Logos Endiathetos

Author's Note: This piece is the sister-poem to: Logos Prophorikos.

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Logos Endiathetos

 
Far enough back, during ages interred beneath historical sediment
Mankind hailed the transcendent, immanent Godhead
By regarding nature with an utmost degree of respect.

Mountains, forests, oceans, lakes and streams were held sacrosanct.
Likewise, animals were considered divine harbingers and close kith
While innocence afforded us glimpses of ineffable absolutes.

Still, it gradually came to pass that men grew leery of each other...
Avaricious and fratricidal, they turned against one another
Christening barbarism a new virtue.
Yea, from that time forth every war has involved
Pillaging rival nations, ravaging their virgins, and torturing captives.

Having shed all compassion for his fellow hominids
Homo Erectus went on to domineer wild beasts
Touted "Steward of Earth" by vainglorious priests.

Homo Habilis followed suit; inventing flint implements
Which at first served as tools and then later as armaments
When Cro-Magnon slew Neanderthal, clearing way for we Sapiens.

Such were the days of our youth, obscured now by pretended civility.
For we're loathe to admit that we've hardly hit puberty
Believing that we scale the very peaks of humanity.
Adept with legalese and the boons of technology
Yet inept in affairs that require any sympathy.

Knowing naught about providence but presumptuous theology
And estranged from the blatantly obvious reality:
To venerate one's own neighbor—is quintessentially holy!

The veil has been rent in the Sanctum Sanctorum
(little hope is there left for regaining decorum).
Lo, a world midst its throes of thermal shockwave alarum!

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Logos Prophorikos

Author's Note: This piece is the sister-poem to: Logos Endiathetos.

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Logos Prophorikos

Humanity reveres the image, since it alone evades all-encompassing definitions of itself while still providing thoroughgoing expositions for everything else.

Entire civilizations are fashioned after the cutting edge visions of prophets, because they dare to dream much more vividly than the rest of us combined.

Panoramic vistas overbrim with sheer significance
finding resonance within the eyes of keen beholders.

Pictures in motion captivate our attention and lull intellects
as we forget that cinema shares its esprit with real life.

But then there are those rare occasions when Icon speaks from two mouths; reconciling masculine noumenon to feminine phenomenon...

Amid a recurring interplay of scrumtrulescent young actors.

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A Dignified Death

A Dignified Death

Upon returning from the promised land
He took a stroll through the woods of his boyhood
Where deer tracks lay fresh within snow
Near trails hewn by blades o'er ice.

Trudging down a path he'd tread many a time
His sense of direction got muddled
Though that unrecognized tract sparked intrigue;
Alas, a felled pine waylaid him thereon.

'twas an august old fir
Whose enormous trunk stretched
Across its coniferous domain.
Younger timbers looked on in mourning...

Diffused through dense canopy
Solar flares slanted earthward
While chickadees darted
Over head of human bystander.

Left dumbstruck with awe
His own breath rose as mist
And he drew in the smell of that passing.
Heightened blood pumped blessedly then

Informed by those splendid surroundings:
"When majestic trees tumble—upright loners are called out to witness
 Because all living things, be they massive or small
 Can depart with immeasurable greatness!"

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Second Syntax

"Did the universe really begin?";

and, "Is the theory of the Big Bang true?"

These are not really questions, although they sound like they are.

The real question is whether or not

the only syntax that exists

is the syntax that requires,

as statements of fact

"beginnings", "developments", and "ends".

Other syntaxes exist.

There is one which demands

that varieties of intensity be taken as facts.

Within that syntax, "nothing begins" and "nothing ends".

Therefore, birth, for example, is not a clean, clear-cut event;

but rather, birth is a specific type of intensity;

and so is maturation;

and so is death.

A man of that syntax, looking over his equations,

finds that he has calculated enough varieties of intensity

to say with authority

that the universe never began,

and will never end.

He will conclude that the universe has gone through, is now going through, and will forever go through

endless fluctuations of intensity.

A man of that syntax could very well conclude that the universe itself

is the chariot of intensity,

and that a person can board it

to journey through changes without end.

He will conclude all that, and much more,

perhaps without ever realizing

that he is merely confirming

the syntax of his mother tongue.

~ Carlos Castaneda

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Second Syntax

Incessant internal banter

The Tower of Babel spins

Yarns strewn throughout one's ego

Like play by play commentary

In a vessel that never fills

Do not distress overly much

If broken tape throws for a loop

When perception sullies memories

Everybody finds their mind fumbles

While understating sooth

Yet verbal thought be but a bough

Growing from the trunk of consciousness

There are countless others anyhow

Like silent knowledge (Gnosis)

Dreams, and consensual bliss

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The Great Matter

The Great Matter

When the one who wrote this is gone, shall our species have gotten much further along?

We are each a brief candle, which no recounting can rekindle.

Within austere walls of Zendo (meditation halls), one question above all:

What means the Great Matter of life and death for those caught in the middle?

Who has ears for the Bards of yesteryear other than those Poets now here?

Why such aversion to departure when presence itself can be torture?

Where does a soul dream if its body leaves behind mundane stream?

Will we receive otherworldly consolation or face eternal damnation?

Were scriptures reliable then perhaps planning would be viable.

Without that however, each of us takes a lonesome dive into forever . . .

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