YOU CAN CUT THE DIAMOND.doc

YOU CAN CUT THE DIAMOND

 

You can cut the diamond of your insight

any way you want

and hold it up to the light

and inspect it for flaws,

and be well pleased

with the radiant translucency

of the perfect planes

that chromatically abberate

your perception

into the sudden flash of worlds

you had not suspected

like eyes all around you in the night

wondering who you are

that suddenly appears among them

like the strange interference

of a deranged star

muttering oracularly in its sleep;

but it’s still just the way

the brain works its own waves

like a snakecharmer

playing on the flute of your spine

or witching for water

with a tangent and a cosine.

Just another simulacrum of your own mind

trying to convince the blind

you really can see.

And you can look all you want

for dynamic meanings

in what it is to be

as still and silent and dark

as the absence of God

before you were conceived

to know flesh and blood and bone

and what it is to be effectually alone

without a first cause of your own,

but it’s all just thoughts

trying to bind you to a mind

like a tapestry of Gordian knots

that record the age-old mystery

of the personal history of here and now.

And it’s true we’re all breathing

into the mouth of our own death

trying to get it to catch its breath

like a body cast up on a cold shore

as if the sea of awareness

had made some mistake

we’re the ones who must answer for it

by suffering like a used sky

when the skin casts off its snake

like a flute that cannot live

beyond the lifespan of the music

that mesmerized the savage grass

with the grace and stealth of its passage.

But there’s no way out of it

because there’s no way in

and all we’re really doing

is trying to contort our way

out of this straitjacket of the moon

we wear like phases of scarred skin

that shapes who we are like a calendar

that sheds its flower of time

like pages and petals and leaves.

And it may not be wisdom to doubt

what the serpent believes

about God, the Devil, and Temptation

and try to seek your own salvation

beyond the new walls of the infallible

that surround the grounds with armed angels

that fill you with dread

to tread where you want

without hell going off like a hidden explosive,

but it’s a tragic waste of lies if you don’t.

 

PATRICK WHITE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

YOU CAN'T PUT YOUR FOOT.doc

YOU CAN’T PUT YOUR FOOT

 

You can’t put your foot

on the neck of time

and command all the flowers

to bloom at once.

And the seasons don’t come and go

like one of your tantrums.

And it’s easy enough

to esteem yourself deserving

but how rare it is

to meet someone

who is truly worthy

of what they’re always denied

and be able to recognize in them

the compassion of water in the world.

Free will itself

might be an illusory edition

of a deeper volition

that doesn’t consult us,

and the indeterminate lack of it as well

and when you look at them both

like jewels

in the clear light of the void

they’re still just little bells at a big funeral

where the birds sit unvoiced on the powerlines

like musical notes in the rapture

of an astonishing silence.

You want to be understood

but when have you ever taken care

to mean anything like a clean window

we could all look through

to the other side?

You paint the compound lenses

of your insight

like a telescope

at the opening night

of another highbrow gallery

and wait for good reviews from the stars

to start rolling in

like radiant constellations

in the horrorhope section

of braille newspapers spooled

through a breathless printing press,

and when no one shows up

you melt down like a nuclear reactor

in the mess of your own candle

and complain

that another star in the night

has gone out.

But when did you ever ignite?

And how would you know anyway

if you’ve never looked outside yourself

to see that there’s more drama

in the people that come to the play,

more tragedy, wisdom and humour

more unexotic heroism

than there will be on stage

if your bitter spring ever comes of age?

 

PATRICK WHITE