Analysis of The Thought That Lingers: Part Eight



The thought that lingers concerns the human mind.
How, as humans, we are all storytellers.
As scribes of our imagination, we actively keep records of our experiences.
Recording them, whether on cave walls, on cuneiform, clay tablets, papyri or, in our modern times, employing the platform of the Internet.

Within our own era of this century, we remain connected with our past.
We are yet influenced by what today we call Greek myths.
Like tales of Pandora’s Box, Prometheus, Persephone and Hades.
And as more examples, the tale of Theseus and the Minotaur of the labyrinth.

Although we accept them now as mythical.
Even now as imaginary tales better suited for children.
For whetting the fertile human imagination.
Still we employ them as purveyors of our present culture.

Without these mythical tales we would feel quite bare.
Naked, like  primeval Adam and Eve before being clothed.
It is these very tales that ironically make us human.
Set us apart from other animal species bereft of language.

As Homo Sapiens, we are all possessors of ancient tales.
As archetypal tales they influence our collective memories.
They are ingrained in our philosophies and our sciences.
The heavens declare the wonders of our fertile literary minds.

Consider now the architectural nature of our heavenly realm.
As example, how five of our planets retain these Pantheistic Babylonian mythologies:
Jupiter equated with Marduk, Venus with Ishtar.
Saturn equated with Ninurta, Mercury with Nabu; and Mars with Nergal.

Consider even more the perpetual influence of the Ancient Greek deities on our planetary nomenclature:
The Sun as Helios, the center of our solar system.
The Earth as Ge or Gaia; Mercury as Ermis; Venus as Aphrodite.
Our planet Mars as Aris; Jupiter as Dias or Zeus; and Saturn as Kronos.

We are indeed forever bound to our mythical past,
These mythical tales remain ingrained in our present history.
Without these tales we would be forever lost.
They are our foundation, our background, our cornerstones.

The myths of the past rule the consciousness of our present.
We are beholden to our myths.
They are our sacred objects of worship.
They govern our heavenly realm and invade our religions.

As it is above, so it is below.
The gods on high overseeing our lesser earthly gods.
Like those of our Ancient Greek and Roman gods.
Like those of our Ancient Greek and Roman royalty.

Consider for this poem one such ancient royal house.
Its influence upon our philosophy, our psychology, our mental framework.
Consider alongside this man’s inherited eternal legacy.
Living forever in the Betwixt and the Between.

Consider man to be a liminal being.
Paradoxical Reptilian man with a hindbrain, employing his forebrain to forge scientifically ahead.
Anchored yet by his more familiar hindbrain.
That harbors his dreams, his ancient memories, and his mythology.

We are a paradoxical species.
Living in the present and forever anchoring ourselves to the past.
Our presence can only be explained by our past.
And our past remains ironically our present.

We are paradoxical human beings, forging ahead  towards Paradiso, like adventurous Dante.
One foot pedaling him gradually forwards towards his salvation.
The other back foot anchored backwards towards Purgatorio and Inferno.
This is the indelible portrait of liminal mankind in the Betwixt and the Between.

This is the resident nature of ‘modern’ man.
Seeking the heavenly realm while yet anchored  umbilically to Mother Earth.
A visionary man; yet in many ways oh so blind.
Pursuing knowledge, yet remaining in stalwart ignorance of himself.

Hear now in part the mythical tale of Oedipus.
A Prince who would become King.
An ancient tale by Sophocles.
Presumably deformed by birth with ‘swollen feet,’ a man more persecuted by a mother complex.

By Fate he would possess that which was to him forbidden.
Forbidden Fruit would indeed lead to his demise.
Despite his consultation with a Delphic Oracle and its Sphinx.
His karmic destiny would not deter his moral blindness.

And so this Prince named Oedipus.
Abandoned by his father King Laius as a newborn child for cause of prophetic curse upon the throne.
Now rescued from certain death by a shepherd-servant; raised by King Polybus and Queen Merope as their own.
Set out on a journey for his destined self-discovery.

Now raised as Prince, yet ignorant of his rightful paternal ancestry.
Oedipus set out on a journey as a quest to know his fate.
It led him to a Theban Sphinx who dared all passers by to solve her riddle at the risk of their own deaths.
This riddle Oedipus having solved, ironically led to the death of the lion-hearted Sphinx herself.

For fate of Oedipus is wrought with irony.
Though he the puzzle of the riddle solved.
It too, in turn, would for him become a catastrophe.
How ignorant is man unto himself, to often solve the riddles that life possesses, and not to solve the riddle of his own life and nature.

By destiny then, Oedipus would become a Theban King.
Ironically by means of patricide unknown to him.
Slaughtering his own father, and in even greater ignorance, marrying his widowed mother, Queen Jocasta.
In incest then, she would bear him four children; before the two would search for recompense.

In this sad tale of Sophocles, a Theban Prince becomes a King.
A Theban Prince ascends the throne.
Yet irony abounds.
He sees without seeing.
His blindness is unknown to him.

And so man blinds himself at times without knowing.
He looks but does not see.
He listens but does not hear.
He receives even when he forfeits.

This is the thought still lingering.
Of conscious mythical Homo Sapiens man.
By his unconscious forever grasped.
Still seeking higher states of consciousness.
Awake, yet still asleep in the  Betwixt and the Between.

Between full wakefulness and sleep.
In hypnogogic posture.
Is modern man.
Man of the Betwixt and the Between.
Liminal man in limbo; dancing in his liminality.

His literature exalts him.
His arts and crafts elevate him.
These are vestments of his liminal culture.
These reveal him to be quite civilized.
These portray him to be a man of moral ethical depth.

Yet man remains perplexed in thought.
For man remains a dreaming man.
A dreaming hindbrain Reptilian man.
Still waiting for the moment to become a god.
Waiting, oh ever waiting so ironically absurdly for Beckett’s mythical ‘Godot.’

Man’s life is but a living theater.
Composed of graven images of his own making.
Composed of comedic images that end up mocking him.
Those of gross, even banal absurdity.
For man, nothing of Spirit matters more than that which of matter matters.

In pursuit of a  greater consciousness, is man of a bicameral mind.
Man of the Betwixt and the Between in his perpetual dilemma.
Man graced with both a  forebrain and a hindbrain, advancing forwards, yet looking always backwards.
Man struggling ever to find wholeness.
The paradox of man is man remaining in his dualities.  

A mind divided cannot claim its wholeness.
The very unity that man is forever seeking.
If the higher consciousness that man desires remains elusive.
Is made without man probing deep within the nature of his psyche.
And balancing those parts that beg for wholeness.

Duality is man’s enduring nemesis.
For most of us it appears as if it were an indelible innate trait.
Leading to the curses and addictions that haunt our lives.
Those we often bring upon ourselves, yet by projecting, blame upon others.
That is our hubris of desiring  to be god-like.

Bounded to earth, we seek the stars.
Consuming local spirits, we seek to elevate ourselves to somewhere else much higher.
Outside ourselves, beyond ourselves
Alienating us instead from being that which we were meant to be.
A total being of wholeness with all our parts working together.

The thought that lingers now is this.
The dual nature of postmodern man.
Man of this century marching forwards, still looking backwards.
Modern man retaining his dualities.
Modern man ever seeking peace, yet ironically in warfare with his own nature.

Religion is man’s artifact.
And science is another.
With these two man is a potential force that is heavily armored.
Yet he turns the one upon the other.
Consuming drugs and spirits of earthly matter to replace that of the Heavenly Spirit that to him should matter.

And so man by his own choice becomes a god of war.
He wages war upon himself.
And, blaming others, wonders why there is no peace.
Man is indeed of the Betwixt and the Between.
Liminal man’s urgent task therefore is to restore himself to unity.

This is the thought that lingers yet.
The greatest need of modern man is to embrace his divided self.
To reconcile those quarrelsome parts within himself.
To love himself in all its entities, and in this doing, equally extend that love outwards to other broken entities.
Life’s Motto: To thine own self be honestly true, and in this act of truly knowing Self, thou will not in act of consciousness be false to any other Self.


Scheme ABCD EFGX HIIJ XXIX XGCX XBXH JXKX EKXX LFXX MNNK XXKO PXIK GEEL XIMO QXAR SPGX IXXS STTK KUXR KXKJ PVAX PTXPV PKXX PQXSO XJQOA VVJXX XQQXM JPVKB AXWYB YPXKY YUXBX XJXKJ YQWBJ XJXJJ XRXOK DRRGR
Poetic Form
Metre 01110010101 1110111100 111100010110010111001000 010110111110011011010101010011010 0110110111001010101101 11110011011111 1111111010 01101001110011010 1101111100 1011010011010110 11010100010 1101110101101010 011100111111 101010100101101 111101101001110 11011101001001110 11010011111101 11101110010010100 11010100100010100 01001010110101001 010100100101101001 1010111101001101001001 1000101110110 1001011100110111 0101010010010010101100110100100 011100101101010 0111110100110101010 1010110110011011010110 110101011101001 11001010101010100 01111110101 11100101011010 011011010011010 110101101 11101010110 11010100100110010 1110111101 01111001010101 111101010101 11110101010100 01011101110101 11000110010010010010101 010011110100010100 1001000010001 0101110110 0100010110101011110100001 1011110101 11011110100010100 110010010 1000100010100001101 10101101011101 01010101001010 110100101010010100101010010 111001100010011010 0101110100110010 110010010111100010001 110100101101 1001001111011101 0100110101111 010101010010100101 1101010011100 0111011 11011100 010001111101011100101010 11110111111100 100110111101 0110101010100011 11100110111010 01111100 0101110111010111101010101 11011011010101111011111 111010111010100 111111001110010100 1001110101011111 1111011111101110101011111 11010010101001101101010101 111100111100 1101010101 11011110100100 110011100111010101101001110101111010 11001100101011 010011110111 10011100010101001001101011 0111111110010111110 011111000110101 0110101 110001 110110 11010111 011101110110 111111 1101111 101101110 11011100 110100101001 11100101 1101011100 01110100010001 011101 0110 1101 110010001 1101010011 11000011 1101101 11111110 101111110 101111011101001 11010101 11010101 01010101 110101010101 1011010101000101110001 1111010100 0111010011110 011010100111101 11110010100 111011010111111010 0011010100111011 110010001010100010 11110100101010110110 1100101110 0101111010011 01010101110 01010011101010 10101001101001010 11011101010101110 01001111110 010011010100 1111101111010100011 101010001011101 11101010011101010110 111010101001111 10111101 010101011110001111110 1100101001 10001011101110111 010101101110110010 01110111 0101010101 111100101011010 10101011 10110101101000111110 0101110 0101010 11111001011110010 1110101010 0101010110101111010010111110 0111111010111 11010101 010101011111 110110010001 1110111101011100 11011101 01011101110110101 110110010101 11010111000011010001111011010100 110111111001001111010111101110011110101
Closest metre Iambic octameter
Characters 9,003
Words 1,695
Sentences 154
Stanzas 36
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5
Lines Amount 158
Letters per line (avg) 45
Words per line (avg) 10
Letters per stanza (avg) 199
Words per stanza (avg) 42

About this poem

This poem, “The Thought That Lingers: Part Eight,” is Part Eight of a collection of twelve poems that are laden with interconnecting ideas, and with the interweaving central theme of “The Thought That Lingers” (hence the title of the entire series of the twelve poems), forming altogether an anthology of metaphysical, philosophical, existential poetry that was composed in the year 2000 and now published online on poetry.com.

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Written on August 08, 2000

Submitted by karlcfolkes on December 23, 2023

Modified by karlcfolkes on April 13, 2024

8:29 min read
85

Karl Constantine FOLKES

Retired educator of Jamaican ancestry with a lifelong interest in composing poetry dealing particularly with the metaphysics of self-reflection; completed a dissertation in Children’s Literature in 1991 at New York University entitled: An Analysis of Wilhelm Grimm’s ‘Liebe Mili’ (translated into English as “Dear Mili”), Employing Von Franzian Methodological Processes of Analytical Psychology. The subject of the dissertation concerned the process of Individuation. more…

All Karl Constantine FOLKES poems | Karl Constantine FOLKES Books

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