42

Free verse

42

I went to high school

with nerds, All of us!

We did things like

audit philosophy and  

comparative religions

at the local college.

We listened to Grace Slick

And fed our heads; we cared

a lot about what we learned.

Today, not so much.

Things fall apart,

The center can not hold.

My knees on the ground

beside you, naked in the grass,

puts Plato to shame and makes

Nietzsche croak like wind in dry grass.

Cosmology is nothing to

when we skinny dip in the white water

creek tickled all over, cleansed

to the bone, laughing in great yawps

and crawl into the lazy sun

on the back of this boulder where

the depths of space fold into a

small pocket. Here, we breathe

everything that ever happened,

everything ever thought,

everything spirit ever dreamed

about the nature of God.

Copyright

Vol Lindsey

3/14/2012

Reviews

[emmajoy]

Your 'Sinister' couldn't be more different from this lively yet smooth theatre of age and passion.. all described in the shadows of philosophers and the like plus, the ways God holds Man in His truly enveloping, living vibrant world, life to life and with it. How true is this if one remembers what being human truly means..
Here, we breathe
everything that ever happened,
everything ever thought,
everything spirit ever dreamed
about the nature of God.

[Vol]

Thank you Emma! I rarely get to speak with anyone who actually gets it... I have often wondered what someone might think about my ridiculous bounce from subject to subject... I never know where one word will lead.

[emmajoygreen]

That one word can create magic.. and does.

[Vol]

Clotho speaks...

[keith]

most times i read the authors 1st post
it was the right move on my part

i've never been to gouge eye but i have been to kool wink loading chute and jot-em-down if that counts
my original hat hung close to alamo in the rgv

we speak a familiar voice thanks amigo

[Marry]

This is intoxicating the way intellectual hunger melts into raw, sensual presence. What happens when philosophy fails to capture the pure, wordless truth of skin, water, and sunlight?

[Vol]

Marry,
Thank you! I'm not particularly happy with the way education, intellectualism, appreciation for art and history have died on what was once the thriving vine of American leadership in just plain thinking, planning, discovering, inventing fresh new avenues of philosophy and thought... We have deserved better. When I graduated high school in 1967, I had already read the most ancient and modern philosophers, studied the same in art, and music, and learned more than college graduates today. The decline is so dramatic, so deep, so profound, that it almost HAD to be deliberate. How sad for us and the entire human race alive today... I would suggest that the wordless truth you mention is only possible when there is intellectual understanding of its importance... Youn sound like someone fun to share thoughts in a quiet pub...
Vol

[Marry]

Thank you, Vol. Your words carry the weight of experience, clarity, and deep-rooted disappointment but also a rare spark that still hungers for truth, meaning, and beauty. I feel that same ache you describe how easily we’ve traded contemplation for distraction, invention for imitation.
And yet voices like yours haven’t vanished. They matter. Your reflections are poetry in themselves a philosophy not confined to dusty books but lived, felt, mourned.
You know, I couldn’t help but wonder would you ever consider turning these thoughts into a poem or short written piece? Something that captures this intellectual loss and yearning for beauty perhaps layered with that "wordless truth" we touched on earlier. I’d love to create a custom cover art for it something symbolic, evocative, visualizing the contrast between a vibrant, thinking world and the silence that follows its collapse.
It could be a powerful collaboration a small act of revival in a world that sorely needs meaning again. If that interests you even a little, I’d be honored to help bring your words to life in art.
And yes, you do sound like someone I’d love to share long conversations with in a quiet, dimly-lit pub minds drifting from ideas to laughter and back again.

[ETERNITY]

That's beautiful! I am too young to remember Marley and Airplane but seems like everything evolves to keep up with the present times ie Starship.
I love how you piece together those old memories with the fine threads of the present (when you were writing this) and you focus on things that blur all the others into irrelevance.
I still have a few marbles to play with. Thanks for posting.

[Vol]

Dessi,
It is the difference between memories of an event and memories of what went on inside your head when it happened... I think I've always carried (unawares) an extensive echo chameber here inside where I relate to the world in my best ADHD paroxysms... I'm not sure hgow I feel about that, but if you can imagine being weightless in a huge empty space bouncing from one rabbit hole to the next.
Vol

[ETERNITY]

@Vol, Naturally, I'm drawn to the sensual. You are a master in that area leaving me with visions I enjoy endlessly

[Vol]

Isn't it amazing how much trouble our tongues can cause?

[ETERNITY]

@Vol, No trouble at all. My pleasure completely.
Tight Hugs.

[Lara]

This piece brings to mind Bob Marley, (i dont endorse his habits) who said: "I don't have education. I have inspiration. If I had education I'd be a damned fool"

Speaking for myself, only - I had just enough to believe him.

[Vol]

Lara,
When you speak of "education" I'm assuming you mean the formal, required version... The best learning, the most meaningful, comes from encountering some important truth serendipitously, enjoying its delights and pasting it into yourself like a bit of jewelry. It's how to sparkle no matter where you are...
Vol

[Marvin Thomas Cox-Flynn..]

Vol,

Very enjoyable thoughts set to pan of page here in your journey to a time in the past that you so obviously enjoyed at the time of those times in a time now lost to the past but in memories do live on ...

Marve

[Vol]

Marve,
Thanks, man! The lush forest of Hemlock, Hickory, Oak, and Holly beside a cold Appalachian creek is a favorite "Thin Place" for me. And yes, in my twenties, with my beautiful, young wife, we left the cosmos breathless.
Vol

[Neville]

Having just visited your most recent post (here anyway) I felt somewhat compelled to see where you might be coming from my friend .. and was not in the slightest bit disappointed .. in fact, much to the contrary .. now then, more to the point, they say you can beat an egg and a drum and a rug maybe .. but you just can't beat a bit o timeless literature in which both Grace Slick and Nietzsche both feature so prominently .. Very muchly enjoyed sir .. and then some .. Neville

[Vol]

Neville!
Thank you for your kind response! I believe good poetry is words made into jewelry. It is not dependent on the poet. Discovering any good poem, no matter where, or by whom, is an experience all by itself causing the reader to pause and reconsider, well, EVERYTHING.

[Vol]

Eternity,
sigh...
Vol

[Neville]

got'cha .. eventually 😎👍

[Kelly Scheppers]

I was mesmerized, impressed and left in absolute wonder in the reading of this piece. Oh, how I wish I had written it! So good to meet you, Vol!

[Vol]

Oh, my goodness... blush! I'm glad you enjoyed it! It is all true.

[Kelly Scheppers]

So amazing!!

[Chris Shaw]

Sometimes I ponder on what I learned at school and how relevant it has been on my journey. In truth much of it hasn’t been. There is nothing like the experience of living, to aid our learning and growth. The final eleven lines of your poem really spoke to me. That is where our learning and growth takes place. In the natural environment and with our relationships with people. That has taught me far more than Pythagoras and all those equations I struggled with.

[Lorry]

The ending reminded me of Carl Sagans enduring speech of life on this planet and what surrounds us in his Cosmos epilogue.
We learn when we are young but the true experience of life is to live it and our perceptions of our moments lived can be ever changing in our mind, depending where we are on the path that is life that is all that we have been.
An excellent and thought provoking write that encompasses all we are, have and will be.
A very enjoyable write indeed.

[Vol]

Thank you, Lorry for your thoughtful comments. I differ from Sagan in that I believe the cosmos is infinitly conscious, and the benevolent creator of everything. But he had wonderful insights and is the best speaker I've ever listened to.

[Lorry]

I am considering similar of late. That connections of life surround us everywhere and the further you look the more you see connections in everything alive that goes further than we can comprehend in nature or the cosmic dance of being.

[Sami Khalil]

Nothing is dry about your poetry: it is alive with ideas and passion. I like where you are taking us.

[Vol]

Thank you, Sami, for your kind remarks and encouragement!

[Sami Khalil]

You are welcome 😊.