Knowable

"It is a profound and necessary truth that the deep things in science are not found because they are useful; they are found because it was possible to find them."


J. Robert Oppenheimer, theoretical physicist, speech in McMaster university, Canada, 1962.


Found in City of the End of Things: Lectures on Civilization and Empire, by Pr. Jonathan Hart (2009)

Alter echo

 
"The problem was you had to keep choosing between one evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little bit more off you, until there was nothing left. At the age of 25 most people were finished. A whole god-damned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidates who reminded them most of themselves. I had no interests. I had no interest in anything. I had no idea how I was going to escape. At least the others had some taste for life. They seemed to understand something that I didn't understand. Maybe I was lacking. It was possible. I often felt inferior. I just wanted to get away from them. But there was no place to go."

Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye, 1982

 

Beth

“Don’t look at him, Beth. He’s not –”

They couldn’t finish – words failed them.

Three weeks buried underground,

of course he couldn’t look right.

Folk know that when a mineshaft collapses

there’s no hope to be had down there

– god won’t ever delve this deep –

– men only confront the darkness

so they don’t die of cold and hunger –

It was already a miracle

they could get the bodies back

– thirteen good men,

buried, dug up – ironically

to be buried again, and

entombed – but more humanely,

with adequate decorum and 

the impression of an ending.

She stepped closer to the coffin,

his younger sister faltering in front

who looked inside – recoiled quickly –

starkly paler against her black veil

– as if she’d seen a ghost –

but no ghost, only brute reality.

Half his face was missing,

covered in a humble handkerchief,

the other half contorted,

the nerves on his neck – taut –

still gasping for air – ready to snap –

the scowl of death engraved.

The back of his hands all bruised

– he was missing fingernails too –

he must have known the earth

would eventually claim his life,

suffocate him, blind him, starve him

– he probably heard the others too,

muffled responses and moans –

and each in turn turning to silence,

listening to the sound of rocks

falling ever so minutely, tenderly,

as though tiny, whimsical atoms,

as if dallying back into place

because it was all meant to be.

Perhaps he spoke

of solitude to her

in the closed darkness,

spoke of love perhaps

in half-confessed words,

of regrets through gnashing teeth,

clenched fists and bleeding eyes,

thinking of the last time they talked.

The pallbearers in the slanting dawnlight

– shrouds of mist and breath alike

wrapping heads and necks like scarves –

hoisted the coffin down

in the consecrated ground

– so the living didn’t step on the dead –

thirteen good men lined up,

readied for the last repose,

hard-earned rest after the ordeal.

She was told she was the lucky one,

entrusted with the great mission

of fostering children on her own,

bearing a solitude that wasn’t hers,

– love goes on because life goes on –

– she wished, in that moment,

that the ground would open up

swallow everything and everyone

for them in time to become

the very coal they extracted,

died for, burnt to the core,

and buried its ashes, again.

Nothing opened up under her feet

but the vast, unforgiving expanse

of the years behind, the years ahead,

– the heartless toil without solace –

she loathed the dark soil where nothing grew,

which was taking more than it gave,

breeding children and desolation alike

– this sly, sleepless behemoth killing all –

– were not her husband about to dwell in

she would burn it, burn it all –

Reading lips

You think you can read minds

like you can read lips.

Let me tell you this: you can’t.

Some thoughts are quantum locked.

Some desires are a summer torrent.

Some ideas are skin lightly brushed,

minds maladdressed touches,

like lips yearning for a caress.

You think you can read minds

like you can read lips,

but lips mouth words unspoken,

tremble at eternity’s gate,

guard unforgivable secrets

hum a song, untraceable and unbroken,

which nobody, including you,

remembers how to listen to.

Fragment #63

You think love is a guessing game

and you have to win, every, single, time.

As if you had expertise and know-how:

the last time you loved

the heart you broke sounded

like a chicken bone

a dog snapped in half.

 

No certainty.

"Everything you've learned in school as "obvious" becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid. There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no straight lines."


Richard Buckminster Fuller, architect, systems theorist, engineer, designer (1895-1983)

Fragment #30

Sometimes I notice a use-by date

And I wonder where I'll be at that time

What I’ll do and what’ll be my fate

What’ll the world be like

Will the situation I’m in be done

Will other shenanigans have started

Will I be expired too, and left alone

Or in some brand new life uncharted

Sometimes I notice a use-by date

And I hope I will then be all but dead.

∑=λ

 
“Personne ne se rend compte que certaines personnes dépensent beaucoup d’énergie simplement pour être normales.”

"Nobody realises that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal."

Albert Camus, writer (1916-1960), Carnets II (1942-1951).

 

Since you died

A lot has happened since you died.

I lost the house you loved so much

– for which I’m very sorry –

I slept in our old car for a month

– then sold it too, needed the money –

Since you died, I visited the abyss

– several times over, in fact –

I gained thirty kilograms

– I lost thirty kilograms –

I wrote a play about us

and all the poems were about you

– even when they were not about you –

and I talk to you every day

– because you are everytime –

Since you died I met a lot of people

many of them I couldn’t trust

some I might have, given the chance

one whom I now do, and love

– she isn’t scared about me

   she isn’t troubled by the scars

   or the memories of you

   – she’s the most patient soul

      – you would like her –

Since you died, it’s been what, six years?

– no, seven years now –

   I’m losing count like I’m losing skin cells

   – each day built like a lifetime

      – entangled past, present, future –

Since you died I’ve slept with men

and I’ve slept with women

– I wanted to find love again

   seeking you in each and every one

– you know how people are stories

   – so I weaved myself in them –

      – finally finding that which I wasn’t looking for –

         – myself, of all things –

I’ve dreamt of you so fucking often

it often feels like you are still here

– it's silly but I kept for ever so long

your pillow case, unwashed

   – cursed be my sense of smell

      cursed be my thirst for remembrance –

I used it to bury my face

and cry to your pile of ash

– in the end I had to burnt the case

   – I couldn’t put it in the trash –

Since you’ve died

it’s time to let you go

– today I’ve decided that

   because I broke my love’s heart

   – undeservedly and out of love

      – the most complete heresy there is

         – I almost killed the two of us in the process –

So I need you to be, from now on

and for ever, in the past tense

– not because you’ve been gone for such a long time 

   but because you have been half of my life

   – and I have need of what is left of it –

      because I’ve been hurting since you died

      – and I can no longer wallow in that pain

         – that pain is not home, is not me

            – I too deserve rest, care, and love

               – for grief is that thing which fucking hurts

                  like a ton of bricks every morning

                  – it needs to stop, for both our sakes –

                     – It isn’t like you will die again

                        – you will simply become a fond memory

                           and, in time, a faded memory

                           – you’ll be somewhere in the walls of my heart

                              – like a name etched on the bark of a tree

                                 – each passing season diffusing

                                    less discernible each time 

                                    – until the tree gets too old to remember

                                       – forgets that it is a tree

                                          – now simply marking a spot where

                                             two people used to love

                                             – and the spot where now

                                                two people begin loving

The Merchant of Disappointment

I sell disappointment by the bucket!

Want to disappoint mum and dad?

I’ve got your back for every fad:

Silent letdowns; ones that make a racket;

Ones that punch in the guts like a rocket;

Ones that in the end make you glad.

I sell all types of dashed hopes and heartbreak,

My disillusionments feel like a quake!

I’m a mouth-watering mirage expert,

Fata morgana is my stock in trade,

I’ve a bewilderment for every hurt

And a chagrined throat for every blade.

Made redundant? Swindled by family?

Lover cheated on you? Adopted?

Not fitting in? Too nerdy? Too quirky?

Hookup gave you herpes or sarcoptids?

I’ve the disappointment your dark thoughts crave!

The despairs I sell go beyond the grave.

Thought a little happiness couldn’t hurt

But realised much too late that it does?

We forget that life is such a bad flirt,

Hence the gutting I sell is quite the buzz.

We’re all someone else’s disappointment,

Probably even the greatest there be,

Bear in mind that there is no treatment

For disappointment is behovely.