The sage philosopher Plato,
drawn by many a scholar with a halo,
broke many hearts
by shunning the Arts.
Plato Clerihew, No. 2
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Tag Archives: Philosophy
Nietzsche Clerihew
The German philosopher Nietzsche pronounced his name using a schwa. that rhyme 's not perfected, but closer than expected.
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A Quick & Dirty Guide for Reading William Blake’s Prophetic Poetry
It’s been said that Blake’s poetry is nearly impenetrable. When people say this, they’re referring to a series of long poems that are often called Blake’s “prophetic books.” It’s not that people struggle much with Songs of Innocence, Songs of Experience, or The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. I doubt anyone is stumbling their way through “The Lamb” or “The Tyger.” In fact, some of Blake’s poetry is highly readable for eighteenth century work.
The challenge is that Blake created his own mythology and he launches in with all these characters that have no sticking power for a reader. This is unfortunate as Blake remains well worth reading for his ideas, his language, and his sui generis worldview. [Even if he doesn’t win you over, Blake will give you something to think about that you’ve probably never considered before.] Blake’s mythology forces the reader to choose between a painstaking read (making notes, re-reading sections multiple times, stopping dead to make connections, etc.) or a casual read that misses most of what Blake is saying because it floats over the connections he is making.
As I’m re-reading Blake, I constructed a chart that helps me track who’s who and what each major character is about. I won’t claim it makes Blake’s prophetic work completely simple and transparent, but it has made reading it more productive and insightful. If you’re reading “Valas,” “Milton,” “Jerusalem” or any of the other prophetic books, I hope it will benefit you as well.
Em/F: these are emanations (i.e. characters that flow from the character from which the pointer originates.) Some refer to these as the feminine forms, hence the “F.”
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Escaping the Cave [Common Meter]
Climbing a mountain, I feel like I've escaped Plato's cave. My senses reel as though they're a crew of newly freed slaves. The sky is bluer, rivers green, each grit granule is clear. And even at the very edge, there's ease in feeling fear. By "ease" I mean not frozen stiff, but like a friend so dear that one can take one's grand peril, a gift received with cheer. Take me to the mountains, I say, where it's serene and real, and I can open up my sight to a world that's ideal.
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Jolie Laide [Common Meter]
I've seen in ordinary eyes a special twinkling glow. In rough and sinewy muscle I've seen a grace in throe. From rotund torsos, I have seen a lithesome prance or strut. I've seen a thing called character, in schnozzes that kink or jut. If beauty below the surface, it finds you splendor-blind. Then defect 's not in the object but in the viewer's mind.
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Five Wise Lines from “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” [Plus Five Lines, More]
No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings.
william blake
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
William blake
Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion.
William Blake
The fox condemns the trap, not himself.
William Blake
Exuberance is Beauty.
William blake
Without Contraries is no Progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence.
William Blake
If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.
William blake
The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.
William Blake
I also asked Isaiah what made him go naked and barefoot three years. He answer’d: ‘The same that made our friend Diogenes, the Grecian.’
William Blake
The most sublime act is to set another before you.
William blake
NOTE: William Blake’s “The Marriage of Heaven in Hell” is available in many collections of his poetry, and is in the public domain and available via Project Gutenberg at: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45315
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Under Pressure: Or, A House Divided [Free Verse]
A construction worker once told me -
for a building to last -
depends not so much on
its materials,
nor even on its foundations,
but rather on the building being
in balanced strain throughout.
A building stays up when its
parts press into each other firmly,
or pull at each other strongly,
but never too out of balance.
This web of unseen forces
allows the building stand solid
against any huffing, or puffing,
the world might throw its way.
A democratic society works the same.
It must have an establishment.
It must have a counterculture.
And these two elements must
constantly pull at each other
or mash into each other:
tension & compression,
compression & tension,
tug-of-war & sumo.
If one side is unopposed, or too weak,
the state will crumble into some kind of
authoritarianism by another name.
Destroy your enemies at your own peril.
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Master & Slave [Lyric Poem]
What will be your master,
and what will be your slave?
Will you court disaster
to be perceived as brave?
Will you call your pastor
to hide that which you crave,
or be your own ringmaster
and own how you behave?
And will you choose virtue,
or live in fear of vice?
Will you choose to be true,
or default to being nice?
And when there's much ado
will you jet their paradise?
Or just defer your view,
as act some men and mice?
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In Homage to Leaves of Grass
You're my Analects,
my Gita,
my Dao De Jing,
my sutras,
my Meditations,
and my Republic
all rolled into one.
You are the scripture by which I live.
You present a path to that rare place:
extreme confidence
which tears no one down,
but, rather, lifts all.
You achieve this by crushing
the ordinary.
Nothing is common.
Everything is a miracle.
(Even those leaves of grass
you repeatedly reference.)
No one is so rough
or promiscuous
or simple
as to be lowly.
Your author's unbridled enthusiasm
glowed with the insane confidence
of an adolescent boy,
but his awesomeness was never gained
by subtracting from others.
Rather by seeing the bright, beautiful spark
in each body,
mind,
pair of hands,
& burdened shoulder.
You are America,
the America we want to be.
The America that labors,
but which takes time to see
its natural wonders.
The America that heard what Jesus said,
and became less excelled at stone-throwing,
and more at cheek-turning.
The America that could see beyond dogma
and hard-edged tribalism,
and could learn from all the
grand & glorious people
who reached its shores --
So that we could be the best version of ourselves
through the strengths of all of us,
and not be stymied by missing
the great beauty & knowledge
among us.
You pair away the extraneous burdens
which tax the mind,
and show us what the world looks like
unfiltered.
You teach one to see a beauty
that is so well hidden
that its own possessor doesn't
recognize it.
You are the song of a life well lived.
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Bury the Ordinary [Free Verse]
Bury the ordinary,
but make sure to
chop it out at the roots.
Nothing grows back more tenaciously
than the commonplace or the quotidian.
Sometimes what grows
back from those roots
looks entirely different,
but it's still mundane.
It has the same feel,
even when it has a
very different look.
Kill it.
Murder it.
Chop it up.
Bury it,
and let it die the death
of the forgotten.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 