MUST READ POEM: Incarcerated Truth
But for the slip of the tongue
There could be
Having
Been given
The slip of paper
With a key
Too incarcerated truth
Knot to be
Read aloud
There is know God
Many of the simplest and most profound truths in life are best experienced in silence, where anything spoken would only detract from the experience. If this poem is read out loud, it communicates the opposite meaning of that in silence: “There is no God” versus “There is know God.” The reference to God sets up the conundrum of trying to communicate spiritual matters when words necessarily get in the way, often turning them into spiritual madders. This poem is a big tip of the hat to the Tao Te Ching’s opening line: “The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao.” I have longingly loved this opening paradox which offers the poetic challenge of improving on silence.
Truth may very well lie in the manor in which it is spoken or knot. Free of words, we may experience the hole truth, going down that place from which hares split. Down, down, down — nothing softer, nor closer to foul. Sublime temptations beg the ineffable won, only to be housed in feat of clay. Any peep would be, as if, to bring the roof roof down, that within ear shot of any eavesdropper. Even the most dogged ear tome would knot avail the rabid homme, the whole as nothing, but hollowed ground. To no end, as soil one self. Making me, want to pop eye: I AM, what I AM?!
