Thursday 30 July 2009

The Only Point on the Horizon

I was thankful that I was alive, so I dived.
I reasoned... "this is life, this is being. Have I taken life or was it given to me? Never-the-less I am it now, I am one, alive and - dare I say it? - I exist."
Yet this in itself does not mean that I am obligated. Not least because I know only myself, and I choose not to be obligated to myself. I agree.
Then why would I dive, why would I step toward the unknown? Should I be afraid? What is there to fear? I am alive.
The answer is simple: desire.
You may tell me that it is selfish, but who are you? You are a voice of my own creation. Me. What is it to be selfish? There is only I. The rest is extension.
Desire.
It beats like a heart does beat. I feel it now as it overwhelms me; again I feel it when it doesn't. Does this imply control? Perhaps. But by whom? Me... my desire? Must desire be absolute? Remember the beat. It graciously ebbs and flows like the sea but I am not the moon.
Not blind when I dive, I lie in the truth that I see.
Content to be alive and to witness eternity.
I am aware of my contradiction.

Sunday 26 July 2009

The Inevitable Life and Death of Writing

'"Care had been taken to spread the most sinister rumours..."
I had thought out this sentence, at first it had been a small part of myself. Now it was inscribed on the paper, it took sides against me. I didn't recognize it anymore. I couldn't conceive it again. It was there, in front of me; in vain for me to trace some sign of its origin. Anyone could have written it. But I... I wasn't sure I wrote it. The letters glistened no longer, they were dry. That had disappeared too; nothing was left but their ephemeral spark.'
Nausea, Jean-Paul Sartre (translated by Lloyd Alexander)

Sunday 19 July 2009

They Know You Well

Who am I, that I have done something,
been somewhere, met someone,
or that I haven't?
What makes me different or the same?

As I think I see; a space where I am blind.
Who is in my mind?
How can I know the past, when I am living in this moment?
How can I know that I did anything?
For now, what is left?
And what was there to begin with?
It doesn't matter. I can still strive.

If it does, what can I do?
Identify my uncertainty, single it out:
You have caused me pain.
You have inflicted confusion upon me
And all that I know.
Where is my life?
I cannot locate it.
Just as I cannot locate the colours
In a rainbow, or a quilt.
What is this I touch?
Who have I become?

Debt to a Travelling Song

The chocolate wrapper is unnaturally loud,
I hear every tear and then every bite - through me.
Johnny Cash even fails to drown it.
Imagine his disappointment.
Of all the adventures in life, being unable to modify
One's own volume from beyond the grave
Must be the worst. Of course, I wouldn't know.


Unable to understand where my self is
(I do not know where my limbs are)
Enclosed in a coffin of my own making.
But it is warm like a body.
I feel no fear, tranquillity has earned its place.

The window moves further away,
A lack of focus causes the vehicle to fall apart.
Am I alive to see this, or is this because I am alive?

You tell me 'observational testimony',
But how am I to believe you?
How can they trust what they see?

Saturday 11 July 2009

Yet We Speak of Progress

To be deep is not to be mature.
Maturity is akin to sublime immaturity.
While to consider deeply is a symptom of the process of maturing, it is a means
and not an end.
To continue to have deep thoughts is thus a sign of immaturity, an inability to
mature.
Acceptance is king. Bigot.