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Just Words (Final)

by  Zettel

Posted: Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Word Count: 362
Summary: Been meaning to come back to this 'found' poem for a while. A few changes, mostly structuring the stanzas to try to embrace a philsophical idea. The thread that links these remarks is perhaps more philosophical than poetic but it now hangs together as much I will ever make it.




JUST WORDS (Final)

The world is all that is the case
the totality of facts
not things
The limits of my language
are the limits of
my world

I know what you’re thinking
makes sense
I know what I’m thinking
does not
A cloud of philosophy
condensed
in drop of grammar

Words get their meaning
from a form of life
we share
My words tell you
what I think
my actions tell you
who I am
I enter the world through
my words
I affect the world through
my acts
In the beginning
was the deed
not the word

Our task is to prevent
the bewitchment
of our intelligence
by language
What we cannot speak of
we must pass over
in silence

My attitude to another human being
is an attitude
to a soul
I am not of the opinion that
you have a soul
Death is not an event in life
we do not live
to experience
death

How things are in the world
is not the mystical
but that it exists
Goodness does not exist
until we act.
Beauty does not exist
until we see

I am not in the world
I am the limit
of my world
as with my eye
in my visual field

Things that cannot be put into words
make themselves manifest
this is what is mystical
The inexpressible is the thought
that shows the limits
of what we can say

What is ragged
should be left ragged
for that is life
If our lives are a story
it is one we write
not read
but it is a strange story
with no ending
The solution to the problem of life
is seen in the vanishing
of the problem
Is there any problem of life
that would be solved
by living for ever?
If eternity is not
infinite duration
then eternal life belongs
to those who live
in the present
Don't play
with what is deep
in another person

The meaning in a poem
should not stand naked
but be clothed
by the heart
There are remarks that sow
and remarks that reap
And the philosopher said
One should write philosophy
as one writes a poem