Anaxagoras today

Anaxagoras from Clazomenae
in Asia Minor
forsook worldly power
and chose knowledge
that his Mind
could be free
and with it he
contemplated
the Sun
and rocky bodies
set to spin
in a universe that
could be probed
by him
these dangerous
observations
such dangerous
conclusions
he passed on
to Pericles
to Euripides
to Socrates who criticized
Anaxagoras' Mind as mechanistic
a deus ex machina
Anaxagoras said
in the beginning
all things
were infinitely small
and infinitely disordered
a mist of possibility
a singularity Hawking dream
undifferentiated
unknown
unknowing
Mind permeated the Anaxagoran universe
segregated the like and unlike
put Motion to
it all
Flung out spermata
corn wind wings
and all was Set
to Spin
and from this Motion
product of Mind
centrifuge of Thought
this divinity of Order
all things Distilled
from Anaxagoras of Ionia
to Socrates of Athens
to Aristotle
to Darkness
to Galileo
to Bohr
to Planck
to Hawking
Today

Angeline, it must be said...

Angeline, it must be said
that tomorrow brings peril
in equal measure with joy.
And pleasure is a second choice
that falls to those whose voices
raised and heard
are ever taken at their word - but
word alone is never deed;
compounded then with heavens' scent.
A nectar fostered of a gardener.
A petal blossomed, ever bent, before the cold practioner
of words and deeds and seeds and loam -
there grazes a single antelope on grasses set
in prairies before all time, and spent.

Logos

word
thought
speech
meaning
reason
proportion
principle
standard
logic
the logos
goes and goes and goes
Energizer Bunny
Heraclitean fragment
Nietszchean aphorism
dancing on its toes
angels on pinheads
we clever little men
and meaning shifting
like the sand
the dunes pouring down
from manicured lawns
California dreaming
let's sing the body electric!
we'll raise a joyful noise!
let's clink our crystal in appreciation
and place lawn gnomes
on our lawns
and the logos laughs
if word can laugh
if thought can laugh
if speech can laugh
if meaning can laugh
if reason can laugh
if proportion can laugh
if principle can laugh
if standard can laugh
if logic can laugh
if religion can laugh
if philosophy can laugh
if history can laugh
and sings the song
that we all know
or though we knew
that is now forgotten
lost...
a dew drop in the desert
a buzzing fluorescent sign
on Route 66
where America was born
and tumbleweeds roll
where Jim Morrison
saw a madman
and opened that door
beneath the Story tree
beside the golf course
where we ran naked
chased by moonbeams
near the graveyard
where the wind blew backward
under the ancient oak
where the logos
was born again
and again
was lost