Progress in doubt
by desvelado (Member) - published: March 4, 2008
Word Count: 457 Word Bytes: 3555 Viewed: 159 times
Category - Poetry
© Copyright by desvelado

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Author's Note:

Have been working on this since Feb. 18th. You might need to take a shot of your favorite beverage before reading. Not that I'm advocating alcoholism! Feel free to treat his poem like a Seinfeld episode. In other words, it might just be about nothing. God, I hate Seinfel!!!

Progress in doubt
F.R. Toscano

I

Emotional vacuums are lateral.
I know this because
I was orphaned the day
I was born upside down.
I should have breeched;
Feet first always and avoid landmines.

Ah, how the ruined need
Their own language.

Leaving becomes adjective
When you’re not around
(And Horus blinks out of time).
I recognize your shadow before
Your misery takes shape
And agonize over
The Sacred Cut when leave-taking.

Ah, how the ignorant confuse
Flying with flight.

II

I hold inside me tomorrow’s wisdom but
Come midnight I am bled dry by
Midwives blinded by
A questionable divine proportion.

Honeycombed faith saps free will and
The bladder of the fish is life everlasting.

Dare me to stop now?

I sold my father for a ruined temple,
Enslaved my mother in said temple and
Shat the world anew.

And, oh, how the emigrated
Still have far to go.

So give me the truth and
Keep your mandala.

Give me tomorrow but
Catalogue what you sold today.

III

Everything is a straight line.
Everything is a straight line.
Everything is a straight line.

Everything is a straight line.
Everything is a straight line.
Everything is a straight line.

Everything is a straight line.
Everything is a straight line.
Everything is a straight line.

Every thing is a straight line
Intersected by faith.

IV

Every road to heaven is paved with the bones of saints and what they stood for. Saint Lawrence burned for his beliefs but never shed a tear. He roasted on the spit ‘til he proclaimed he was done on one side.

All this while angels waited just beyond the reach of the flames.

All this while his church denied he ever lived - then canonized him.

The world was flat before I was born but my running (from glorious coincidences) made it round enough for its inhabitants to believe in possibilities.

V

This feudal system is deceiving:
It binds my hands but not my tongue.

This feudal system is impermanence.

VI

Zero is a ghost
(Without rattling chains).

VII

This world is erratic,
It doubts the setting sun.
Its hurricanes are reactions to
Borrowed words.

And trees take root where
Nothing grows.

That is what we have become:
Temporarily complicated by
Equations without end,
Amen.

No more longitude.
No more latitude.

Everything is insubstantial.
Everything is hyphenated.

Why not just believe in
Each other and forget
What has forgotten us?

(4 March 2008)

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"The most well founded opinions, the most harmonious philosophic systems have always seemed precarious: Contradictory remarks made by others seem to me just as valid." - Francis Ponge (translated by Beth Archer)

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Comments

The following comments are for "Progress in doubt"
by desvelado

Zero is a ghost
urgh, Seinfeld *shudders*, never touch the stuff, that’s the start of a slippery road to ruin, that is ;) …

now, where to start? this poem was incredibly fine. it offers the readers many great lines, great lines that serve as stand-apart access points to the rest of the poem and its ,murky depths and multi-facetted layers. great lines line: “Zero is a ghost” and “Why not just believe in/ Each other and forget/ What has forgotten us?” and “Ah, how the ignorant confuse/ Flying with flight.”- a personal favourite, that one, perhaps for obvious reasons…

for me, this poem speaks volumes of the illusive/ elusive nature of God/reality/self that we all grapple with, seems to me to be searching to find some common ground between these concepts, and between what’s expected, what is promised and what is actually delivered…

reminded me of other things too. one being a favourite adage of mine that my belief in God is entirely contingent upon how much I’ve had to drink: sans booze I’m a hardened sceptic, enough booze and I see evidence of his presence and feel an affinity with all his creation… too much booze and I’m dogmatic as all hell: there’s one God… and it’s me… eventually the sorry cycle works its way back round to the beginning, but with less stoicism and more despair… just in case you were wondering…

I only mention it because this poem seems to process a similar cycle of belief/ unbelief, with those last few lines perhaps best summed up as blaming God for his non-existence. not in an angry way, more in the style of mutual indifference…

to me those last few lines could be a battle cry, or at the very least, a rallying call, for human kind and spirit to stand on their own two feet, without divisive mythologies or the doctrines of sky Gods…

oh yeah, and I believe we’re all more or less ruined… our language is here, in poetry, particularly in this poem… I’ll shut up now. best to ye.

( Posted by: AuldMiseryGuts [Member] On: March 5, 2008 )

Francisco's progress
the ruined, the ignorant, the emigrated, the forgotten: I pare this poem down to the progress and progression of these, because they punctuate this poem and how it ponders what it ponders.

I see a linear evolution of persons within these groups, and from one group to another, in sequence: we start out ruined thinking we're saved, then we gain awareness of ignorance and become instructed but that is still not enough as we seek the geographical solutions that journeys might provide, but to no avail as we are forgotten anyway. And yes, the ultimate realisation is that we really only have each other (as potentially experiencing the same things...)

For those who believe in eternity, we are in an endless sequence of impermanences. But for those who believe in Eternity, we just plain are. For those who believe in nothing at all, we are a glitch.

Big deal to all of that.

I'm with you on believing in each other.

Thank you for the substance of this. It sticks to my soul's ribs. I am sated.

Lucie

( Posted by: windchime [Member] On: March 5, 2008 )

No Doubt
"Why not just believe in each other and forget what has forgotten us" AMEN Brother Des...

there is No Doubt taht this is the sentiment of a true Humanist...that is my favorite poem and few lines of yours EVER...

More existential revelations please!!!!

( Posted by: kilgoretrout [Member] On: March 5, 2008 )

Progress in Doubt
I love how all this sounds, I like this a lot. Don't understand what it all means, even the profound, and my favorite, "Every thing is a straight line
Intersected by faith."
I would have to know what you know to know what it means wouldn't I? Yet I, in some abstract way by nature, seem to know what it means. But it mostly says to me that this is your life, that you have not understood it yourself, that while your life goes on it has also stopped in some way, that there is a "this question", always "this question". The hounds perhaps?
"zero is a ghost"? Are you sure what you are doing is legal? ; )
thought provoking all, and enjoyable to read. Robert.

( Posted by: robnjop [Member] On: March 5, 2008 )

leap of faith
"Every road to heaven is paved with the bones of saints and what they stood for"
Sounds more like a journey into hell, LOVE IT!!:). its going to be my new personal imagery for the door to heaven, a long road paved with bones of saints.:P.
Your poem is alot like a leap of faith...to jump or not to jump.?. Seems you are not too sure yourself....you critize, but im not so sure you'd jump either. it comes out in your words
its what i love.. your poems are quite transparent to the thoughts below.
:)

( Posted by: shaza89 [Member] On: March 6, 2008 )

Progress in doubt
I wrote the bones of this in one sitting but it seemed I was just writing ideas at the time. I kept going back to it and would delete, alter or add lines to it but it still frustrated me.

It wasn't 'til I decided to seperate it that it made more sense. Not complete sense. Just more...

No one mentioned III being a holy trinity of sorts. Wassupwithat?

Anyway, kidding aside, I sincerely thank all of you for reading, gleaming some insight and commenting on this poem.

Might still make changes.

( Posted by: desvelado [Member] On: March 9, 2008 )

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