TODAYS THIRD POEM ON MEANING (making up for lost writing time during the holidays, and stacking up to make up for a forthcoming one to escape these bitterly wintry days here in Canada). :) This was likewise prompted by the Problem of Meaning by David Brooks in todays Opinion column of the New York Times. Questions and answers become elusive phantoms/ of meaning, configurations of troth to the other/ turn into fantasy, dreams and desire but delusions. YOU AND I Words in their primary or immediate signification stand for nothing, but the ideas in the mind of him that uses them. ---John Locke Are you talking to me? Are you writing to me? Answers to questions you pitch into the dark are meanings I assign to the questions you ask. Always, you and I, will be at opposite ends of a half-lit hallway where echoes are as urgent as the tremulous confessions we burden ourselves with each time we look into our reflections on the one-way mirrors we look into when hiding hurts hurled like hunting knives at target trees. When I call you, I mean to quickly hold you down, to find your voice, to shape your feelings, to own your thoughts, to mould you as I want to have you. I interpret you through my own lenses and mirror you as you would me and have our confluence in this reflection, a dragging into a cold dungeon of thought constructing meaning instead of finding it, and the “You” becomes the “I” held in bondage. Except that in this conquest, I lose everything. Questions and answers become elusive phantoms of meaning, configurations of troth to the other turn into fantasy, dreams and desire but delusions. ---ALBERT B. CASUGA *This poem was prompted by Simon Blackburns Can We Understand Each Other? Treating Words Carefully, The Big Questions: Philosophy, Quercus Publishing, London, UK, 2009
Posted on: Wed, 07 Jan 2015 04:00:48 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015