while in everyday life

the pursuit of truth

Is seen as ridiculous

And speaking

with real emotion

abhorrent

We throng to cinema houses

most of all I believe

to view en masse

human beings

Actually communicating

with one another

The actors

are the Chosen Ones

of our age

given permission

to freely abandon themselves

to society's

Forbidden fruits

Of joy and grief

While we feast

On their remnants

In the dark

I climbed a narrow staircase

to a high turret

And then

looking down

On the dusky grounds of the city

I saw

where all the lines converged

a picture emerge

Of unearthly design

and intricacy

Keats loved

suffered, he wrote,

he died

supposing his words

to be finally

'writ in water'

Today though

any child

will be introduced to his poems

as if they were as real

and as solid

an existence

As the sun

Or moon

as indeed they are

though the paper he used

be torn

or stolen

Or the colour of his ink

be red

The suffering we know

bears no resemblance to her suffering

In her eyes

her entire self

her 'I'

Is so alive and present

It has burned its way

down through the centuries

searing the retinas

of billions of viewers

To each in turn saying

'I know'

It is the something

that has been all but lost

from our eyes

And in its place

is left a look

Of absence

I dreamt of a future

And it came to be

Willed the world to work

According to my proclivity

    For the intellect on its own

    cannot

Seriously cannot

      explain away all the shocks and humiliations of

   experience

                                                   

                                                   

        And it is those that will live

                                                   

        who possess the hope

       Born of instinctual longing

          though they be the ones

            to suffer the barbs of life the keenest

                                                  

                                                            Does the aquired stillness

                                                 

                                                                 Of subordination

                                       

                                                                  serve to suffice

                                                   For the roar of the unconquerable ocean

                                                           beneath your mortal feet?

The irony that kills the onlooker

is how an actor is required

in an imaginary situation

to speak the truth

Using someone else's words

in borrowed clothing

to a complete stranger

While in everyday life the pursuit of truth

is seen as ridiculous

and emoting in public

as abhorrent

For life at its core

is a moving growing

flickering thing

It flashes its moods; dark and light

It moves and morphs

burns and blows its way

From birth to death

eternal serenity is for a dead man

Or woman

I can see no other way

Consciously blocking out the thousandfold daily

veiled attacks

on her spirit and senses

And never underestimating the cruelty of the attackers

Nor the sedantry worlds

that lie yet unexplored within

We thus have an entire culture

devoted to the worshipping

of the aesthetic value

of shapely eyes, noses and eardrums

as if they were lifeless objets d'art

While the art sections of libraries

remain all but empty.

                                                  
                                                    And in its place

                                              Is left a look of absence

                                                    something real

                                               something forgotten

                                            From a veritable ocean

                                              to a handful of dust

                                                      
                                                      Until the body is no longer able

                                                              To inhale that scent

                                                            of physical immediacy

                                                      That sends the artist dreaming.

                                                   

The unsubordinated desire never ceases

 True

It is a lifelong grasping,

sometimes reaching desperation

Or dangerous in its strength.

   to know it or to have it

      is to know the unconquerable

and the unreachable

All true

So how are you enjoying the alternative

Does stillness suffice?

                                                         

  We hesitate along life's outer edges

   like a toddler forbidden to dip our toes

 into the everlasting waters

of our own backyard wading pool

though we know they must heal us

We live in an age

that belittles genius

to such an extent

The muse has all but fled

From humanity

Have you yet felt

the Divine dance of the muse

that one moment of it

Is not worth a lifetime

Of longing

Is ecstasy not reward enough?

Don't ever think

that the greyness

Or matchbox buildings

That meet your gaze

at every turn

In your downtown city

are the whole or even part

Of the story

They are merely the laboured results

Of tired and harried minds

That were paid by the brick

with the end result in mind

They are not

and were never meant to be

the boundaries

By which to define your reality

 Looking at objects of Visual Beauty

  should not be an extraneous addition

for the half-filled Sunday schedule

 Of  a bored retiree.

 It is a fundamental Human need.

 So sit in a house with bare walls

 and preach the utalitarian lifestyle

 To your own detriment.

 Just don't come calling on me

In twenty years time

  when your own staring eyes

Betray a mind

 No longer capable of a single moment

 of inspired

 thought.

                                                                   

                                                                    Western Art

                                                    Is strewn with the beautiful corpses

                                                                of many a fine
                                                     
                                                                 female figure.