Quiet force

 

 

 

Lostness   (88)

 

 

Beliefs are like a gravity
which shapes our thinking space.

 

Once taught a thing was moral
one felt better doing it.

So is habit truly ethical
or good taste just preferred bias?

 

Suppose ideas could rank along
a gradient of credulity
according to extreme content
and how much theory each require.

Atheists should have few demands
for doctrine
taking lives to be as
mundane as they seem.

 

While an attribution spiral
might account for certain myths
where nature’s motions
given agency
were reified with spirit.

 

Later, lauding openness
hints at virtue
in naivety.

Suggestions all
“create their own reality”: perhaps abused
by those who seek
to dull the pain
compassion spikes
observing others suffering.

Dismissal shields a
greater guilt

(hence some
scorning “love’s illusion”
on exclusion from such realms).

 

Truths abandoned
soon clear ways for
more self-serving
types of faith.

Though still our
charitable lies
maintain the gift
to blunt a crueller
honesty.

 

 

But

these thoughts got interrupted

as a slight
yet fragrant breeze
through my open window
blew
new smells
resembling freshly laundered
air.

 

 

And thus I caught
its first faint sign

 

that quiet force

 

of spring.

 

 

 

(2006)

 

 

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Lost time

 

 

Lostness   (87)

 

 

 

Opening the book reveals a lone dark hair

left curled between its surfaces.

 

This single strand lay hidden
sixteen years
inside Proust’s “Remembrance of things past”
still coloured from before my going grey.

Encountered, not expected
like a trigger for new recollection.

Ironically placed
amid the very scene where changes
wreaked upon appearance
by old age
are best described.

 

An ending near ascension and epiphany
after lengthy disillusion
carrying conceptual weight beyond
preceding textual mass

Suggesting art might fill a faith-shaped void

yet how many find that happen?

 

 

(I also broke my only clock
whilst reading:
ill and housebound
having no computer, mobile phone or watch
thus felt slightly vague
in time.)

 

 

Finishing the work
we learn

despite all seeming fruitless
during long despondence

later, Marcel gained his true
vocation as a writer

reclaiming what was lost
across an odyssey
of moments.

 

 

Now my own life’s shrunken
among little
but impressions

I retain hopes
to one day sink back
through that sensuous web’s
great edifice of memory

following those faded scents
down paths toward
some beauty
far less disappointing
than the humdrum flux
existence brings.

 

So
then

once more
before it grows
too late

just let me
turn
the page.

 

 

 

 

(2006)

 

 

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Led astray

 

 

 

 

Lostness   (86)

 

Like a youth resenting parents

certain rebels have turned harshly
on their origins.

Favouring antagonists
now sided with

escaping blame
since always
viewed as right.

 

Once doubts get impermissible
any power shuns restraint

finding evidence superfluous
for criteria of faith.

Over doctrines claimed infallible
humility’s soon lost

how are groups less confident
defended from such force?

Can shrinking introspection halt
those lusting to expand?

 

Intellect may not be fitter
at survival
seeing reason create
nihilists
human future could belong
among the dullards.

 

Do people rise to fight
for simple questioning?

 

Perhaps thought
leaves mainly hunger
in the place where falsehood
serves its sweeter stories.

 

While suffering still mocks us
through comparisons

deeming strangers greater

so we listen
thirsty
for the tales they tell.

 

Some are even led astray
by fools or rogues
who might be cheered
watching others
act as badly
as themselves.

 

 

Without a better answer
for life’s problems

we shall cede
continued triumphs

to the lie.

 

 

 

 

(2006)

 

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Each week, due to illness, my body signals I should give this up,
but the likes and comments encourage me to keep going.

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Inner wealth?

 

 

 

 

Lostness   (85)

 

 

To love what you are best at
not get sidetracked

forms a fortunate conjoining
which
I lost so long ago.

Looking back across the wasteland of my misled paths
desires emerge that
all things cohere.

Hence this scanning notes
and journals
searching memories

But why expect I could
systematise
an entire lifetime’s work?

Hard enough just staying in the moment
focussed
during writing

since my mind diverts on sudden
unrelated thoughts…

 

Here these start from questions:

Am I only poor because I want?

May we measure inner wealth
by what can be done without?

Or, rather
make our stern excuse
for purist deprivation?

 

Next, recalling Huxley’s claim
that speed provides
the one genuinely modern pleasure.

I assume he never had a blow-up woman
let alone an android lover?

(Me neither, though
each lonely year
the prospect of such artificial company
grows slightly less unwelcome.)

 

And if, instead
I’d found a wife
was there any chance for
taking deep responsibilities
in parenthood?

Should I have dared
to lay the heavy burden of mortality
upon new being
while fearful this might pass
some faulty genes?

 

None remain to share
a sadness
now my bloodline
ends with me.

 

Lastly, then
arose the qualms
around Earth’s overpopulation.

Yet, moving past bare numbers
who
confronted by a need for lists
of those considered surplus

would volunteer
to write down

their own name?

 

 

 

 

(2005)

 

 

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Gratifying paranoia

 

 

 

 

 

Lostness   (84)

 

 

 Upset at an injustice

we can feel let down by life

and overwhelmed
decide
primal unfairness thus
extends
across from illness
on to death.

 

Sometimes great dejection
unrelieved
grown toxic
drives a pen
exhaling word-fumes
as its vent.

 

But still ideas recur
of better ways
and systems

Views that provoke taking sides.

So wanting all might share
in these fond dreams
may soon produce the wish
for countering dissent.

Such tendencies have often led
toward coercion:

Force made bold
since lacking guilt
perhaps outlaws offence

itself offensive to
old freedoms
won through cost

existing safer knowing
who despised us
rather than
instead
kept hid by silence
out of fear.

 

While rights attained
could work as weapons
pitting groups against
their rivals.

Or awareness
believed raised
seem gratified
embracing paranoia
with its certainty.

 

Observing euphemisms form
diverse in latent tension
sees a shift away from conflict
about honour

basing renewed status
on complaint.

 

When well-fed grievance
thrives

competitive
in victim styles

some innocents are shocked
at finding hatred
among places where
they once had hoped
or played

expectant

eager

to be liked.

 

 

 

(2004)

 

 

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Art versus death

 

 

 

Lostness   (83)

 

 

 

I bought a book about procrastination
but haven’t got around to reading it.

 

Self help texts aid my stasis
(planning is more fun than change)

such titles may well stimulate
yet also fuel reproaches
staring down from shelves
while I stay useless

mocked by any dreams
in which one shines some vital
talent through
the mundane’s
dreary cavern.

 

 

An easier course
might be retreat
defensive
as a cynic
sneering after talk of virtue
lest its light disclose
base interest.

 

Notice pleasure gossip brings
when shown those famous
marred by faults

Or reassuring stories
of flawed genius
whose defects sooth
a quiet envy
at distinctions
liable to inflame
the ego’s wounds.

 

 

Another route adopts a playful resignation
because philosophy was soon perceived
exposing
thought’s futility

so then concludes:

“If better minds than mine
can reach no answer
to life’s problems
why not give up boring study
for indulgence?”

 

 

Though these methods fail
in sharper sorrows

found creating
out of desperation
with small palettes
stressed by time

too conscious
art
is versus death

whatever traces
have been clawed back

from the abyss.

 

 

 

 

(2004)

 

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Ghost life

 

 

 

 

Lostness   (82)

 

 

Can we have nostalgia for the present

 

detecting loss within these moments
even
while they’re here?

 

Once sadness brews a
dread of time

Recalling how
youth hoped
good things would happen…

Now adulthood fears they won’t
and
if old age is reached
it may regret
so much
one never did.

 

Yet should I
beware
assuming consequents
when Y does not truly follow X?

(Like those promiscuous
analogies
my verbal hunger
often fed.)

Why expect coherence after
long surveys of thought
unless mind
or self
are unities?

Perhaps such systems
only understand
a level
formed less complex

hence the brain which fails
to grasp full knowledge
of its works.

Below awareness
nature needing boundaries

that guard innate from alien

forcing vital duty on a fast
immune response.

 

Again
arising to more conscious states

identity
must fend off chaos

though strong will resents
any limit
but its own.

 

 

As subjects
childhood put us at
the centre of our world

until we saw all others
disagreed.

 

A blow extended later
by rejections

ending
with this sense:

society excludes me

since, alone,
unnoticed
year on year
I pass just strangers

as some ghost might
wander

in an
outcast silence

through

the living.

 

 

 

 

(2003-2004)

 

 

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Nearer purgatory

 

 

 

 

Lostness   (81)

 

 

Being ill is tough
even in a nice place

but to face decline
surrounded
by a cast of fools
rubs salt on wounds.

And for each “neighbour from hell”
are several nearer purgatory

whose favoured noises enter
unwelcome
through thin walls

evoking basic territoriality

plus
learned helplessness

when we see
the first few times
attempts at change
that use persuasion
getting spurned
since none find their own sound too loud
(or they would have already
turned it down, themselves).

After action makes situations worse
spawning new enemies
stress now spirals round
in restlessness.

 

Proximity requires consideration:
once it’s lost
only clumsy instruments
such as law
remain
aiding sides to embrace victimhood
and justify severity.

People fight over almost anything
(though certain theories view social conflict
in one dimension).

I began to fantasise about
estates for introverts
with residents who prefer
a quiet read.

 

Then
standing up
I note
outside
grey spectrum spread
from clouds to concrete

full urban drab

existence giving hints
at realism:
the world too dull
to be a dream.

 

My gloom ferments
these unlit words

 

why seek more beautiful
expression of
this suffering?

 

I just want to not

be feeling it.

 

 

 

 

(2003-2004)

 

 

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One-sided love

 

 

 

Lostness   (80)

 

 

Better to think ourselves condemned
by genius

under spirit’s goad

than labelled “waster”

as I negatively judge
my current drifting

too exhausted for creation

seeking partial refuge
in retreat with books

a confined existence
measured via pages read

while more social life
would need the strength
that illness stole.

 

Here
reluctant
being pushed
to recognise
once a body
is no longer fit
for fresh romance
the mind attempts accommodating failure.

 

Yet biology resists
fate’s dismissive verdict

now made even harder after
unexpected
recent meetings
with a woman found adorable

when I sensed old wounds
of learned unworthiness
reopen through my
newly confused heart

default self-loathing
shielded from her power

preserving sterile isolation
against imagined merging
where this small world could be
shattered in assent.

 

How soon the arid
grown familiar
fields its dusty armour at
subversive reciprocity.

 

 

But such speculations
only wove some inflamed dreams

as avoided risk
ensured
fulfillment never came.

Vital words remained unsaid
and masked emotions
kept restrained
to spare our fragile sharing any
awkwardness.

 

So I later
felt sad waves
from missed
one-sided love

diminished
like a fading grief

though nothing had been lost

except
my hope.

 

 

 

 

(2003-2004)

 

 

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Disruptive joy

 

 

 

Lostness   (79)

 

 

I watch a couple walking past.

One face wore the sort of controlled blankness
useful around jealous partners.

It triggers memory…

A woman I once dated
who would abruptly ask:
“You like her, don’t you?”
about another female
barely noticed.

My surprise
before pausing to consider
if attraction could ignite
at this specific instance
may not have been the best response
but reflex denial
seemed less honest.

She later left me, after all.

And so has everybody else.

Hence I search reflections
in my lostness
that attempt to conjure sense
amid futility.

 

Yet any cynical defences
might still get swiftly pierced
from kindness.

Perhaps I should even distrust
the slowly setting concrete of depression
when a simple act
could be enough
to undermine constraint
against responsive feeling.

Recently exampled
where
along some sunlit path
the happy child had spun
behind a mother’s back
and shared discreet expression
of its joy with me
as I fought an urge
which drew a hand
to briefly
land my gentlest pat
(unseen by others)
on the little upturned head.

Thus we parted
trailing smiles.

Though mine soon faded
through more musing

formed across such
rare disruption

to this dismal
constant

called
aloneness.

 

 

 

 

(2001/2003)

 

 

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