvial plains, fluvial deposits,
drumlins, morraines.
The debris of becoming something else.
A knot, nor a net.
Next, betwixt, between.
Amongst.
A singular deception.
A swell, a tide, a sea, a surge.
A chorus of voices.
Solar mansions.
A circle divided remains a returning path.
name me and I shall vanish,
dancing around the fire.
Foolishly,
I know all things,
but have forgotten how to dream,
and so am rootless
awaiting celestial bees.
Meander.
The great river.
The sky roofed path.
Wonder of wonders.
Breath out.
Looking,
it eludes us.
Remain still, somehow,
forgetting skin.
A vessel.
Is it form, is it emptiness?
Neither, nor, not.
No lessening is it,
ever, ever.
—–
A roaming around ideas on Self, what is ours, what is beyond, where memory might abide, and asking why should there be limits to our wonder.
Stirred by “Immunity” http://manoftheworld.wordpress.com. I am always a we, a cellular empire. I is also a view, a sharing and borrowing of voice.
simonhlilly 
I like it, but your tendency to drift into words that require a dictionary for anyone who is not any english major or who didn’t take latin is going to alienate a large portion of your audience who would genuinely love your work. I’m just saying perhaps consider a little editing of the the bigger words (alluvial plains, fluvial deposits,drumlins, morraines). Unless of course your goal is to teach your read and force them to go to the dictionary. Do you really have these words at the top of your head? drumlins? Morraines? Did you take an environmental sciences course on glaciers? Or maybe you watched the same PBS special I did. I love it as a whole but this line just made me stop in my tracks and lose the whole flow of it.
Well i understand, but in this instance the specific terminology has no alternatives for the imagery i was trying to layer together. Poetry is not just sentences broken into short lines, its a language form to communicate many levels of meaning simultaneously – or at least that’s what this piece was attempting to do. I do not really consider terms from pre O-level Geography particularly esoteric. Nor do i consider learning new words a chore, but a delight. There are many poems, old and new, where the language requires some unravelling, or is ambiguous, or difficult. Like complex musical compositions, it is not always possible to get to grips with a poem all at once. This can be frustrating, sure enough. But hopefully, even without understanding, there is the beauty of sounds……
I think you misunderstand my point – each one of those words is rich with meaning. You could write a full poem around the meaning of each word. Why not crack open each one of those words like a nut and pull out the mean with imagery,sound, and even smell and make it vivid to the reader? Those words are flat,cold, sharp scientific words. You are so good at making your work vivid to the reader – that is why those words seemed to interrupt the flow of the poem for me.
No , i was following you. Its a choice how much to explore each image and analogy. This piece was more a sketch than anything else, a response to a set of related ideas. I considered whether to expand and elaborate before publishing it, but thought not. Maybe later……thanks for your comments, always.
Always, Simon, your vision brings insight to me. “Mistaken identity…celestial bees.” Grateful thanks.)B
Inhabited by eloquent ghosts occassionally breaching the static and choosing to dress space with strange lines, bless’em!
Smiles, Simon.)
why understand when you can happily let the blend do just that, blend past the paradox of your thinking, like it brave when people say “hey i need to get my head round that”? Do you?
I think it depends on the poem’s style and purpose. In the flow, words emerge that i barely follow myself but they seem to continue the deeper themes at some level, so they are often not edited out. Much of my stuff has philosophical content, so it is a balance between imagery and flow and the ability to express the ideas in a slightly understandable fashion. This style of writing I use to scribble notions as much as anything else. Filing vertically, hunting tartans……
Yes have you read the book of tao?
Tao Te Ching is a classic example of ‘sutra’ style literature that is complete gobbledegook to those unfamilair with the philosophical background or the personal experience to which it refers. It is made even more difficult by the complex multi-meanings present within Chinese ideograms – perfect for deep poetic interpretation, a nightmare if all you want is clarity……
yes, the translation is lost in english
Oh the flickering prepositions igniting the temporal fluidity of your melancholy mambo. It’s like a dance, Simon. Quite nice.
Now then… I tend to confuse mambo with mamba, dance with snake, dance of flickering tongue, sinuous sadness….’temporal fluidity’ indeed i rarely know what day it is, (as the saying has it). Less a dance , more a skipping around puddles!
The origin of the word mambo is “to talk.” Hard to catch your breath skipping through the puddles, but it is more fun. Let’s dip!
So well spoken Simon: “I am always a we, a cellular empire. I is also a view, a sharing and borrowing of voice” – wow!
Taa!
We write is different styles, although perhaps we embody similar themes; even truths?
I think so.