A Cynical View

“Deception” by Denise Sedor

 

too much trust in the eye

for an insincere world

all is not what it seems

in this prodigal plague

of mistaken identity

more than an unforced

unwitting illusion

reality hides inside

hoods of deception

four estates of the realm

each exhibit a rampant

political scorn with impunity

better to live in the mind

with ideas of democracy

notions of faith hope and truth

undisfigured by power

 

**************************

 

“Humankind cannot bear very much reality.”       – T. S. Eliot

Dark Matter

“Dark Matter” by Troika

 

I am timeless
and massive
unseen but
all present
immune to
your physics
unfazed by
your light
entertained
by your blunt
metaphysics

I feed you
sustain you
surround you
absorb all
your darkness
your blackness
the worst of
your thoughts
and your words
said and done
now a part of me

oh but am I
so much more
beyond ken
and conception
all manifestation
of things
you are not
they are me
you have virtue
and beauty
mortality
weakness
and guilt
while it’s me
who owns
everything else

in this world
there are only
the two of us
we are that
binary substance
irrational
lopsided twins
of existence
the pair of us
zero sum actors
enacting reality
made from
our opposite flesh

mine so vast
yours so small
and yet you
you alone
are my reason
my purpose
without you
at last I am
nothing at all

 

Nihilism

“Cosmogenesis” by Pablo Saborio

 

will come time

for the earth to expire

unless

it has already died

and existence

experience

life as I live it

is merely persistence

of memory

willful illusion

metaphysical halo

of molecules

caught in miasma

the breathless remains

of the atmosphere

loath to acknowledge

the lifeless cold

motionless planet below

death as corpus

and concept

significant only

to something or

someone alive

the great self-repaired

cosmos could

hardly care less

Two-Cornered Rooms

“Relativity” by M C Escher

impossible spaces
absurd of dimension
beyond the delimiting
rational mind
constructed unconsciously
negative volume
containing the everything
known to be nothing
my never-lived lives
here unfold in their follow
of unfounded precepts
truths built out of lies
shaped to suit
imperceptible visions
of futures
without any past
these are dwellings
whose tenants
unborn of the flesh
disport vainly
in vacuums
denied rightful leasehold
in rooms of reality

 

 

(originally posted October 2013)

Snowflakes

“Callow Youth” by Lynn Rogers

say goodbye to your safe space

smell the cordite in the air

the fierce scent of the workplace

time to grow yourself a pair

Does Eternity Lie?

 

J.M.E. McTaggart

 

 

when the end
kills the clocks
what then
of history

snuffed like
candleflames
turned for brief
ghost-rising moment
to smoke lifted
out from existence
with nothing
of proof it had
ever been here

how does something
without a beginning
never born
come to die

unreality
may after all
be the only
reality
no past
or present
finds place in
McTaggart’s
illusion of always

unless the deep
voice of eternity
rumbles with truth
and the end
when it comes
is our shot
at a brand new
beginning
a fresh start
with even odds
this time
we might get it right

 

(originally posted November 2013)

Otherworlds

 

“Queen Conch” by Carol Schiff

 

 

the voice of a seashell
speaks of dimensions
unknown to the creatures
breathing the sea
tells existence the truth
of its singular fiction
reveals in its whoosh
soft metonymic echoes
of other realities
other selves living out
other days each unaware
of the other mistakes
other seashells hold
ready for curious ears
of inquisitive minds

 

 

(originally posted December 2013)

Purblind

“The Ethica of Spinoza” by Shoshannah Brombacher

 

 

in this lurid Kardashian culture
where those famous for fame
and those famous for shame
entertain hosts of vacuous minds
it seems beyond doubt that
Spinoza was terribly wrong for
reality clearly cannot be perfection
though I suspect few left alive
understand or appreciate just
where the irony lies in those words

Objectivity

Abstract Art by Karen Bakke

a most difficult thing

to hear with the ears of another

to see with eyes of a third party mind

without filter of feeling

abandoned of biased beliefs

where ideas and opinions

can’t help but corruptly cast shadows

perhaps that is why we

so seldom appreciate truth

Kansas was the Fiction

Clip Art from pinterest.com

 

innocent pigtails
sleepwalked in
red ruby slippers
right into reality
wakeful with war
waged between
good and evil
peopled by villains
unlikely heroes
and charlatans
brandishing power