Dilatantish Poetry

or things you should delete and burn and never share publicly on the internet

So, I’m breaking my own rules. I well know the dangers of academic philosophers trying their hand at poetry (good for oneself) and then having the presumption to share publicly without doing the work to develop their craft (egotistical and naive). No one wants to read one’s sappy teenage angst or love letter pieces, or suffer their untried hand decades later. But my Substack hasn’t had much activity, and I have no shame. So for my own edification, I have included pieces I have tinkered with over the years that I find at least find tolerable, not over the head with philosophical allegory, and not TMI, even if not technically of note.

Soft Fading

Evening’s soft fading
that penumbra into the dark 
is my life already at the edge?
Will I fade so swift with acceleration?

I wish I could stop and picture
to stillness 
but this would have now and no other enveloping 
No before and after

No immortality either
No camera lucida onto death 
but just life so I could get a hold of it
so it does not not crumple in my hand
So that it might be still unmarred by me

I know, I cannot do so
I cannot evade
I envelope life with life 
I flush life with breath 
that loving felt life is softer than its fabric 

I continue into the twilight, 
whose sweet stars are the dawn too


Caring pain 

Caring for 
Deepest tendrils 
unfathomable
Slipknot of the heart 
Held with complexity,
Open to unwinding and 
and deeper binding
to be unbound
or bound 
Free or rooted to 
another?
This delicate lesson
An answer open to the close 
Or open to the spread of roots

Finding Presence 

Oh why did I not find?
We did descry the light on high
The steep cliff face that edged delirium
We climbed to be well nigh

Deftly on the edge of our death
Streaming falls of water
Thanatos watched with bated breath
Visage of fear we did betray

Praying were poised pilgrims
to presence of tragic human divine 
Offered did they as supplicants
We returned with gift

Presence and lost did find, and paid
For we are veiled and in longing laid