POEM ii

POEM  ii

Why do I feel I must carry
in distress and despair
the weight of the universe
                       heavily laid on my back
 
How can I ignore the monumental,
the towers of suffering all life
must sooner or later endure
                       and perpetually misunderstand
 
How can silence substitute
the boundless pain in every
instant of transience,
                          every day and night
 
Inexpressible this senseless world!
But a spark of total nirvana
when submerged in this chaos
                         I let everything go…

POEM i

POEM  i

In every metamorphosis there is
a symbol of the eternal resurrection,
the thousand faces of a timeless world
                                   born forever anew
 
As we drift aimlessly within
the corridors of a flickering instant,
in the huge vaults of time immemorial
                                 Man asleep, awakens!
 
But the amnesia of the cosmos
eagerly consumes our monuments,
of a civilization new and wild
                               imprisoned on earth
 
If we escape from the shackles
of our legendary blindness,
above these clouds of galaxies,
                             darkness becomes light.

Modern Mythology

What’s commonly regarded as the religious sentiment will always find expression in the human realm. Even in our time when the theology of the great religions of the West have been reduced to mythologies, since they have been outsmarted archeologically (bones have been found of human ancestors from nearly two million years ago, long before any Adam or Eve), anthropologically (the themes of the Scriptures are common motifs found in many earlier human cultures), and cosmologically (the view of the earth as middle of the universe has been sufficiently refuted by modern astronomy); even in this time when a literal meaning of the symbols of Christianity, Judaism and Islam are no longer reasonable, there will be an urge to fulfill the role of religion in the hearts of the skeptic modern human being. Even men and women that find the universe absurd, meaningless, godless and pointless have a general sensation that life is too powerful to bear (expressed in their despair), and from that sensation arises a NEED to express this overwhelming power. In some cases such men and women finding no meaning in their lives produce the most striking works in art, literature and music because even the act of expressing one’s own disillusionment with the world turns into a life-guiding and therapeutic activity.

In this new and unprecedented age in the course of human history when all authoritative divine guides to our lives are lost, we still share a common heritage that has shaped and is shaping our lives as a living species. By this I mean the process of development from the womb to a self conscious adult organism. This individual history is shared by all and our minds have been deeply impressed with this organic development which finds expression in our adult life through dreams and symbols (see Freud and Jung). Through symbols we find the surest way to express the non-discursive knowledge of our subconscious minds, a reality everyone holds within his or her own mind. What these symbols seem to be pointing at is a reunification with a totality we have lost. In biological and psychological terms this can be viewed as the separation of the baby from the mother’s womb at the moment of birth and later as the baby develops self-consciousness in its first years, creating the identity of the ego and the external (not-me) world. Some psychologists suggest (like Fromm) that this is the cause of our need to love, to be reunited with the blissful TOTALITY we experienced as infants. I think, perhaps, because of this common experience we all share as infant human beings, mythology and religion arise as a path to find this reunification with what we once belonged to.

Now, throughout history religion has most aptly been expressed in the symbolism of poetry since the symbols of the aesthetic are open to more than just a rational way of thinking. The entire mind is engaged in the apprehension of symbols, providing a more complete entrance to the individual’s inner life. Perhaps this is why science is received coldly by many today because it cannot fulfill the role of a rich mythology addressing not only what is rational in the human being but also what is intuitive, emotional and the like.

The human need to find expression of his intimate experience of the cosmos is not a theory since history supplies us with sufficient proof that this has been a solid fact. Virtually every society and civilization that this planet has harbored believed in some mythological view of the universe.

The question now lies in what form will the new mythology take shape? How will the modern human express his undeniable connection to this powerful universe in terms that are accepted by our current intellectual standards, based on skepticism, pragmatism and scientific inquiry?

The answer will not be hard to find since we share with former times, if not more vehemently, the wonder for existence as such, now that science is exponentially revealing the scope and depth of this universe and the miraculous operations of the human body and mind. The task will be for people to appreciate these facts not only in a dry rationalistic way but in a more engaging relationship with the deeper mystery all these facts are uncovering.

 

 

(This short-essay has been strongly inspired by Joseph Campbell’s insightful gem of a book: Myths to live by)

Poem in rain and cosmos

 

Why must raindrops fall
and stir my soul like Debussy’s piano,
delirium in an orchestra of round ripples
each droplet unites with the puddle
in this unknown street of Nygårdvej
Why can I not resist this temptation
Of studying the motions of a
                                           fluctuating universe

I raise my head a few meters
a different world comes into view
a realm so close but so inexplicable
of these men and women of modernity;
so you see two worlds bound together
One as ancient as numberless time
The other new by cosmic comparison

And worst of all, I must confess
this thing frightens me above all:
the road mankind has fashioned for itself,
that relentless evolution of man’s world
not long ago we lived flat on a finite earth,
now the cosmos has expanded to insane proportions
we are a micro-dot in a cold dark shadow

Are children aware of our ancestral roots
before we were in trees, but now
riding in motorized wheels
is there a Nostradamus among us
who will reveal the end of our obsessions,
or will it never come to an end,
like this puddle should turn into ocean
                                       if these drops from heaven
                                                                   never cease to fall.

The old man on the bus

 

His gaze was dismal. His face pale and furrowed by his old skin. And those eyes… almost inert yet burning with sadness as if they were looking straight into empty meaninglessness. What happened to him? Had he found irrevocable proof that the universe has no purpose, had he understood the absolute nonsense of existence? His face was like an ancient ape, the first animal in the history of the universe to become aware of mortality – the original simian that understood:

 

” I AM

but I must die one day”

Oh poor old man!

Those eyes scanning the infinite indifference of the civilized world. Somewhere in the glimmering of his left eye I read his thoughts.

 

They were thoughts of a hopeful pessimist:

 

My life in shadows.
My life in this modern world
Splendid technological forms unfurled
Nobody knows the monster that’s been created
But who will listen to my voice recluse and alienated
If only we could invent a new auspicious religion
To bury our fears and escape ever-lasting oblivion

 

 

The old man stood up and got off the bus and sat by a tree. And then we rode off into other streets, other corners.

Sky of Poetry

(July 11th – 2007)

 

And I’m still alive. Standing on a dim-lit bridge watching with disbelief the fantastic horizon as the fiery star’s return is heralded by the tones of pink, purplish-red, tawny and azure pigments in their respective order from horizon to zenith. It is 3.09am, and the moon is manifested by a thin ark of potent white, the rest of it obscure but visible: its entire orb can be witnessed from this bridge that overlooks on a magical lake hazily imitating the transcendental beauty of the sky. Below me two ducklings swim in the still water, small insects flutter around me, the glorious architecture of Copenhagen stands immobile while, progressively, this pen inks a few words as a substitute for a photograph, a camera that I do not hold now to share the explicit mystery
                        Of this solitary view.

The Mold of Reality

THIS IS HOW I SEE IT…

Artists, poets, musicians, philosophers, scientists – in short, anybody who creates becomes a sculptor of human reality. They all exhibit aspects of human life that are present – or possible. One life is not enough to survey all the possibilities that can be brought upon the living experience; we must share with each other the Spectrum of the Possible, because we need more than two eyes to visualize the totality of human existence.

 

In a world where most men and women are concerned primarily with “making a living”, that is, having enough money to buy stuff and have sufficient comforts for raising a family; in this world the prospects of poetry, pure science, art, philosophy become irrelevant, if not insignificant, at least, secondary.

 

But my view is contrary to this widespread carelessness. I conceive life as this:

 

We are a crowd of gazing eyes all found in the depth of a lush valley. Most eyes are focusing on the ground, ensuring that each step is safe, reasonable (and profitable!). But amongst this majority of conformists there are a few visionaries that focus on more than just the flatness of the ground. These few are studying the trees around, gazing at the stars, describing the colors of insects, monitoring the motion of the wind, and endless observations take place that are ignored by the mass of robotic somnambulists. All these irrelevant and beautiful things the minority gazes at are equally real as the beaten path most walk upon.

 

To end this metaphor I kill everyone and then ask the reader to capture what human life would have been without these few wanderers:

it would only be a muddy track of monotony.

 

 

 

No complex forms of nature (trees), no immensity of space (stars), no microscopic detail (color of insects), no invisible mystery (motion of the wind), etc.

ONLY A
MUDDY PATH…

This is the importance of the poet of human existence, of the artist of human potential, of the musician of the human imagination, of the genius of human exploration. They give depth to human life, they bestow on reality a wider dimension.

 

Some come upon this rotating planet to fill the mold,

                                                                Few others come here to fashion this mold.

 

Terror and Indifference

 

Formulate my desire
O’ World of Wonders!

 

The diversity and variety is astonishingly intimidating. We can choose from numberless alternatives and attempt to satisfy the most serious question mankind has ever asked: 

What should we do? 

What, amongst infinite possibilities, should we do with our life? A life uncertain and finite but nonetheless it is here – we breathe the nectar of life! And with this monumental gift who has satisfactorily guessed what we should do with it? 

Are we certain we are capable of battling with that question, the pinnacle of all morality? Aren’t we more like frightened little creatures led astray by the currents of uncertainty in the vast ocean of incomprehensibility? 

Isn’t it easier for us to admit that our lives have no definite course, no preordained commandments; that the heaven of our ideals is blank without purpose, empty of constellations that could guide us through our erratic nights? 

What is left when we stop pursuing the specter of a deceased spirituality, what do we find but a total dimension of nothingness? 

Open to multiple interpretations, Nietzsche wrote: 

“He who fights with monsters should be careful
lest he thereby become a monster.
If you gaze long into an abyss,
the abyss will also gaze into you.” 

Is he speaking of the abyss of meaninglessness or perhaps of purposelessness – or the emptiness of being that is in our constantly escaping existence?

That vast open ocean of emptiness in which we float and sink incessantly is terrifying and hideous. Once we renounce any definite course in our lives, what is left but the constant terror of the unknown…?

 But swim and swim in the treacherous waters of solitude and when you face the monstrous shadow of the universe, bleak and senseless, pray you will have not renounced everything for nothing ––

 That in that terror of being alone
religion-less and closing into death
you might stumble upon a Liberation:
that crushes your hopes and rewards you
with a dauntless indifference
to the horrors of existence

On death

death_essay

When melancholy, sadness and despair conquer our spirit the threat of death becomes less intimidating to a point that we sometimes see death as an ally – a liberator to our suffering. On the other side of the spectrum, when we are merry, invigorated and hopeful death appears with a different mask – it is an interruption to our joy, it is a usurper to our happiness. The same event takes on two (perhaps more?) different appearances, it is relative to our disposition.

When speaking abstractly we can assume and dictate the effects that death will impress on us. But for anyone that has come close to falling into that tenebrous black hole will readily admit that there are no principles by which we can predict our reaction in such a frightful encounter. Sad or happy we can panic under the threat of death, happy or sad we can receive it gratefully. Only our last moment will tell.

Death is inevitable and whether we have given it any consideration we must eventually face it – unfailingly. Some consider, like Plato’s Socrates, that philosophy is a preparation for death and with its aid one might regulate the attacks of fear and panic that are commonly associated with death. To be honest I don’t think philosophy is enough to vanquish the instincts of our physical organism – something greater and stronger than rationality is needed to subjugate our most ingrained fears.

Death will sweep us all with equal force,

“…it is too late to be wise, that in any case it would serve no purpose,

for the same abyss will engulf us all, wise and foolish alike, sane and mad…”

E.M. CIORAN

The thought and speculation of death cannot dominate us otherwise we would never leave our beds in dismay of the unpredictable and unknown external world. But we must become accustomed to the fact that we must one day leave this inexplicable world, our possessions will cease to belong to us, our life only a faint memory in those that were near us. This is the most difficult task in our lives: to surrender our life – submit it to the unknown.

Paradoxically death has more hold of us when we live than when we have perished. There is so much tension and energy spent in conserving our possessions, our opinions and ideals, our friends and lovers; securing them from the forces that will take them away from us that we are beaten and exhausted in the battle to retain what is dear to us. All this expenditure of energy, all this effort is our refusal to acknowledge the possibility that things are not in our control and that these things will perish as certainly as we will. This struggle makes us live defensively, always on the guard against what we don’t expect, against the threat of what will dissolve the forms of life we’ve become attached to.

Has any remedy been suggested to counterattack this tendency of being attached to things? Let each one of us find his/her own answer. I’m only tempted to share a thought that has come of late:

We will find LIFE when we can let go of life.

When we stop resisting the impetus of Nature towards change and re-form, admitting that ever-flowing stream of variations, and in abandoning our frenetic attempt to seize the flux – we might be able to make that leap into the chaotic Unknown and discover that death is not reserved only for the end of this journey. We experience death each day – every second as the present trickles away from our grasp and a new and infant reality is presented to us perpetually – we continually enter a terra incognita insofar as we leave the carcass of the Known that is buried buried in the graveyard of the past.

In pursuit of something…

The day began like all others. With a loud quack coming from my mouth– the refusal to leave the ecstasy of profound sleep. The clock ticked with its usual indefatigable persistence as I stole the last dreams from the reservoir of Morpheus’ cave.

Time_poetry

My laziness was sensational. I remained in bed worrying about how little I had to worry about. I had no plans, no obligations. Blinking my eyes was my sole responsibility. Had inertia won the battle today my relaxed body would have remained in bed all day – my mind contemplating empty thoughts.

Emptinesss-1

But my body broke wind so violently and repulsively, I could have fainted from its deadly smell!

I stood up resolutely and began roaming about. What could I say, what could I do? Everything has already been said, everything has been done. What is left in a world that had exhausted all its possibilities?

 There was one and only one unobjectionable conclusion. Trash. I was utterly convinced that I could find something new in the rubbish people left behind.

 I thought, ‘Everything has been documented but trash’

 And so I began,

Rotting_Pear

What a pity! Dozens of humans walking up and down the street and this poor half-eaten pear laid in agony while a battalion of bacteria was slowly devouring its entrails. I watched it as if it were a bird that had been shot and there is nothing to do but wait for its inevitable death. The tender white sweet flesh tempted no one to have another bite, its seductiveness had been mutilated by the carelessness of… who?

 11.00am/a Tuesday/1933 – Niels Bohr approached slowly the door of his old beloved. He had struggled to make each step, as he knew it was the last time he would see his long-time lover. Had he become a devil? Sacrificing the love of a woman for the pleasure of knowledge? It didn’t really matter. He was a scientist– isn’t science immeasurably more important than love?

 Such thoughts were crossing his mind as he passed by Grundtvigs Kirke. He gazed up at the monstrous church,

Church_Grundtvig_Copenhagen

And these were his thoughts:

‘They should have made the arrows point downward. The electron emits light when it goes to a lower atomic orbit, not to a higher one. If they are looking for the light of God they should find it here on earth – not in the ethereal space of their imagination…’

 Mr. Bohr had always a propensity to mix his scientific genius with philosophical and theological issues. For thirty five seconds he was distracted from his frightful destination. Once he reached it he told Helle he would never see her again.

 Why am I telling you about this? Because Helle almost commited suicide that night. She called on Jens, a boyfriend of hers before Niels, and he came over and they made love all night. Helle became pregnant and bore a child, Morten. By 1963, when Morten was nearly thirty he opened a fancy vegetable shop in the neighborhood. In 2007, at the age of seventy-three, he was still behind the counter selling fruits and vegetables. He was a kind old man and would give out free fruits to the kids that came to the shop. A young immigrant boy from Iraq had purchased three kilos of onions today and Morten gave the boy a complimentary pear as a treat. The boy took the gift without excitement, had three or four bites of the pear and then threw it to the ground thirty seven minutes before I walked up this street in search of neglected things.

By one o’clock in the warm afternoon of May 21, 2007, I entered upon the gardens of the museum of art. What did I find there. Two things:

Straw

A plastic straw with a red stripe. I know how it got here, but I won’t bore you with such details. I will only say it involves a bicycle, a hooker from Ethiopia and the pearls of Margrethe II (current queen of Denmark). But more importantly I began to notice something as I made my second insignificant encounter of the day. The small neglected garbage of the streets had something peculiar. It was charming—how sad and beautiful a straw under the open skies could be. It was sad and beautiful because it was unnoticed. It remained undisturbed in the nothingness of the ground. The world around it had some value, some purpose, but this straw now useless under the blades of grass had nowhere to go, nothing to do…

A 250ml empty carton of light milk.
Milk
 
Again there is an indefinable amount of events that caused this milk carton to be here, out of which we could name six or seven to satisfy the curiosity of the reader. But instead of writing a fiction of the past, I could narrate a fiction of the future. What will happen to this milk carton? If I return tomorrow to this exact same location will I find it intact? Chances are that the wind, the garbage collectors or the impetuosity of a child will make it disappear. Its rectangular shape will be lost, it’s bright blue colors faded, its expiration date indecipherable. In a few days it will be in some obscure corner of this earth, completely forgotten by you and me…

I could not bear the weight of my thoughts any longer. I was at the verge of weeping senselessly for wastes. What sort of foolishness had taken hold of me?I walked up to the tracks. Ways, paths, journeys and returns.

Immediately my vanity came parading into the scene and twisted the meaning of my words. Foolishness? Senseless tears? Of course not, it is sensibility, aesthetic appreciation for the small realities of life. Out of pride or vanity my mind conjured up justifications and arguments to validate my behavior. Yes, indubitably, doesn’t it happen to all of us? But I was tired of flattering myself. Was it of any consequence to think all these things, to become aware of all this emptiness?

Tracks_copenhagen

                                                 Everything’s said, Everything’s done

They go and they come.

Do they know what for?

Out the window they stare

Out of boredom they glare

What is this mirage,

They call life –ignored.

Certainly much comes from nothing. If it hadn’t been for a visceral explosion this morning I would have remained in bed. I got up decidedly to invent the purpose of a new day. To reveal something new that might have been irrevocably lost in the dark domains of oblivion.

At last I made it to the beach. In company of flying birds I stared at the calm waters as the fading light of the sun wrestled in the small crests and troughs of the seawater.

I often think that I think too much. My kindred float passively in the mellow currents of the water whereas I spend my days in search of something more profound than the shallow depths of the shore. My relatives reproached me for coming too near to humans, ‘that beastly parasitic race’ they call them. But I’ve found much that is agreeable in the human world, and although I don’t belong to it I hope I can visit it without impertinence. I see much more of their world down here at one foot from the ground. I hope my words will be received as something more than mere quackery. A duck has much more to say than just QUACK.

I will retire now. Those that will like to visit me can do so every afternoon at six o’clock at the small beach in Hellerup. I am a Mallard duck, with a metallic green head and neck separated from my purplish-brown breast by a white ring. Do not fear to wake me from my deep trances when I stare out into the open sea. I do often for I am in pursuit of something, something I cannot yet come to define.

Theend