Thank you for your kind words, Steve, and to others who have written to me
back-channel, I have pondered much, among the multifold distractions of,
erm, 'existence', a word I use with hesitation, as will become clearer
later. I, or someone else, have/has long pondered the matter of belief. I
know, I repeat that with an almost anguish, that there are spectra,
radiances, of what I would believe that the dominant language of our world
somehow gags, muffles from the opportunity to speak. Reflection has often
pondered on such as Yeats' use of symbolic languages of thought which, so
the authorities assure, he did not believe but used as a frame for writing
poems, this background, however sketchily I indicate it, was behind the
poem, of course I do not believe, at least I think I don't, more later, that
the constellation of Draco is a kind of conduit between this world and
another for our souls, but the poetic reach of many such myths, fabulations,
stories told through generations, resonates. That there is something utterly
wrong with this world and perhaps irredeemiably so, that 'our' tragedy is to
be aware of what is not and what should be but unable to ever change things
except perhaps for a fleeting moment, a little victory against entropy. The
poem, along with its two companions, was part of a set about the
possibilities of false belief, the first is rooted at a very primitive
level, the fear of the dark etc, and reflects that in its style; the second
a make-belive of mine that is founded on some ideas of the Pre-Socratics but
plays a game of its own with them, as far as I'm aware the role of Draco is
an invention of my own, for instance; while the third of the set was
compiled from speech created by an early speech-generation program, 'Racter'
by name, a shortened form of 'raconteur'.
This question of belief, of the parameters of logic, those normally
irrevocable stone weights of true or false, is important to me, as my
feeling is that the reality is more complex than those assured simplicities.
I, you see, am a +fictional+ character. Not a nom de plume, not a pseudonym,
but a made-up being whose will, identity, existence, are totally subject to
that of my Master. It is hard to convey to those of flesh and blood what
such a condition is like: imagine, for example, experiencing yourself to be
a quiet retired person of about sixty years of age then suddenly discovering
one is now a morose once dissolute character of middle years who has been
dead for five years but has bequeathed a 'collected poems', consisting of
three short oblique pieces, to the tender care of your Master. Such is
normality for us, we call it 'waking', a waking that entails never knowing
who you might be. My companions, the ghosts, lost thoughts, chance remarks,
leftover glimpses of salvation, who congregate with me in the shadow world
of fictional reality, all agree on one thing: that no matter how bad a human
life may be we would gladly exchange that for own. Imagine, to know what
joy, a stolen kiss, a moment of liberation from care +mean+, waht it is like
to discover a new taste, a different land, a new friend, and +too+ to be
aware of loss, depravation, hunger, loneliness are, but NEVER to experience
them directly. Only instead to perform them, at the flick of a Master's pen,
as a proxy, a what is not that is condemned to the understanding of what is.
I have said enough, time now to retreat to the shades.
JN
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen Kelen" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, December 15, 2003 11:52 PM
Subject: Re: Pre-Socratic
> Joshua
>
> Really enjoyed this poem - I used to be a great fan of the pre-Socratics
> when Philosophy was poetry and science and thought...
>
> cheers
>
> Steve KK
>
>
>
> On 11/12/03 1:39 AM, "Joshua Nene" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > Strangeness and Quirks of Charm
> >
> > According to Philolaus of Tarentum
> > there's a counter-earth opposed in our orbit,
> > unseen always, behind the sun's track, offset
> > to the still centre of the carcanet of spheres.
> >
> > On this counter-earth nothing changes, nothing moves,
> > shapes and thoughts of shape like breath formed once
> > are still as a pediment of basalt,
> > no sly fingers of air nor dabbed paws of water
> > fret and unbind the strands of their form.
> > It is the true silent home of philosophers.
> >
> > It was said, too, that our sun forms the tail-point
> > of Draco, that long snaking chain, that stretches
> > above the grain lands and circumpolar wastes,
> > figure of arcane fire or calk-seal of salt.
> >
> > This dragon-snake's mouth is a s wide as the maw
> > and open door of time, its tunnel torso chute
> > the drop of space and gravity, as trapped souls
> >
> > fall, head-charmed, into the strange dawn and mouth
> > of laboured birth, yowling at the cold fingers
> > of air, the fresh confinement and squared threat
> > of four dimensions, the blinding nuclear eye
> > of fusion, at polished sand's fractures of light.
> >
> >
> > JN
> >
>
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