Monday, January 23, 2017

Kit Kelen - for ataraxia #6 - a vanishing art



385
a vanishing art

you could vanish anywhere
I choose the garden

golden and golden
next ages are

in steam the train departing
go down to the woods today

to clockwork gone
and to taking apart

I, myself, a hobby
you could go anywhere

it is an art this vanishing
just a little cough could take

so much of life is microscopic
even especially the news

could go to the moment
see into the atoms of air

you know where I have gone already
so many mysteries are told

down in the valley
piping wild
with a song
for from folk there

you could vanish anywhere
please choose to be
it will be so

much by moon
this blindness
love! so generations lost
hate equally! bare knuckles to

have you found the one needs no encouragement?
that one's in the grave

many have just bundied off

many are eaten alive
some eat dog as dogs do

some sink in a city
some soar beyond clouds

all gone
the hundred billion of my kind
and every year we're ever so many
eat almost as many
of others
unkind!

perhaps if just
in the garden we grew
as a single thought
will grow into time

trying to answer
one question will do

o happy vanishing that way
lives not lost
but we all find
in our hearts
the thanking time

someone wrote the wrong word down
followed along that trail

you could go to the moment
say here say now

could simply walk
into the past, to the future

an instance of silence
is that the rest?

and pain –
so many ached away
till they were gone

take these wonders
follow a sign
obedience is a great killer

something comes from nowhere
doesn't it follow
lightning will strike me?

ah but
I will go faster than light

shorthand for glyphic
that's where I live
I painted a way in

there's the bottle
all these swimmers peer out
through every colour of the rainbow
not to light of day but

some were poured straight down the sink
the wowser on the wagon too
has vanished in his hay

you might have nagged yourself away
or sighed like gnat size of a chicken
or said that one word too many

so many camels were broken by back
getting through needles

many were lost in conversation
if I give then I will have been gone
and if I stop to hear?

kindness overcame some
and they wept themselves
into a puddle

you could follow
just one train of thought
find yourself an ocean afloat
that may have no end

round is how the world's forever

music has often taken us
and there were steps to dance

a melody's all next
time marches
hear the light pounding
in chest
for a start

some say one mosquito got me
others in need will call a good snake

you could be anywhere
lost in your story

will you come with me?
say fond adieu

tribes and nations
lost in prayer
have never been seen since

who is it has not fallen into a sadness?
others dance well past joy
go legless
like broken toy
some careless kid
has left in the garden

lost for words
in words
and left for read

some are brought down with an arrow
and many have flown too high

some began to cut their hair
and found that they were ghosts

some past the post
were all on the fourth
to win or to place
still in the queue
to collect today

some grew a beard till they were gone
some fell into a screen

laughter was a way to go
and often recommended

down for the count
seeing stars
and everything was dream

I don't believe there's a thing that's here
but wasn't dreamt up first

it follows that I must be ink
turn mere paper into poem
you have found me here
among those all are blue sky pointed
call it your own way

let's play ping pong
then we can sit

pot of tea?

you could vanish anywhere
I choose the garden

won't you down tools
just be with me?

let's just cast
an eye about
let's sit still
for a while

3 comments:

  1. this is a pretty rambly first draft for what I think should be a core piece for ataraxia
    (and possibly also a link piece to philosophy of table tennis ... the ping pong table being in the centre of the garden)...

    probably it's one of those ones that needs to get longer before it gets shorted but that definitely needs to get shorter in the end

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  2. Very pleasant to read, but I suspect in the end it has to be shortened exactly as you already thought of doing.

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