Of Seeming and Being
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Seven Philosophical Poems
By Alan Gullette
Impromptu Philosophique
Is
Of Seeming and Being
The Sensory World As Artistic Creation
Conflagration in Philosophical Edifice
Assignmental Meaning
Even with fine-toothed pincers
Wassily Kandinski, On White II, 1923
Impromptu Philosophique
Against the strengthened platitudes of fear
I increment my hopes, I lock the scales
On which I silly stand.
The moon is new the sun is new the sky
I think is new each day.
The scientists will say
that time is changing change,
But we will see.
Or, changing our minds,
We will not watch to see
If anything is constant, even change
Which does not change our silly changing minds
which never rest.
The earth is one the truth is now the key
I think is not in thinking Why
Are we to open all the doors we locked?
I think the key is not in thinking How
Are we to find a way to be here now,
When every way that offers leads away?
I think the now is not when all is thought
The same as ever-when is never-now.
I think the key is not
In thinking there is no key, there is no key;
In thinking there is a key, there is no key:
Without a key, there is no silly lock!
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Is
Everything is as it should be
And it's hoping to rain
It is clear It is blue It is windy It is cool
It is not
Thou are wholly Thou art full Thou art pregnant Thou art sole
Thou are not
IS without meaning
IS without words
Mind is description
Mind is a book.
Being is silent
Full and intense.
You are IS
Being IS isn't being you.
Without mind there is nothing but everything;
Without I's there is nothing but IS;
Without dream there is nothing but truth.
Be IS be nought else but.
Else of everything is nothing
Else of yes is no.
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Of Seeming and Being
In seeing
The seeming
So being
You are illusion.
In being
The seeming
So seeming
You are lost.
See yourself
Being seeming:
Be not see what seems:
You being the seeming of what,
Then what is left.
Seeming is not being
And you are lost.
I'd rather be than see One.
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The sensory world as artistic creation
A faint of smoke, a misty morning sky
A painted tree, a portrait of the yard.
One little house; the mural of an oak,
As sweetly rain floats silent through its leaves.
The sun is up and restful night ascends
But no bird sings the triumph of the dawn:
The work remains, its author now is dead.
Full morning sun, full portrait of the day
Yet undried paint has soon begun to drip
And seams unseemly are seen between the eyes.
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Conflagration in Philosophical Edifice
Following Kant
Following Spinoza
Following Descartes
Wandering, searching, questioning, doubting,
Reading, writing, thinking, discussing,
I figured it all out
Intellectually
I created a system
A structure
And got it all down
In writing.
And when I had finished my treatise,
I threw it on the fire
And watched it burn.
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Assignmental meaning
Imagine know what is
Not just seems to be it seems
Significant (not senseless)
that referentially signals
All Meaning: Come To Your Senses.
But not so, it seems;
That being a sender
Your being a receiver
Impressions relayed arrive delayed
Bring surprising clarification of
How. Sensational. It all seems.
Tune it.
Imagine and fancy that
how uncertainty certainly assures
Oh, yes.
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Even with fine-tooth pincers
Even with fine-tooth pincers
reason cannot understand
what it is that
reason cannot understand
Even with fine-tooth pincers
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