“Who knows the truth? Who can tell whence and how arose this universe? The gods are later than its beginning: who knows therefore whence came this creation? Only that god who sees in highest heaven: only he knows whence came the universe, and whether it was made or uncreated. He only knows, or perhaps he knows not.”
Rig Veda X: 129, translated by Juan Mascaró, The Upanishads
“Dante would have called it an awakening, not a dream.”
E.M. Forster, Maurice
uncoupled from gravity
unheavier than air
untouching surfaces
volumes
only as memory
or premonition
not really still here
not really quite gone
even the dead
have abandoned
this
where you think you might find them
calling this a place
those who will one day be living
have yet to imagine
would be like trying to put a frame
around the nothing
and calling it something calling it somewhere
who could say for sure
this is
or is not
there is a here but where
cartography has been forgotten
or is still to be invented
there is a now but when
there are no timepieces left
and no time for that matter
whatever that was
is gone
or not yet begun
but there is something
surely
something
surely
as far back
as before the beginning
as far forward
as after the end
always
something
not
nothing
a consciousness
that observes
that is
something for which
being neither dead nor alive
is neither here not there nor elsewhere
an awareness
that goes
on and on
something waiting
like the potential in a foetus for birth
like the potential in the infirm for death
and yet more than
just watching
something wanting
for even in this
not nothing
there is something
something
in the something
desire
the seed of desire
that always
begins it all
the something is wanting
and in that instant
something else
must be wanted
and in that instant
separation
the separation
that starts time
and imagines space
the initiating action
in the perennial journey
of desire
the desire
to reach away from aloneness
creates an other to reach out towards
and the satisfaction
of that first desire
seeds more desire
the desire to communicate
turns breath
into language
and with that
the desire
for the endless vistas of words
an unquenchable desire
for words
to be carried on the thoughts
to identify to describe to classify
to categorise to catalogue to inventory
to index to tabulate to register
to record
an uncountable
number in the mathematics of the taxonomy of things
aggravating the already
maddened by
an escalating addiction
to the narcotics of memory
and anticipation
desire for more desire
the desire for more
in every moment
more more more
the greedy accumulation
of innumerable
tiny details
so much more
than future archaeologists
will be able to dig up
and as yet unconceived linguists
or cryptographers
decipher
until eventually
after so many attempts
and so many disappointments
it is such a weary
and tempered desire
a desire
that sees the end of desire
even before it has fully begun
a desire finally to cease desire
to lose
more than it creates
the desire for death
as much as for life
yes
there is something
so much something
so much something
in the something
watching the something
a consciousness
an awareness
so long as you are
from this awareness
and of this awareness
the awareness
will survive in you
and you in it
you will endure
needing nothing
being everything
even as time winds up
and unwinds
its inevitability
the awareness is
everything is
of it
Richard James Allen is an Australian born poet whose writing has appeared widely in journals, anthologies, and online. Former Artistic Director of the Poets Union, Inc., he has written nine books of poetry, edited a national anthology, and combined a unique international career as a multi-award-winning writer, director, choreographer, and performer for stage and screen.