is a compassless,
sometimes compassionate person
in a space strangely open
but intimate like a wound,
around which torture, intimidation,
corruption, exploitation, collaboration
and accommodation make poetry and philosophy
utterly irrelevant, however splendid they may sound.
14 comments:
Where is the power of beauty, so important to philosopher and poet, in all this Weltschmerz? This thought is solipsistic. And solipsism is the infallible tautology of depression! Balls, man, balls--that's American for grit, guts, and courage.
Is the following any clue to how the poetic philosopher sees himself?
'The marble index of a mind for ever voyaging through strange seas of thought alone'-George Sand
Bearz's comment is more generous than mine, and I do think Georges Sand is a far more capable novelist than she is given credit for. But philosophers and poets do not generally whine.
You think this poemlet is a WHINE ?
God help America!
Go, Anthony! =)
I wish God would help us, but we try, nevertheless, bumbling. Remember that the Statue of Liberty was a gift from France, and is inscribed: "Give me your tired and your poor, your hungry to be free." They still keep coming to America. My point about WHINING is a philosophical one: to say that horrible atrocities, which do exist, make "irrelevant" the beauties of the human mind, which also exist for some lucky enough to have aptitude and talent and education, is a tautology, a self-referential truism that is bound by its own sphere of self-perceived helplessness. We are never helpless, even on the scaffold. The perception of beauty in human words is always an action, many times involuntary, and has nothing to do with being a victim or victimization. Massive victimization of ourselves and our planet perpetuates itself precisely because of our self-imposed helplessness. Buddhist monks in the gulags of Chinese persecution begin their day with the following chant: "From the realm of pure bliss on the top of my head…" That prayer continues as a poetic expression and originates from one of the most sophisticated philosophies of the human mind ever created. The prayer stands as a monument to human compassion for one's self and for humanity and REBELLION against the hell realm of victimization. Human suffering is terrible in all its brutality. Period. Poetry and philosophy are never "effete" irrelevancies for "the happy few," and especially not in prison. Instead of "Go, Anthony," I say, "Move on, Anthony…" Write poems, or at least own the power of those you have written.
Marcus,have you ever been to prison?I have,I read many great poets and philosophers,and,when I finished the book and put it down,I was still there. Literatue can be a great narcotic,but,there is always the'comedown,'that is reality. As for REBELLION,that is a word better applied to the ones who want to breakdown the walls,not those who make life easier for the guards.
Thank you David. Fuck 'the power of beauty' when you're freezing to death in a doorway !
"Solipsism the infallible tautology of depression ?"
No, the contrary. Solipsism is Narcissism and The American Dream.
Hello Marcus, unlike many reading this blog I happen to be a believer, so when you say 'I wish God would help us' I wish he would. But what has helped me most often is the respite black humour, jet black humour. If there is darkness darker than what you can't escape it means you are in (relative) light. Go and listen closely and repeatedly to Nico's 'Desert Shore' and 'The Marble Index' and then if you prefer hermetic self absorption, at least you should know what it is.
I understand auban and David, but lean more towards Marcus. I think that our opinions are formed depending how kind is life to us.
Life is neither kind or unkind,that would presuppose life cares,or even thinks about us. My life has had 'good' times and 'bad' times, but,mostly, it was just 'life'. All, I was saying, was that, in hard times, the only practical use for poetry/philosophy is as kindling for the fire you build to keep warm.
Ah, disagreement, emotion, rhetoric, aren't these what blogs are for? No I have never been in prison, David, although I am a fan of prison memoirs as disparate as Speer's Spandau Diaries and Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice. I am also a great fan of the Netflix hit Orange is the New Black, a brilliant look and uproariously funny diatribe into the multicultural soup of a female prison in upstate New York, filled with the black humor Bearz writes about, "jet black humor, a darkness, darker than what you can't escape." I have written two appeals to judges on behalf of two different men convicted and facing sentences, and I have frequently visited the jail to see one of them. Existentially and therefore rhetorically, David, your comment is very powerful. I have also stood freezing and suffering in a doorway, something not as existentially nor rhetorically powerful. But, yes, Auban, I do love to fuck, and thank you for reminding me of its beauty. From reading all your comments, there are a couple of what I presume to call facts here, but even as facts I acknowledge these are covered with my judgment and evaluation. Fact: there is horrendous suffering in the human condition, most of it untold, and most of it caused by the havoc and cruelty of humans against each other. Fact: there is the rhythmic language of poetry and song, most of which is poetry or poetic (I have not forgotten Nico's songs, Baerz), which is beautiful and as old and as universal and yes, as persistent, as human speech itself. Fact: suffering and poetry are two very different human experiences. Conclusion: suffering does not make irrelevant poetry, just as a hideous industrial park does not make irrelevant the blue sky over it. They remain different. Those suffering in agony and exploitation do not experience poetry and would not appreciate it. Yet, poetry and philosophy remain a blue sky of our making. Poetry and philosophy are not excuses; they are not palliatives; they are not distractions; they are not rationalizations; they are great human creations. These creations affirm our human power. Suffering regardless of what causes it reminds us of our particularly humanly "infinite" capacity for hell. True, to the suffering, nothing but suffering and its cessation are relevant. But the condition of that preposition "to" as Jindra notes, does not logically make irrelevant poetry and philosophy, but does so only economically and politically.
It would be very rare to have a good life, and carry fairly negative, morose kind of outlook.
I am a collectable example of that rarity, Jindra ! Being fortunate should not affect one's eyesight or sensibility... If optimists are merely the product of their good fortune, they are even more despicable !
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