Showing posts with label Primo Levi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Primo Levi. Show all posts

Monday, October 30, 2017

Nonsensical


As we explore the depths of the oceans, 
seeking the ends of eternity as
conceived by space, 
mapping the matrix of the mind,

We hope 
we are making sense.
Some more sense of what may be 
behind the Divine and beyond evil.
Veiled by our vanity,
we can only hope to master
some special skills.

We are instructed, 
we are given-with grace,
five senses to use, freely.
We all know better.

Untapped potential, 
the vein, the mother lode,
these things that we seek
are lying here
not waiting 
for us to see,
not weighting
to matter.

Now, tell me about touch…

Can you feel me looking at you from
where I stand?

Can I make you cry with words, 
or laugh with only
black and white?

How do you know something has been moved?
Do not step there! Slow Down! Watch out! 
Has this voice
ever saved you before?

And pray, tell me, mind over matters
like these explosions of energies that spin wildly,
may we tame bursts by will, tempt with them with time,
temper these with new neurons
and cast off-the surplus?
Is it all too much?

A little release travels faster than light
yet always
dissipates all ways 
with so much space and water
between bodies
empyrean expanses, abysmal astrodynamics and such.

It was current
thought, 
that the thought wave and the wave of gravity,
ate projected invisibly, the unseen senselessly
Ignored-

As if maybe,
it didn't make sense, as if
'may be' meant there were more ways to feel
than five, or how do we know anything is alive? 

None believed in what they could not see.

With no matter to feel, to put a name on,
with nothing to touch us with shape or edge,
with so much space, with all the emptiness

making up all the meaning 
It is all the more touching
that we find our way by feel,
getting somewhere, 
After All.



“Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea?
Or hast thou walked in the search of the depths?
Have the gates of death ben open unto thee? 
Or hast thou seen the doors of
the shadow of death?
Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth?
Declare if thou knowest it all.
Where is the way light dwelleth?”

(38:16-19, The book of Job via Primo Levi) 





Painting by Martin Johnson Heade [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Friday, February 10, 2017

Captains Log: February 9th 21st century


Marine fog has come
and gone all day, it is similar, the same,
the way Gaston B was obsessed with this very mist
I muse over its movements in particulate.

Blue skies peek through,
a thin cloud rolling by,
and it has settled, for Now
rested thick, wet and multiple times
it is a clear day, others say, just on the other side…

It does stop us, coordinately 
from believing what we see. See evidently
I am most grateful for our limited scope,
as far as hope floats
it is the certainty we would choke
on the very air we need
if only we could see how Primo Levi detects the miasma
that hovers above all smoky cities. 
A gritty plume, caustic and lye, and lie like
light always gets to you.

No machete necessary, under a chenille throw of clouds.
No doubt it always will get through to someone,
as it has always done,
before the big banging and seed sowing.

Before the smoke there must be fire,
Before we could relate to the sky speaking in sea,
Collecting the mood in glimmers and vapors
The fog finally makes it all clear.
It was something in the air, where the light broke in
And scattered array.

Image credit by Tuxyso / Wikimedia Commons, via Wikimedia Commons.

Saturday, October 29, 2016

Where art thou?



People ask me where I've been and I am mystified.
I mean, I don't know if they mean recently-
or ever-
neither of which is that fascinating-
          which is completely untrue.
Nobody ever asks me this.

I have recently considered how Primo Levi said the glaciers melting 
in green varicose veins 
          could not be described.
He reminds me of Pluto in nebulous ways,
after all, he said it actually tasted like sky.

I guess we have all tried to touch rainbows, 
     and I think most of us prefer shiny things,
not semi-transparent or deflecting items such as prisms
     or  iridescence. 

Honestly, I am still trapped, 
so tell is all I can do. 
It takes determination, geometry 
to hold on to other crystals like granite,
becoming solidified, and structurally sound for a time
bond even, but really just passing through. 

This is how too, 
          rivers are reminiscent of veins 
                         and the passing of blood,
like what is liquid or solid 
               and divides me by you. 


Painting By J.E.H. MacDonald (1873/1932) [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

 

And then...

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