just above the ego
“The scientific look is no act of communion. The very idea of a sacrament of the present moment is, scientifically, worthless nonsense…Whatever shadowy existence it may guardedly be granted has no real existence in objective time and space. That is as much to say: we have been abolished, and can only wait to be demolished.”
- R.D. Laing, The Voice of Experience (1982)
.
Never sign a letter you didn’t write
.
I was comatoast, said the woman
We’ve all been there
Just hang on
Well there’s a difference between passivity and acceptance
But I don’t know what it is
And do you know
Dread is excitement from above
Well it’s not true you shouldn’t worry what people think
.
That man next to you
It does matter
The dread people
Are not entwined
You are not you
And everybody’s thing is silly
I don’t have any time for that
.
You think
What do you see in your thing
means nothing to me
.
And you remember the equal voice choir
Not-yet-men; the girls
higher registers
And did it sound like angels
Or ghosts
Or both: the expired
And the lessons come back to you
Did you apologise?
Did you learn?
You might wonder
Seeing it return
The things that should not
And the little lack
That some cause
Just above the ego
Pain is in the world
Pain is not in the world
There is no pain
There is no in
There is no world