Without Counterweight
Disgust, he said, disgust; seal your ears, your nostrils,
your eyes. To hear what? To see what? Seven bullets, eight
bullets.
And the killer killed, same as the other, here and there.
Where can you look? What can you juxtapose?
All the flags are torn to the whole length of time and
there isn’t one on a balcony to lower half mast.
Old newspapers float on the water next to the drown men.
To a Comrade
You were a seed, an acorn;
other times a huge oak tree
when you spoke
you became the path
from the seed to the tree
and from the tree
to the forest.
Excerpt
Having reached this point, we shall attempt to establish the connection
with the other assertion according to which the vast majority
of aestheticians believe that poetry, as fiction, may disregard truth
as correspondence with reality, and consequently may also disregard
the world and reality themselves as Imaginative possibilities. As we
have already indicated, this assertion is broadly correct and contains
a certain apparent degree of veridicality (sic!); nevertheless, it is fundamentally
false. This falsehood stems, specifically, from a mistaken
understanding of the notion of truth–an error perpetuated ever since
Aristotle and finding its definitive expression in the Thomistic formula
adequatio rei ad intellectum.
It is no longer a bold claim to state that Europeans employ the
concept of truth in a manner that might be regarded as arbitrary,
totalizing, and one-sided. Over time, the Thomistic definition has
gained increasing ground, eventually imposing itself almost completely.
In this respect, the example of the sciences is more than revealing.
As a consequence, we now think of truth only formaliter, that
is, as the correspondence of the intellect to the thing, to empirical
factuality and objectively available reality. Yet truth must instead be
thought on the basis of that which is true. Our discussion of this
concept will begin with the Greek word Aletheia, drawing support
from Heidegger’s interpretation, in which Aletheia is understood as
unconcealment, the state of being disclosed.
Is it necessary to reactivate the Greek philosophical concepts
concerning truth? “Not at all. A reactivation, even if such an impossibility
were to become possible, would be of no help. For the hidden
history of Greek philosophy consists from the very beginning in the
fact that it turns away from the essence of truth–which announces
itself in a flash through the word aletheia–and finds itself increasingly…
Avoidance
Comfortable, cozy you are
in the safety of four walls
pasted in lavish satin
soft hues, golden threads
and exquisite embroidery
far away from risk of battle
hammering just outside
your front step, always
calculating ifs and whys
falling or losing
fear controlling, mind abusing
your logic, yet when
love beckons you
you don’t embrace it
and when affection
dwells in your heart
you don’t bestow it
unto the dry petals of your life
why are you still breathing?
Excerpt
Last year at Brodick was a disaster. It should have literally been the last. But back they came.
‘This year will be even better than last,’ his mother had written. ‘Morag is her old self again after that awful experience in August and Rowena is just such a sweet little doll. We are going to be so happy showing her off to all the other guests and visitors. She will be the Little Belle of Brodick this year. If only your dear father could be there in flesh instead of in spirit. But how proud he must be in any case, as I am. Hamish has continual headaches these days and Alec is pale and liverish from working so hard. They both need the holiday at Brodick, as you must too. Could you not take the earlier week off and be with us the whole time? After all, you are the boss of that firm of yours. And Morag never sees you through the year. She misses you. She says you are becoming more a stranger than a brother.’
This year the changes of last year were twelve months worse. Mrs Anderson’s whole body was turning to steel, like her tiny, ball-bearing eyes. Morag was no longer pregnant. She was anaemic and tired and bitchier than ever. Rowena ran away every time Ian approached and screamed that he was going to beat her. This invariably brought Morag or her mother or both of them running to the child’s side, yelling at Ian to leave the little dote alone, to act his age and stop bullying a mere infant. Hamish and Alec sat all day every day in the stuffy sitting room, playing cribbage almost interminably. There were no walks, no golf, no drinks. Only the boat-trips were continued, apparently for Rowena’s sake, but Ian had missed those during the first week of the holiday.
‘Never mind, Ian; we’ll all enjoy the return trip to Gourock at the end of the week,’ his mother said. ‘It’ll be so lovely to have us all together again, the whole family, sailing up the Clyde towards home. I bet your dear father is sighing so contentedly if only we could hear him.’
‘I won’t be going back with you at the end of the week.’
‘What do you mean, Ian; you won’t be going back with us at the end of the week? Of course you will.’ His mother’s voice grew shrill, like the high-pitched squeal of scraped metal.
‘I won’t be. I’m leaving this morning. I’m catching the boat back to Belfast tonight.’
‘But Ian, it’s only Tuesday,’ Morag pointed out. ‘I’ve hardly seen you.’
‘Look your fill,’ said Ian, glancing at his watch. ‘You’ve got one hour and thirty-five minutes.’
‘Oh you insufferable, inhuman monster,’ Morag yelled. ‘You’re making a mockery out of family feelings and affections.’
Long-listed for the 2023 Griffin poetry Awards
And so is this one who has aged and whose sin
and regret don’t keep her awake beyond herself
and who doesn’t care for gossip and such
These are today’s women, one of them says,
their husband is never enough and how can
he be enough when he’s old? The other said, and
compassion, standing erect, shines like a shield
in the sundown with Justice hanging onto it
like a thousand-year-old toothless mast, still
shivering in its anger. The third maid, the wisest,
kept her mouth shut and her eyes were blind and
floating in dreams.
Truly strange: people talk about everything foreign
and distant to them
while they experience all other burning things
which keep them awake during the night
in their silence
and when they die they take them to their grave;
for this reason the dead are silent since they live
their true life in the grave.
In fact the clerk was ready to read the daily police
reports in the tomorrow news. Indeed he was on time:
certainly five years in jail.
He didn’t know, perhaps because he always hated
the keys,
that each person keeps the key to their prison in
their pocket
and pretends to have forgotten it, and this is
their prison.
JOY
Hope the flower opposite the bulrush
smiles like my love for the verdure
cypress plays tenderly with the rays
graves become fragrant wedding chambers
pulse of the forest, gallop of a doe
next to where we two were laid
wild lilies dripped their souls
a bloody rose, my joy blooms.
I see the breeze playing with your hair
your eyes are deep as I find
the path of my life this April
I no longer fear for the anemone
which wilts in the love of life
and I charge to drink the nectar of your lips.
Hera
The moment came when Hera ordered
to throw me into
the darkness of the uterus, moist, protecting,
cell by cell
molecule by molecule
the concept of division
to define concepts, images
yet undecipherable
I wasn’t bad in my crudeness
many-faceted
multi-layered
manifold
the expressionist
the hedonist
the self-absorbed
the life’s laughter that I was
meant to become
when the cosmic
compromise
started taking control
of my life
Between Minimal and Infinite
No one is born in his homeland
some souls welcome us to life
others say goodbye departing
in between we float
at the mercy of a foreign language
rusted words empty shells
meaningful urns
beings focused on the foolishness of love
sailors of heavenly seeds,
unwritten music scores
sailboats unload
light and colourful allegories
mythology memory of light and darkness
I would trade my days to regain
a new birth in the loss
this Edem is not in our time
it is a fiber of the heart
blind music shadow of the mind
searches for a world
habituated different light
overflowing but doesn’t change
wedged in the flow of ecstasy
between the minimal and infinity
Excerpt
Cyber Love
What strange games our minds play with us, my love!
I started falling in love with you, without even knowing you.
I have never heard your voice yet I dream of you and I find myself worrying about you.
I “feel” you sad, tired and stressed.
I expect your messages, you vanish for a day and I miss you so much.
Slowly I fall in love with you. You come into my mind and in my soul deviously you coil yourself around me like a spider its web, it becomes my sweet routine.
How are you in reality?
Is your smile the way I imagine it?
Is your hug the way I close my eyes and imagine it?
Your arms?
And that sadness and melancholy that goes through the words and reaches my soul? Is it true as I feel it?
