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These four poems - La Neante, Mr Newton's Universe, Newtonian Physics and The Method - were published by Bonfire (UK) online literary journal in the late 1990s. The poems explore the concept of desacralisation / disenchantment (flip side of progress, materialism and secularisation) from the perspective of its effects on human subjectivity. The poems also appeared in 'Facing the Demon of Noontide' 2000.
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La Neante
Soundless world, cold and sunless
who has led us here heavy of heart?
Like pilgrims
we walk the long dusty road to a
former paradise.
The five rungs are twisted now,
mere wreckage
garnished by bodies
rotting carcasses
once the abode of souls.
Our footsteps haunt a narrow alleyway
then here, at the Ruined Centre
we swing upon a diabolic scene.
It bursts all heady on the senses -
eyes, ears, nose and skin ...
Oh Mercy! The Rotting God!
Now every poison thought and bitter wish
begins to swell and sing inside our skin
soon the Spleen shall rupture
we shall see dark swarms of seeding boredom.
There is nothing here for man or beast, La Neante,
just the acrid stench of a long dead
civilisation.
And each corpse, once a cell of God
now a feast for the Anima Mundi
here at least nature has a victory of sorts.
And manikins, strange stuffed clowns
of painted cloth
are propped about the reeking God
and insects big as rats, scuttle too and fro
all ghastly shiny black.
No doubt they ply a healthy trade.
Oh Mercy! Set the sun to perish!
Bring down the Night!
A man can only bear so much sorrow.
Mr. Newton’s Universe
The Universe
once crystal spheres,
once musical in substance
harmonic in effect
once composed,
of matter and desire
once unmoving sacrality
now inanimate matter,
extended form,
spinning to infinity ...
and we mere bodies,
mere solids of terrestrial chaos.
All mystery divorced from blood and bone;
the gods withdraw,
the faeries lumber home,
and dragons, speared from the sky.
Nothing truly lives
in Mr. Newton’s Universe.
Newtonian Physics
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‘Whatever draws or presses another is as much drawn or pressed by that other. If you press a stone with your finger, the finger is as much pressed by the stone.’ Newton.
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- I cannot quite believe
gravity is more than physical
you see,
heaviness, lightness
what are these to me?
if not certain seasons of the soul.
The Method
The chicken is dead Mr. Bacon
why preserve its misery?
No matter,
the method rumbles on,
a juggernaut, a bulldozer
a panzer tank, a transport plane
the method rumbles on.
Unborn angels weep
the flat earth bleeds
but the method rumbles on
Hiroshima, Nagasaki,
the method flattens all possibilities
Dachau, Auschwitz,
the method smothers all rebellion.
The chicken is dead Mr. Bacon
why preserve its misery?
Image: 'Alchemist and Macrocosm', by Beuther 1718. The image is in the public domain.
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| Reviewed by Peter Schlosser (Reader) |
8/31/2010 |
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| These are truly amazing. I often lament about the progress mankind is taking, the transhumanist assault on the soul as the science and technology we have come to adore and depend upon are actually the building blocks of our own spiritual prison. It is difficult to watch the world drown under the heavy hand of the power-elite superclass and high-tech repression grid where full-spectrum dominance of corporations and military translates into every aspect of your life, first introduced as convenience or necessity, slowly becoming weaponized. You want to scream; but realize that we're under water too. Beautiful work. |
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| Reviewed by The Poetess |
8/29/2010 |
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| Love the depth and wisdom here. |
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