#613 - there are no marks without meaning

 

6.ix.21

613

2.248

there are no marks without meaning

debunking the dangerous heresy of (so-called) a-semism

 

made, found

sky-trumpeted

or melding back to ground

there are no marks without meaning

 

every connection is tender yet

we are left with the feel of a fit

from the dream

 

then what’s to touch?

say – these are our travels

 

to see is to say

is to have sought

 

there is no utterance unlit

 

slap of mist

brought on a breeze

and door ajar

as if led on through mazes

let settle

 

these are not ideas

and yet, along the lines

for instance of a stillness

such as a mid-afternoon

autumn hurtling world might pretend

 

the uninscribed leaves

colours come to mind

a worm’s way we call deep

 

and here’s a black box

ocean floor

what fish will come to unravel?

 

there are no unintended signs

impatient of mystery, most will confess

shrug and spill the well-read entrails

 

there are no marks without meaning

 

 

abstract of where we are

note this

 

yes, words were lost to these others

stories are told to forget

 

it’s dizzy looking down

where a phrase was

where a sentence was read

 

the half known world

is made from scratch

that’s how we imagine first

 

shadows won’t know what they’re playing with

 

here are the walls and the floor

here’s the sky

so no one will call it a house

 

whisper this

scratch as you may

or burn

 

blank looks you want at with a poker

 

tell truth from superstition

laugh if you got the joke

or in any case

no symptoms

 

in politics, religion

or dismal science

you’ll never have this world make sense

there’s nothing to see here

 

but some of us carry paint like fire

 

there is a reason for these signs

and there is no reason at all

 

one day understood

one day everyone will know

these portraits, landscapes

diagrams, maps –

these are pictures of nothing at all