The Thought That Lingers: Part Two
Karl Constantine FOLKES 1935 (Portland)
The sun will rise and give us light;
a daunting light.
But this light can offend.
If we embrace its strength,
its light becomes the dark.
Does thought then come from darkened space?
What, pray tell me, is its source;
since darkness is a form of light,
too brilliant it so shines,
it makes us ever blind.
I roam the space of the Betwixt
and the Between,
where light and dark perform a dance;
the dance of formless form…
a black hole universe to born.
In such a spaceless timeless place
of potent formless form;
both light and dark are thought…
bereft of human mind;
that mortal humans seek to comprehend.
For human mind is borne of thought,
fathered itself by thought;
as child pursuing its own source,
in search of its heritage,
not bound by time or space.
How can the part discern the whole?
Behold, thus the son…
searching for the ancestral parent,
who is, himself, the begotten son
of his father’s father’s father’s son.
Whose father has no parentage
of mortal flesh and blood.
The father, then, must be the sun,
begetting time, begetting space,
in formless time and space.
So thought deceives us all each time
in grounding it in space.
Matter, we argue, may be grounded;
but thought is quite too subtle;
not comprised of the senses.
Some see intelligence as thought;
as form of measured thought.
But thought can never be finite.
It has no final resting place.
It floats on wings of air.
The thought that lingers offers us
great expectations;
and a world of possibilities
for our timeless transformation
as thinking sentient beings.
Like machines with robust minds,
we are yet thinking beings;
thoughtful minds; with choices.
Minds with will; decision -making minds.
Minds ever grappling to find truths.
This is the hope that we foster;
to change our fate; our destiny;
to inscribe in us that dignity
that offers knowledge as our goal;
with truth no longer hidden.
Man seeks eternally to be free;
yet finds himself eternally in chains.
Willfully he roams the world,
with intellect of deception;
and no firm will to guide him.
And what is will, if not man’s thoughts;
unsullied faulty thoughts;
encapsulated ignorant thoughts;
rueful, robust robotic thoughts;
man enslaved by his own chain of thoughts.
Man strives to have ‘free will;’
one that resists false images;
avoids all forms of propaganda;
turning inwardly to find the truth;
a task. in irony he would avoid.
For man is ever so fearful
of confronting his own self;
that self that lies deep within him.
Far from the madding crowd
of superficial ignorance.
He’d feign pretend he knows it all.
His ignorance remains himself;
A Jekyll without Hyde.
Unwilling to consult that oracle
where truth bestows its treasure.
Man’s treasure house is himself.
But it is locked within.
His conscience must thus lead the way;
to turn within his darkened soul;
and seek the light within.
This kind of search is what man needs.
Socratic search it’s called.
To delve within, and without fear;
open Pandora’s Box;
where Tree of Knowledge dwells.
Socratic truth, is what we need;
that kind of priceless truth,
where reason holds the day;
where master willingly learns from slave;
where slave becomes free man.
This truth is often found in dreams;
a hiding place;
where thoughts must seem suspended;
and yet inviting dialogue
with outer, willful selfish self.
Listeners, beware this truth:
The inward search is never frivolous;
requiring much courage.
It is that kind of undertaking
of a new-found consciousness.
Seeking that Self that’s strange to self;
the outer turning inwards;
the conscious seeking its other Self;
the conscious with the unconscious.
Both striving thus for wholeness.
The new-found consciousness we gain;
bereft of ego selfishness,
astounds the thinking mind
that feels quite lost; e‘en restless;
without cognition to guide it.
We live and breathe; we sleep and dream,
without a seeming pause;
with inward thoughts, enriched by dreams;
consuming rhythmic dreams,
that supersede our outer thoughts.
I’ve often wondered where thoughts go;
incessant vibrant thoughts.
When sleep invades the mind,
do thoughts conspire with dreams,
to manufacture mind?
Are fervent dreams mere residue,
furious fertile, fanciful afterthoughts
of fertile mind at rest;
a potent brew of alchemy,
concocted by our minds?
For dreams construct a bizarre tale;
an architect’s Joycean world,
where Alice roams quite freely;
and thoughts make not much sense at all,
unless we make them so.
The ‘WE’ of thoughts is not the ‘WE‘
we find so oft in dreams.
That ‘WE’ is a sleeping ‘WE’
for thoughts are ne’er asleep;
steeped thus in their reflection.
Our thoughts are like a mirrored brook.
Our flowing streams of thoughts,
ebbing with reflection;
in which we see our mirroring selves
reflected back to us.
The thoughts flow on; the ‘’WE’ remains
as potent after images;
like dreams are afterthoughts themselves
of fertile thoughts reflected;
incubated alchemically, and cooked.
Thoughts served up to hungry minds;
ambitious, fertile minds,
in Faustian pact with the unknown;
stuffed with savory desires;
and dreams of godly life.
And man, in savor of this thought;
this concocted underworld brew,
consumes its blackened alchemy
that makes him Demi-God;
in hapless, ignorant wonderment.
The untrained mind of lofty man;
the newfound Übermensch
has dreams that offer him no clue;
for godly thoughts abandon him;
and ignorant thoughts deceive his soul.
A wretched man awakes from dreams.
A ghastly man he is;
that poor Scrooge knew too well;
haunted by his imagined world;
where strangers find few friendships.
But dreams can pave a royal path;
indeed, the narrow pathway.
La diritta via; a hallowed ground;
for dreams contain much truth,
disguised in mythic tales.
These mythic tales are memories;
collective tales, they are;
once stored in ancient caves
by ancient mythic minds;
in ancient mythic times.
The mind replaces mythic caves;
our creviced mythic mind;
to restore our ancient past,
and to release our fertile dreams
in darkened space of time.
Our minds, then, are the reservoirs
from which we frequent drink
the aqua vitae of our lives,
imbibing us with truth
that pours from ancient wells.
The memories of dreams are strong;
exquisitely numinous;
competing always with our thoughts.
Are dreams then thoughts re-versed;
a recitation streaming outwards?
Are we awake; or sleeping minds,
awake , while yet asleep?
What kind of door do we pass through?
What labyrinth or maze;
when sleep descends on us?
And when we wake from deepened sleep,
where did we ever go?
What kind of travels did we make?
What foreign journeys taken?
What treasures did we gather?
Did we ascend to higher plain,
explore some higher realm
found in the world of dreams;
or is this hither place quite near,
unseen to naked eyes?
Our theories of universes,
of distant space and time,
place limits on our physical minds,
constructed to find ‘evidence’
of that which is the concrete.
But life is so much more than form.
Indeed, ‘tis much more subtle;
defying human consciousness;
perceived; yet quite unknown;
mobile; without moving.
Uncertain is this thing called life;
chimerical in nature,
as Heisenberg did oft inform us.
Its locus is not firm at all;
its motion does confirm this.
The minds of human beings would seek
a known and clear beginning;
without which we are quite lost;
displaced in time and space.
For sake of which we turn inwards.
A union we seek in dreams;
or when we stoop to pray;
offering promises and hope
to capture our lost memories
of what was our beginnings.
This is the thought that lingers yet;
That is the union sought;
of man with man’s own nature;
of man with man’s own ‘Big Bang’
that frees the human mind.
But time and space are artifacts;
no more than gross inventions
of separated — separate minds;
in search of their return
to that which yet is wholeness;
that man must yet discover.
The waking thought that lingers,
pervading sleeping mind;
the universal thought of mankind,
is who then am I, in body, flesh and mind;
as thoughtful element of the universe?
About this poem
This poem, “The Thought That Lingers: Part Two,” is Part Two of a collection of twelve poems with interconnecting ideas, and with the interweaving theme of “The The Thought That Lingers” (hence, the title of the entire series of poems), forming altogether an anthology of poetry that was composed in the year 2000, and now published online on poetry.com.
Written on February 02, 2000
Submitted by karlcfolkes on March 31, 2023
Modified by karlcfolkes on March 31, 2023
- 8:10 min read
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Quick analysis:
Scheme | Text too long |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 8,161 |
Words | 1,633 |
Stanzas | 51 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 6, 5 |
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"The Thought That Lingers: Part Two" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 5 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/155351/the-thought-that-lingers:-part-two>.
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