kamiel79

Reading: Between the Sultan and His Statue by Yusuf al-Saigh

Yusuf al-Saigh (1933-2006) was an Iraqi poet who has published poetry since the 1950s. He also worked as an illustrator and painter. I read a short verse that nicely renders the working of symbolic authority: Between the Sultan and His Statue A wily sculptor Cut several pounds off the sultan’s figure And added several pounds ...

Meditation on truth

How do we meditate on the idea of truth? Philosophers have written about it for many centuries. We will not revisit the theories of Aristotle, Aquinas, Hegel, Kant, Frege, Derrida. We don't need to remember anything if we think for ourselves. Take a long breath. Truth is a property of statements, not of things. We ...

Reading: Dark Eyes Touching Clear Sky by Kattya Janssen

Kattya Janssen (b. ?) is a Dutch poet and artist. I read a poem from the section 'Lust' on her website: Dark bodies touching clear sky Underneath crisp pearly grass Feverish shadows Oakwood touching hands Capricious patterns of roughness The sliding of a foot Fanciful flowers crushing Aurora shows up The cold whim of the ...

identity

strap me down on a vivisection table study my humors, my bile, my spleen I'm keen to know who I am and if I'm able but don't forget to stitch me up again.

Meditation on reality

First we breathe in and feel blessed. What inspired our meditation about reality must have been our involvement with it, in some way. There are people who think that what we call reality is 'in reality' a fiction. The universe is empty space laced with energy and some of this energy takes on a special ...

Madness is tragedy deprived of time

Kijkraam

Toen ik mijn dochter afgelopen donderdag naar haar balletles begeleidde, ontdekte ik dat er op verzoek van een aantal Koreaanse ouders een kijkraampje in de deur van de gymzaal was gecreëerd, waar deze plaatsvindt. Tijdens de les gaat de deur dicht zodat de kinderen zich kunnen concentreren, en deze oplossing was elegant, out of the ...

Cheer up well done

So I have come to an inversion: your recognition will feel like an insult, (This is a defense mechanism) I have accomplished officially accomplished close to nothing, and I am still closing in to nothingness. This morning (but the diction is universal) I realized that all future things will be mere projections of the past, ...

Reading: The Work Of Happiness by May Sarton

May Sarton (1912-1995) was a very prolific writer of novels, journals and poetry. She kept reinventing herself and wrote until she was very old. According to literary critics, she is an important contemporary American author. This time, I found a poem she wrote about happiness: The work of happiness I thought of happiness, how it ...