Quartermain

In streets of rain,
tethered to life,
wades an old man
plastic bag in hand;
Clutching at one handle
as one might expect,
of a lazy youth.

But he has to grip tightly
beside himself with life;
Keeps carrying on,
Whilst dying to escape.

João Torto

Tried to touch the sky

Hurtled down into the earth

Found Heaven instead

Yours,

SiBot

The Ghost

This morning you woke and rose,

The Ghost stayed down in bed

Waited and stared til' you made home

Watched the weather, All the way.

The big bold world opened its arms

And embraced all you affected

Thus The ghost sank through the bed

He made it all cold, with Sleep.

So when you returned with visions,

The ghost reflected in the window

And saw darkness All Around;

Heard it in your words; aspiration,

And slid down through the ground.    

                                                                                      

Yours, 

                      SiBot.                       

Mineshaft

You were right to steer well clear:

The status quo pervades this place;

The only way is down.

To Rakhmetov’s lair!

Where ideas are King,

Under a stalactite sky.

The bashing of hammers
becomes the flicking of knives

A scratch on the rock, surfaces on the skin,

As a razors line.

You were right to down your tools:

The status quo pervades this place

Where gold bleeds with an iron face.

A mountain pointing the wrong way,

Buried in the earth, and dormant in darkness;

A child in a well;

Where amidst the clouds a great thinker once sat,

Waiting for the night to take his place.

You climbed outside, freed your mind,

With ideas of heaven;

And a bright blue sky.

You were Right!

For he was glad of your leaving;

No longer teased with life,

Finally left at peace, to bleed himself dry.

Some Literary Tidbits

I couldn't help noticing similarities in patterns of thought, from the following literary segments my brain addled together: 
Perhaps they hold that the only wisdom is that of absurdity, and that accordingly, absurdity will grant you no wisdom at all, unless you deem the acceptance of every possibility a life lesson. 

I would like to suggest it is indeed just that, thus it is a shame it might take a lifetime to finally realise it; be it a life of many years, or one 'cut short'. But realisation will still occur at the end, when it is all too late to try to live one's life without all those useless principles.

“The future: A clever, reasonable boy, accustomed to trust his common sense, read in a book for children a description of a shipwreck which occurred just as the passengers were eating their sweets at dessert. He was astonished to learn that everyone, women and children as well, who could give no assistance whatever in saving the ship, left their dessert and rushed on deck with wailing and tears. Why wail, why rush about, why be stupidly agitated? The crew knew their business and would do all that could be done. If you are going to perish, perish you will, no matter how you scream. It seemed to the boy that if he had been on the ship he would just have gone on eating his sweets to the last moment. Justice should be done to this judicious and irreproachable opinion. There remained only a few minutes to live; would it not have been better to enjoy them? The logic is perfect, worthy of Aristotle. And it was found impossible to prove to the boy that he would have left his sweets, even his favourite sweets, under the same circumstances, and rushed and screamed with the rest. Hence a moral - do not decide about the future. Today common sense is uppermost, and sweets are your highest law. But tomorrow you will get rid of normality and sense, you will link on with nonsense and absurdity, and probably you will even get a taste for bitters.

What do you think?”

^Lev Shestov, All Things Are Possible Part II, Aphorism 38.

“That children do not know why they want things – on this all high and mightily learned schoolmasters and tutors agree; but that, like children, adults also stumble through the world and, like children do not know whence they come and whither they go, nor act to some true purpose any more than children do, and like them are ruled by cookies and cakes and birch rods – no one likes to think that, and yet to me it is palpable truth.

   I’m quite willing to admit – because I know what you’re likely to want to say to me here, that those people are happiest who, like children, live for the moment, wander about with their dolls, dressing and undressing them, and keep a sharp eye on the cupboard where Mama has locked up the pastries, and when they finally get what they want, stuff their mouths with them and cry: More! – Those are happy creatures. And those others, too, are happy who give grand names to their paltry passions and present them to the human race as gigantic accomplishments for its welfare and salvation. – Happy are they who can live this way! But those who in all humility realise the sum total, who see how neatly every contented citizen can shape his little garden into a paradise, and how tirelessly even the merest wretch, panting, makes his way beneath his burden, all of them equally determined to see the light of the sun one minute longer – yes, that man keeps still, and he creates his world out of himself, and he is happy as well because he is human. And then, confined as he is, he still always keeps in his heart the sweet sense of freedom, knowing that he can leave this prison whenever he chooses.”

^Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, The Sufferings of Young Werther  Book One, May 22.

Yours,

SiBot

I Think God Can Explain

Raskolnikov and the Leap of Faith:

What can God explain to a man so impoverished, dishevelled, and nihilistic that he turns to murder?

                                                                                                                                                                

Is a man deemed criminally insane not susceptible to severe emotional weakness to the extent that the only comforting explanation, and apparent forgiveness, is indeed that which comes from God?

Indeed if we look at the 'treatment' of suffering addicts in America for example, it very much seems to be a case of God first, material treatment later or not at all: Religion is frequently used by 'therapists' as a means of overcoming addictions arguably brought about by nihilisms, or vice versa; to the extent that religion dominates the addiction treatment 'marketplace'. God, or at least the notion of God transcends the emotional vulnerabilities of the sufferer. It becomes a marketable 'product'.

Does man at his weakest point turn to the most desperate of explanations for his state of crisis, precisely because his mind has wondered far from any rational bounds?

Does intense rationalism not precipitate nihilism, which thus precipitates desperate actions, which then precipitates a man turning to God for the answers to the desperate and entirely confused situation that he no longer has the temperament to rationalise?

In this regard, the character of Raskolnikov, the murderer, in Crime and Punishment first of all illuminates himself as to the reality of the absurd world; his reduction to impoverishment*, crawling into a ball on his tattered sofa, in his squalid low ceilinged claustrophobic Saint Petersburg apartment. (Note the theme of reduction: the room is small, the sofa even smaller, Raskolnikov even smaller than the sofa). A "louse" in the social order.


This realisation of absurdity means he turns to murder, without distinction of worldly consequence. In this sense his 'realisation' and 'enlightenment' lead him to an act which precipitates delirium. But does this not mean the act itself is the act of a deluded man, as I have pointed out, his realisation of absurdity would appear to be a process of enlightenment. Criminal proceedings would however, through the worldly trend of self-satisfactory/socially satisfactory ignorance (as they do indeed in the novel, i.e. 'monomania'), effectively dictate that:                                                       

1) Nihilistic Beliefs/Enlightenment = delusion (and surely criminal insanity?                    

2) Absurdism (i.e. an absurd act, i.e. a random murder) = Delusion (as above).

3) The overall marketable 'product' of justice = An act committed by a criminally insane person.                                                 

But then enlightenment is reversed: After his 'barbarous act' our assailant turns to God to answer his painful woes and sorrows: This pain and discomfort with the world are pre-existant of the murder (this is important to recognise)... but they do also ultimately pre-empt the murder. If the man had somehow turned to God as a response to his initial skepticism of the world this might be deemed an equally delusional response, indeed, to him, an axiomatic, rationally deductible, delusional response. Rational deduction led the man to nihilistic torture. Thus the 'product' of God; of repose for our assailant, is borne out of all that is criminal, deluded, and criminally deluded in him.

And so with the input of Sonia, effectively providing the role of 'therapist', turning to God becomes the 'logical' response to the end of the chain of delusion. God is the comforting protection from nihilistic pain and torment, arising not from the pre-existing emotional struggle, but from the psychological consequence of the act (i.e. the murder), the PASSIONATE expression of total FREEDOM; the REVOLT against this consumptive torment. 

But what about those people who turn neither to Nihilism or to God, where are they on the road?

Life,
it continues as does a bicycle,
Being pedalled by someone.

All the the way along,
the wheels slip and slide underneath;
the handlebars always threaten to crash sideways into the pavement;

The panic each time they tilt,
resets and recycles,
all the way along the road.

Until,
one day you fall;
and the bicycle skids away.

...They keep on peddling, longer than anyone else, surrendering to nothing; they are not impoverished Raskolnikov's, who get off the bike, and cover themselves in rags by the roadside, and they have not reduced themselves to anything other than their mysterious directional conviction, whilst the Raskolnikov's of this world, at once a religious and nihilistic zealot, cannot comprehend this sense of direction, neither can the cyclists foresee their directionlessness; we are presented with an interpersonal security dilemma:

"In response to this, Raskolnikov slowly sank back on his pillow, threw his arms behind his head and began to look at the ceiling."

Yours,
SiBot

Tolerance

A Starving heart gave itself unto the world,

Found nothing in return, but alcohol.

Washed away the clinking bone and bread crust;

Its rhythm slowed to a pitiful pulse.

And so it happened without cause, without meaning,

A man started to lumber under his dysfunction,

Enlightened by the natural environment,

Bent on all fours and began to crawl.

Crawled from the sight of maltreated mothers,

With an axe attached to a piece of string;

Disguised underneath a strangers coat.

Impatient to the end, just like you.

Unable to digest the world;

Just like no one who has ever lived;

A stomach starved of life,

Eaten up by the possibility of everything.

Yours, 

SiBot

A Madman

A Genius who laughs,
At the most hilarious and wittiest of complexities;
In the company of strangers,
Is, after all,
A Madman.

Yours,
SiBot

A Haiku

A Haiku to describe a rather minor happening in Reading station today:

Man cried out for change

needed to use the payphone
his call went unheard

Yours,
SiBot