This is experimental. I hope it is not, in my children's charming expression - "up itself". Only about 10% of the words are mine (odd that we can 'own' words) - the rest belong to Ludwig Wittgenstein, the most misunderstood of philosophers but the most poetic. My role is more like the editor of a film; selecting and juxtaposing images and ideas to (try to) create a coherent thread. If poetry catches the heart and engages the mind directly through the resonance of its words; W's work seems to create a kind of 'poetry of ideas' where the words themselves seek clarity not resonance, but the ideas they express seem to resonate with one another with a kind of poetic effect.(OK, maybe it is up itself!). I am not sure of much of this or whether this has a poetic validity. To do so it must have a resonance without the need for detailed philosophical knowledge. Not sure if it does.

JUST WORDS

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 are thinking
makes sense
I know what I am thinking
does not.
A cloud of philosophy
condensed
in drop of grammar.
Words acquire 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 actions.
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 do not belong to the world
I am the limit
of my world
as with
my visual field.
Things that cannot be put into words
make themselves manifest
they are what is mystical.
The inexpressible is the background
that gives meaning
to 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 merely read
but it is a strange story
that has 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".

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