“a small Town in Scotland the place of my nativity” – Adam Smith (1723-1790).
Infirm and sickly
Privileged to bottle
A place where the wind blows
Freshly with strong sea air
The gods love their monsters
New voice-over,
Whispering, guttural,
Crawling across the sandy shelves
Amongst the flowers
And ground poisons
“It has been thought suspicious that my divisions in pure philosophy almost always turn out to be threefold. But that is the nature of the matter.”” – Immanuel Kant (1724-1804).
All the faculties
of the mind:
cognition, (dis)pleasure, desire.
The first is understanding,
a priori lawful
Nature perceived and apprehended.
The second is a feeling
formed by the power of judgment,
the purpose of art.
The third gives reason
to a final end:
Freedom.
“The pleasure in the judgement of taste is therefore certainly dependent on an empirical representation, and cannot be associated a priori with any concept (one cannot determine a priori which object will or will not suit taste, one must try it out); but it is nevertheless the determining ground of this judgement only in virtue of the fact that one is aware that it rests merely on reflection and on the general although only subjective conditions of its correspondence for the cognition of objects in general, for which the form of the object is purposive.” – Immanuel Kant (1724-1804).
Formed by a purposive hand,
I cognize nothing
I perceive nothing
I derive
With apprehension
in play, in play…
We judge with pleasure
And taste a rose
Within a mobile water drop
Inside the crystal stalactite.
“If, however, only the particular is given, for which the universal is to be found, then the power of judgement is merely reflecting.” – Immanuel Kant (1724-1804).
I like
Green beans.
They are
Beautiful.
“If the universal (the rule, the principle, the law) is given, then the power of judgement, which subsumes the particular under it (even when, as a transcendental power of judgement, it provides the conditions a priori in accordance with which alone anything can be subsumed under that universal), is determining.” – Immanuel Kant (1724-1804).
We can never
know the things
In themselves.
This is because
We process
The data of our senses
Through models pre-existing
Deep inside our heads
And retching retching retching
We are all
That is left
Upon the floor.
“The power of judgment in general is the faculty for thinking of the particular as contained under the universal.” – Immanuel Kant (1724-1804).
Red, red rose, I’m painting you but
Thorn of blood has turned you blue, with
Crown of thorns I carried you from
High to lie inside the tomb.
Bring me to you
Another hue
Be my Prussian Blue
Bring me to you
Another hue
My deep Russian blue
Climbing crawl by light of moon my
Eyes they burn too wide too soon as
Flame ignites what shroud wraps you a
New light rise to reach the moon
Hullabaloo
Another tune
My deep Russian blue
All over soon
Lulaylaloon
My deep Russian blue
Black, black bird unfurl to loom and
Headless soar in skies of doom
Red, red fire-eyes bright as moon and
Poison rains from skies in bloom
Bartholomew
Dead fire crew
My deep Russian blue
Black chimney flue
Bone-buried new
My deep Russian blue.
“To seek the real beauty, or real deformity, is as fruitless an enquiry, as to pretend to ascertain the real sweet or the real bitter. … And nothing has been experienced more liable to the revolutions of chance and fashion than these pretended decisions of science.” – David Hume (1711-1776).
Of those who starve and those who eat:
The full soul loath the honeycomb
But every bitter thing is sweet
To those without a bellyful
Declares the man in general
Let pleasure always be
Unexpected, unaccountable
Mirage uncertainty
The poet’s monument of brass
Must fall like common clay
If not it break the daily fast
Regained on each new day
“It is natural for us to seek a Standard of Taste; a rule, by which the various sentiments of men may be reconciled; at least, a decision, afforded, confirming one sentiment, and condemning another.” – David Hume (1711-1776).
He tastes the hogshead wine
She sups then from the same
And all they can divine
Is all that they can name
Beyond the notes of heather
Sweet nectar is debased
By overtones of leather
No, iron aftertaste
Embarrassed condemnation
Of those who judge beauty
Was corked by revelation
Of oxhide thong and key.
“We are apt to call barbarous whatever departs widely from our own taste and apprehension: But soon find the epithet of reproach retorted on us.” – David Hume (1711-1776).
Of Suicide and Immortality
Experience finally unbearable
And yet
What else is there?
You lack a delicacy of imagination
Numb to the prick of beauty’s proper sentiment
And so
Denigrate the guiding stars
Of Astrolabe and Alkoran
prejudice,3
conviction.
3. Unreasonable preconceived judgment
Or:
A certain point of view.
“The metaphysical poets were men of learning, and to shew their learning was their whole endeavour; but, unluckily resolving to shew it in rhyme, instead of writing poetry they only wrote verses, and very often such verses as stood the trial of the finger better than of the ear; for the modulation was so imperfect that they were only found to be verses by counting the syllables” – Samuel Johnson (1709-1784).
We who speak – without ambition
of elegance – only to be understood
Say:
Dissect a sun-beam with a prism
Still you cannot show the wide
Effulgence of a summer noon
stuartjamestaylor 