Flesh, ever-fickle

original poetry & philosophical discussion
---featuring the photography of Zsolt Zsigmund---

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Philosophical prelude:
Paradoxical expression in the moment

. This piece is a reflection on physicality, contentment, and meaning within one's subjective experience of reality. Writing poetry, for me, is primarily a cathartic and digestive process. It is intensely reflective of a unique present moment, that, having been experienced: fades away utterly, leaving only the poem and vague memory as detritus in its wake. I am less concerned about the end result being an enduring piece of art as I am being fully immersed in the moment of its creation. Feel free to skip this part of the post to the reading notes or to the poem below if you are not interested in reading about my approach to writing poetry.

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This piece is part of an ongoing challenge I've issued to myself to write slightly longer pieces and maintain a sense of cohesiveness throughout. I have also taken into account the great feedback left by my wonderful readers and want to say "thanks a lot!" for your critiques and comments. They really help me stay motivated and focused as I practice daily.

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My approach, unless I am writing a rigid form such as a sonnet, is to write a with the feeling of a "free verse" but let form coalesce organically. Inevitably, repetitive structures begin to emerge and help the piece hold together (In fact, it can sometimes be a crutch to justify rather weak expression!) Probably the strongest thread underlying all my work is the intermixed ideas of duality/nonduality/opposites/polarities/paradoxes. These are aspects of reality that cause endless fascination for me and provide infinite worlds to explore.

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On the other hand, these are related to the confusion many feel reading my writing! For instance, I like to have certain moments that are intensely emotional and intimate. In others, I want the exact opposite: a feeling of total detachment and numbness. I cannot express a certain idea without encountering the unavoidable desire to express its opposite! For me, all concepts, however sublime, are utterly meaningless, unless they are combined with their total opposite: creating the stability and tension of polarities united.

Reading notes

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Stanza I: They notice

Coming to terms with the past makes the present more bearable. Concepts are ultimately illusory, so when we seek to remove them, we find nothing to remove! However, the labels given us by self and other we wear with a contradictory mixture of shame and pride.

Stanza II: They watch
.None of the extremes experienced in life can encapsulate its magnificence alone. We look for our cherished beliefs in reality and fail to find them. The eternal frustration and fascination of art, ever-falling short of being able to express the inexpressible, yet ever-stubbornly trying again and again because the awe that entrances us is so powerful beyond all else.

Stanza III: They depart
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The absolute admires the fleeting: astonished and amused by the ignorant faith placed in that which is impermanent. In this seeming limitation, there is paradoxically limitlessness. There is no distinction that can be made between the material and the spiritual, the form and the formless— they are one and the same, everything and everyone is sacred in radical simplicity.

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I. They notice

Walking through the tunnel of my past
I found the levitation of the present
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In the kind smile
In the bent mirror
In the smog sky
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I found transcendence of my greed.
My greed that had buried itself
Like a worm in the loom
Of my heart.
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I rummaged for it to root it out,
But there was nothing there.
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All the people
Watched me pantomime.
How they whispered and pointed!
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I wore the names they gave me
Like a scalding crown of thorns.

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II. They watch

Soaring through world's unreality
Enamored with fluctuations
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I marry life
And divorce her.
I seek after death
And find everything but her.
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I find the full meaninglessness
The void of fulfilling soleness
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I find
Nothing valuable to me
I can begin to describe;
In forms only hatred shows.
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It is in their formlessness that
Beauty shines with the brilliance
Of a midnight sun—
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It makes me weep
With the glory I can neither
Understand nor bear. It is the
Secret that torments me, the mystery
Of wonder that I yearn to share.

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III. They depart

(Omniscient admiration
Of the aimless sons of dust)
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How confident the shadows of the earth!
They scurry about in frenetic scrabblings:
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They learn, they mate, they lose, they mourn
Their chapters etched on cave walls
Both triumphant and forlorn.
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Walking through the tombs of history
We find the suspension of judgement
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In a skeleton
In tears of ash
In a smile of blood
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We find the awe of the tangible.
The tangible that escapes its netting
Like a phoenix: renegade, saviour, heretic,
Guru, commoner, christ, bodhisattva, criminal:
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Saint that walks the tunnel
Babe that speaks the past
Wind that sings the miracle
Substancelessness that ever lasts.

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Written by
@d-pend
12/24/17
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Photography by
Zsolt Zsigmund

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1 — "Frostwood Breeze"
2 — "From Roots to Needles"
3 — "Red Forest VI"
4 — "Winter Wonderland IV"
5 — "Sunrise Overture XVI"

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