“Hare Out of Place IV” by Robert Deyber
cold
math
reckons
old man time
icy with boredom
existential infirmities
render intellect stagnant wisdom out of fashion
From my book Ephemera
Intellect
All posts tagged Intellect
“Day of Glass” by Erich Heckel
sand and ash
plain ideas
made from
granular thought
come to bond
in the heat of
intelligent fire
transformed in
that singular
chalice of bone
conscious crucible
elements changed
intellectual alchemy
purges impurity
giving release from
the sins of obscurity
rendered transparent
no longer a solid
not yet quite a liquid
a slow-moving
pensive deliberate
shapelessness
seeking some nobly
provocative form
ineluctably cooled
into choices of
permanence
ethically clear
artful lenses or
vessels admitting
of light the full
spectrum of truth
able now to be
sharply discerned
and displayed
defined starkly and
wholly accessible
no more excuses or
errors of judgment
but truth must be
handled with care
revelation can startle
and clarity can blind
sand and ash
plain ideas
the mean friable
substance of
unrefined minds
though they undergo
wizardry burned
and then turned
into beautiful glass
brilliant specimens
smoothly well-reasoned
exquisite exhibits of
vitreous wisdom
are evermore fragile
yes those
even those
best and highest
expressions of
artisan minds
can be easily shattered
by the merest
oblivious flick from
a philistine boor
Walt Whitman’s Cardboard Butterfly
(originally posted June 2013)
words female with contours and hollows
evoke elementary tensions when
paired within stanzas to masculine
edges and ridges in mise-en-scène
headiness giving descriptive verse
didactic powers of experiential and
unthinking sensory gratification
my mind can appreciate concepts
like these but pushing such ideas down
into my fingers and out through my pen
is a whole other kettle of lyrical fish
inspiration and intellect overlap some
but are largely autonomous qualities
true poets should feel more than think
….I think
“The Inner Path” by Catherine Husenau
place my bier on a plinth
aromatic combustible
settle me into transformative
grasp of historical fire
allow me a passage sublime
unto cinders and smoke
all the best worst and last
of me carried aloft by the
winds of a dissipate memory
recondite ritual somber
and sad not for me but for
those who preceded me
apt intellectual ancestors
models and mentors who
lent me their minds and their
mettle accepting me into
their philosophe clan
even knowing that I had
ideas of my own faithful
principles rooted but
not grown in clone of
enlightenment canons
alas I have died soon away
from this world the last
unblooded heir to a
diligent rational rigor and thus
has my tribe gone extinct
“Headache”
Painting by Tony Madden
From fineartamerica.com
dueling hammers
rain blows
compete to send pain
into spaces
that echo and cradle
the mind
they throw sparks
sharp and hot
blazing spearpoints
of light
pierce the pools
of the eyes
the mad battery
splitting the seams
of the skull
where the intellect
cowers in fear
of its very survival
against this
malicious barrage
disturbed most of all
by two terrible questions
whose hands
hold the hammers
and why
“River Eddy”
Photo by Keith Marshall
From flickr.com
down by the dam
manmade mountain
an earthenwork
covered with good
granite scree
my thoughts swirl
in edified eddies
along with refreshing
ideas who have
run the cold river
the snowmelt of minds
coursing down from
the lofty clean peaks
to arrive here and
catch in this basin
where no herons roost
and no moose would
find forage for this
is a place man designed
for himself a placid
retreat for reflection
a place to examine
the epochal wisdom
of nature and assay
how well or how poorly
it mixes and flows with
the knowledge accrued
through our practice
of reason our human
endeavors of intellect
knowing the worst
of our ill-presumed certs
will just sink to the
bottom like so many
unworthy stones
“Instinct”
Painting by Bobbi Pearce
From pinterest.com
this map is broken
its routes leading
nowhere worth going
dead reckoning
path integration
should prove better option
vestibular memory
cuing an idiothetic
approach to new destiny
animals use what
the mapmaker doesn’t
the vectors of instinct
and man is an animal
no less equipped for
an organic progress
putting ear to the
inner voice opens the path
that enlightens the eye
intellectual journeys
have speed to commend them
and swift is arrival
accept no excuse
as an obstacle minds
cannot live standing still
“First Anachronism of the Day”
Painting by Adrian Wiszniewski
From apollo-magazine.com
cold
math
reckons
old man time
icy with boredom
existential infirmities
render intellect stagnant wisdom out of fashion
“Corridors of the Mind”
Photo from flickr.com
electrochem pathways
that bend and chicane
through neuronal history
doors set their walls
portals closed upon chambers
where caches of treasure
knowledge cumulative
within DNA channels
come down through the ages
of natural selection
but only the bona fide
curious intellect
cares to keep keys
that open the locks
guarding wisdom of men
while the rest of the race
merely uses these routes
for their quick coasting
thoroughfare broaching a
blissfully blithe state of
conscious indifference
undriven to know any more
than what finds their
next comfortable meal
University of Bologna, Italy
Europe’s Oldest University
liberal arts born in stricture
long since met demise
once the trivium
grammar, logic and rhetoric
succored quadrivium
steeped in arithmetic
Euclid’s geometry, music
and Kepler’s astronomy
all have been sacrificed
burned on the pyre of parchments
whose flames lit the pathways
away from scholastic
impressment of excellence
leading to modern
pedagogical yield of
mass rank mediocrity
dead subjects need no lament
modern minds must achieve
their advancement
but modus for critical rigor in
disciplined intellect
this is the death we can least abide
yet it is certified, sworn to
by every diploma
Poesy plus Polemics 