fragmentum manus

 

Parallel worlds in motion/
asymmetrical

(if all motion is relative
in an absolute sense
what's actually moving?)

a thought:

in dealing with the heart:

one comes to it
with
the imperatives
of biology
the accident
of history
and the contingencies
of circumstance

all in a moment
of the unified self

facing / reflecting

the other

a definite form
of scent
sound
taste
and touch

(the texture of hair
the question of perfume
the indeterminacy
of the colour of skin)

and beyond this
presentation

(from and to the world)

a ground of being

a depthless interior

a field of dynamic
abstraction

(defying
any deviant logic)

or
alternatively

a poet and a thought
pass a girl in a foyer

(and further
if it is a question of direction
is the universe expanding or contracting?
And what is the difference?)

one imagines
that at the heart of it all
there is no differentiation

a fanciful thought
true

(and of no practical
use)

but perhaps
an echo

background radiation
(in a spiritual sense)

of the source

(before/

space/time)

an ever present

memory

at the centre of

all things

a stone's
dignity

the wind's
despair

a star's
death

and the joy
in a lover's
eyes

everything you have done
every moment of your existence
is the meaning of your life

and this moment now
is the totality
of your meaning

wonder
at the great mystery
of your soul

(enjoy your life)

the ground of all beauty

my dreams
my dreaming / all dreaming
(the inside world of the world)
is the place of no space and time
where there is only eternity
its flow of image within image
within image (pictures)
with no fixity shape form colour
the great soul motion
of before it was said

and the world came into being
as an act of retreat a subterfuge
to conceal the sacred

bodies (the material world)
a diversion of genius

or

a divine boredom
(the endless succession of images
dislocated from substance)
chose focus
then wearied of its infinity
so today

I notice with a small and quiet delight as I walk around the city
that I have not seen anyone I know from my past. Yesterday was
the same. When I was a young boy I studied to be a magician

the high art is to escape while appearing not to have left

it is only when the ghosts become (as of joyful strangers)
passing in the street / that true-light dreaming will begin

(as a miracle that has always been)

and this is the source and being
of true spirit healing

there is a knowledge in the bones of the young that can never be
in the minds of the old

young lovers burning away the core

and one does not celebrate the lost self
at the best of times it is a moment of wonder and disbelief

at the worst of times anguish
and mourning

and mostly only
a trace

a theoretical element
in a colourless chain
of reasoning

reaching back
for what?

(a mythic garden
a forgotten Age)

a summertime

me and Jan Robinson
naked
playing under the hose

everything was geometrical
then
the front yard
the house

(it was a Euclidean world)

a blue sky was above

and the colours
were definite

blue was true to blue
as green to green
and red to red

it was sharply defined
and clear

(even the oak tree
on the highway
was happy)

the wind was never cruel
and the sun kept a respectful distance

my mother
was young and beautiful

my father's eyes
were full of love

my little brother
stayed close to me

cigarette smoking (nicotine)
is the absence of sex
in the presence
of its desire

(her breasts hips and legs-
walking)

sensuality
should never be explained away
(by all means reduce the world
to something else -
an atom quark or some such fiction
but leave the hips intact)

sensuality
is the gift of nature

(the saddest fact
of twentieth century philosophy
- logical atomism - Blind Freddie Ayer
and the great denial of Bertrand Russell's
skin-suit and bones)

tragic figures
who could not face
beauty

(this is no great sin
it is the only sin)

and of the beasts of pleasure
(of which I was one)

an even more tragic
tale
consumption

at heart
the Dionysian
is no celebrant
of sense

but its predator
the Apollyon
the psychopath of beauty

who will
in the end
sacrifice

life for taste

it is all rather in the laughter
of care-free hearts

(and this we all
have always known)

the play of children

the joy of young lovers

old men sitting
talking on a summer's day

watching the world go by

and of it all
the greatest moment

birth
that which cannot be said
(if the truth be known)

is never passed over
in silence Ludwig

a kindness is a kindness
regardless of (deep) motive

it is a thing worthy of memory
it cannot be repaid
(i.e., a kindness is not a debt)
it is rather a moment of goodness
that should alter perception

it is ground for benevolence
and argument for forgiveness

be wary of your analysis of the other

here it is not a question of truth but trap

it is often wiser to pretend ignorance
of what you know

a 'surface view' while apparently
innocent and even superficial

is a clever defence against
hidden agendas

and always the other is the master
of their own deception

you cannot win
in the battleground
of another's pain

withdrawal is an option
albeit temporary

(the world does not stop)

conflict is unavoidable

begin and end with this
understanding:

the impossibility of the other

this is the limit of understanding

beyond this logic ends

there is nothing beyond
these parameters

everything is contained
within

the world is just this
exhaustion

NB.

murder is necessary

(we are all murderers
each man a killer
each man killed)

the heart is a slaughterhouse

always war
on any summer's day

there is no glory in survival

it is simply what happens
(ask anyone) it's not the point

I fear

we are moving into a winter

it will be a freezing over of the spirit

a time of bitterness
to which no end can be seen

when the best that we have made
will lie still
covered in dust

and futility
the only ground of hope

it will be a survival in a darkness
against an unseen foe

rules of war

1. there is no choice
regarding engagement

(retreat is a false
option

at best a breather

space
for re-assessment

time for re-arming

at worst

denial of the battleground

failure to recognize
the real enemy

the real enemy
is within)

2. defeat is the end of possibility

3. logic is the only weapon

avoid: deceit
treachery
subterfuge

4. victory is truth

5. there is no peace


may I venture to suggest that logical truth (or a statement
representing it) is just a statement of the need for such -
it is a deep need - perhaps the deepest in the human being -
a meta-need - the meta-need -

the need for certainty

(and at its source is pure contingency
and to make matters worse
contingency has no source)

it is a counterbalance
to the actual indeterminacy
of consciousness

(you will find it often
in sexual attraction
and the vows of lovers)

mathematics (pure logic)
is a model of this
certainty

one only needs a glimpse
(and only one) to see

the order
to be touched by
the changeless
to know
the eternal
in this image

nevertheless
this picture is an illusion

the great chimera
of syntax divorced from semantics

of thought
thinking itself
and not of the world

there is no certainty

beauty is emptiness

and mathematics
the ultimate ephemeral

watch it dissolving
into star dust

(for
Wittgenstein
who
suffered
for
necessity
and
then
never
found
his
way
back
lost
in
a
lucid
dream
ing)

a tortured head who in the end could not distinguish sickness
from wisdom (and saw his purpose to be its end)

the capacity for pleasure
(let alone joy) can be lost

irreversible soul damage

and death
never alters (no matter
how twisted and perverted
its living denial
becomes)

one fact is true

it is at the centre

it defies approach

it is all embracing

one can only
forget

this is the art
of amnesia

to live 'as if ' -

the great illusion

and its truth is
wonderment

I think her heart is defining itself in the presence of my absence
my physical closeness was too confusing to her quietness and so
the rage for silence

And I can stand apart / it was mastered (through the eons) in
empty hotel rooms and down deserted streets in the dead of night

And I have learnt that the desert of despair is a place of true
breathing

And a beating heart the only mantra

Aristotle

was the first to advance a theory of moral style:

magnanimity

or

greatness of soul

is the true estimation of one's worth

the magnanimous person is one who:

does not take minor risks or court danger

likes to give benefits but not to receive them
is dismissive of the powerful and influential

is moderate to those less well off

does not enter popular contests

is transparent in his/her likes and dislikes

speaks and acts directly and candidly

will not live in dependence on someone else

thinks all flatterers are of no count

does not nurse resentment

does not enjoy personal conversation

does not want to be complimented or have others criticized

is not abusive unless intending to insult

will not choose the useful above the beautiful

Time is the only true focus of the intellect

(all else is sub specie)

Time is the place of the world

the world is the space of Time

(what goes on in the world is the endless battle of focus)

so

in the half light between sleep and wake

a moment of terror

the sharp realization of the irreversibility of Time

an immutable truth
I bow to reluctantly

and death

its fact renders my life
absurd

this is the horror
of Time

the desire for loss in substance

comes from a need to be free of one's strictures

but only when one loses faith and hope in their implementation
the anxiety of the attempt to be what one should be can become
too much to bear in the sense of moment to moment and one is
left staring into the chasm of the divided soul

I have never given up on the struggle

but I have often chosen to lose consciousness of it

to find a space of peace

a retreat from the battle

the hope is to find if only for a moment the illusion
of this

it is necessary at times to go to a place of no geography

and to be / in the absence of differentiation (as if before Time
in no space)

and to be touched by pure consciousness

to know it

before it became
what it is not

the world

(and all its beauty)

order
is the first response
to disorder

and disorder
the instinct
in the face
of order

both concepts
depend on each other
for their content
and their dynamic

the great army
and the guerrilla band

the truth of history
is neither defeats

in a logical sense
the relationship
is equivalence

therefore
entropy
is a fiction
of bad science

and quantum theory
a lack of perspective

sub-atomic naval gazing

the cosmological constant
is simply
the ground on which
all battles take place

they're
on the street
still

even
in this country
at this time

people

hungry
homeless
ill

from the point of view of political science
this is nothing less than an avoidable and
deplorable failure of public policy

it is the failure of government

and of democracy
(selective in its representation)

I do not here argue for
the equality of all men

only against the degradation
of any man

Shaw said the worst crime is poverty

who then is the criminal?

the problem of power
is the question
why
any human being
would wish for power
over another

the answer can only be
an individual's own lacking

and the mistaken belief
that dominance over another
dispels impotence

it is this metaphysical distortion

that leads to material greed
and spiritual shrinking

(real power
is the strength
of non-passive
existence

the action of a living
force)

there are more than enough resources for everyone
in this world

but there is a serious lack of intelligence

even if we are to assert a form of social Darwinism
(i.e., the survival of the fittest) that the world
is unequal and incurably so human degradation is not
a necessary consequence of natural selection

it is however a premeditation in the world economic forum

and it is in that unique class of moral decisions
that no one makes and no one takes responsibility for

the problem of evil
is the problem of reference

'evil' is a name of that which has no name

(it is the reference
of no reference)

it is a perceived effect the cause of which
is not seen

hence cannot be stated
cannot be said

this is not to deny
the reality

it is the problem
of knowledge

and in this space of no reference
anything goes

any description is possible

in a historical sense
it is the repository
of fear

and fear
can generate
an infinite sequence
of names

the choice of names
in the end
is just an accident

a contingency
of metaphysical desperation

but a single name
a 'proper' name
must be found

will be found

this is a necessary imperative

of survival

of the species

it is the naming
of the enemy

the point of reference

that becomes
the great focus
for a moment
of time

and from this point
a chaos of meaning
is unleashed

it is a Babel that works through Time
ultimately to its own destruction

this is the one and only point
of insanity

its resolution

and its resolution is
the destruction
of reference

(or if not this - which is rare
its fading of significance
and descent into the etymology
of the nameless)

finally
the name has no meaning
and the meaning has no name

language is no different to the world

or anything in it

it has an inner and outer dimension it is two dimensional
it is divided

of course you can speak of anything as a singularity
the one world the one man the one stone

however you can say no more

it is only when the singularity the unity is seen in terms
of its dimensions that we can appreciate it as an active thing

dynamics requires dimensions

to see something (i.e., language as public and non-private)
as one dimensional is to fail to understand its dynamic

it is like the image in the mirror a flat surface reflection

the mind by the way cannot be seen only that which is external
can be seen

the mind is the inside of the world

it is pure internality

it is that which 'sees'

and without this seeing
the world is unknowable

the inside of language
is the meaning of consciousness

'meaning' here is not a noun

meaning is a reaching
of consciousness
for reference

it is desire

for definition
for finality

it is consciousness' hope
for what it is not

and what it is not
is externality
its object

the world

hence
the indeterminacy
of language

thus
human discord

therefore
suffering

is consciousness' failure
to capture the world

it's the beauty of the moment

(silver on pale blue)

its the horror of the moment

(silver on pale blue)

and the wonderment
of focus

the world

its infinity
of
point

unknowable
indestructible

and the endless
joy

of the failure

of definition

is the laughter of
eternity

biology (genetics)
is the deep history
of any
living thing

environment
is nothing more than
recent history
seen
from a point
of focus

the question is not
explanation

(this too
is a matter of history
that can only lead
back to
the depthless)

the issue
is reason

and reasoning

and this in short

is to see clearly
the way forward

this light
is not a given

but it is a form of
the transformation of
energy

I used to think that death
is a moment

it's actually a wave

the activity of writing is for me a moment of true pleasure
and existential affirmation / it is the moment of clear and
certain connection to the world / however between the lines
is the space of emptiness and anxiety / a subtle desperation
for definition or its overthrow

a word to the young and hopeful

do not romanticize writing or writers

a bigger bunch of
backbiters and syndicators
you will never
find

whores
have more honour

do not believe anything you read

learn to make bread



(c) greg t. charlton. 2005. 2025.