Analysis of The Thought That Lingers: Part Five
Karl Constantine FOLKES 1935 (Portland)
The thought that lingers perpetually,
is quest of man to know himself:
the ontology of his beginnings;
of his descent and his ascent;
of his being and his becoming.
This quest itself holds man in dread;
of thought of his fragile existence;
of Being and of Nothingness;
of ego-self and of his Other-Self;
the part of him that remains hidden.
Man’s dread is that of emptiness;
fearing that Self, he calls it Nothingness;
the Self that’s lodged within;
the Self man ironically dodges.
that is man’s innermost Being.
He sees that Self as Nothingness,
sensing that it governs him
in ways he does not understand.
And so he turns to ego
as his most loyal ally.
Of Being; dreading Nothingness,
man dreads what lies beyond him;
beyond man’s outer knowledge;
causing him to pause; reflect:
soliloquy of Hamlet and Hegel.
That is the question of sobriety;
of men bent on arcane knowledge:
of Don Quijote, Man of La Mancha;
the Buddha; yearning for man’s freedom.
A question stained with human sadness.
That is the question of statesmen.
That is the question of philosphers;
of Socrates and Jean-Paul Sartre.
The question of all those who wonder,
is that posed by the human mind.
That is the question of this moment;
enjoined by you to consider;
or at least for you to ponder.
just for a moment; and no longer;
of your Being and your Becoming.
That is indeed the question of us all;
The ultimate existential question;
The question posed by modern man:
How free is modern man in Self
of Being and of Nothingness?
Man dreams eternally of finding Hope;
strutting about in wonderment;
searching the darkness to find light;
hovering the Betwixt and the Between;
searching liminal spaces for brighter light.
From here to there; and there to here,
in flotsam, jetsam life of paradox,
man searches for the gift of free will.
Perched on a stage of his own making,
man-of-ego mutters: “I think; therefore I am.”
Man’s myriad thoughts make him a hero;
a hero of his elevated self.
Puffed up, man has no need of Inner Self;
of that subterranean hidden Self.
He mocks his paradise in ego countenance.
But what are we; and who are we,
if really, really nothing more
than Adamic, modern ego-man,
seeking that Edenic paradise we lost;
a paradise lost; yet to be regained?
That innocence, upon reflection,
has never quite abandoned us.
Though we have ‘missed the mark,’
the pathways to our inner core
lay hidden, waiting to be discovered.
Encapsulated is the Self bequeathed to us.
Its royal residence is known as psyche;
our sacred innermost Self of Being;
a precinct of Hope; our Pandora’s Box;
our immortal gift without measure.
We seek eternally that prize;
to purchase what is priceless gift.
We’d even sacrifice our mortal souls,
with Faustian promises of wealth,
to gain what is our native birthright.
Ego-will is false gift that blinds us.
Offering much, though shadow of true light;
the healing light stored within us,
as treasure that is made of spirit Self:
Container of the is, was; and ever shall be.
Our foolish thoughts deceive the promised gift;
the priceless prize of our Being and Becoming;
leaving us in a precipice
of the Betwixt and the Between;
abandoned in the abyss of despair.
The abyss of our darkened thoughts
is where we begin to suffer;
losing memories of our native Self;
of our undivided wholesome Self;
our unifying individuated Self.
In such a space we conjure up strange theories;
imaging worlds made by our own egos.
Our thoughts become our own realities,
refashioning our Being and our Becoming.
We become what our ego tells us we are.
As vagrant wanderers we search in vain
to ennoble a Theory of Everything
that, in reality, is not of everything;
but nucleic theory that’s incomplete
of Self — impacted only by our egos.
A self bereft of Self is not the psyche.
How can the archetypal image
become the archetype it/Self;
the part become the whole?
That cannot be a Theory of Everything.
No reason and no measurement
can know the all-encompassing Self;
that surpasses all introspection;
where silent thought, joined by spirit,
is made manifest as Taoist Self.
Ever fashioning new-found theories,
man seeks to know the prize of Self;
employing a multitude of sciences;
an array of ten thousand philosophies;
of finding that golden Self within.
The thought that lingers never rests;
remaining ever brewing
in liminal spaces of the mind;
in liminal spaces of the Betwixt
and the Between of inner Self.
The thought that lingers is our ignorance;
the ignorance of our inheritance;
not remembering what mortal beings,
have been, potentially, as sacred vessels;
removed from individuated selves.
A self divided cannot stand.
Neglecting inner Self, it falls;
like Humpty Dumpty on a wall;
becoming shadow of its Self;
a Being without Becoming.
The thought that lingers perpetually,
is quest of man to know himself:
the ontology of his beginnings;
of his descent and his ascent;
of his being and his becoming.
Scheme | ABCdE xfGbh ggixe gjklx gjmxx amnxg icnop qoooe rhsbG xqtut xvxex lbbbf awsxx hgxwx gaevo xxxxt gtgba xegux xobbb yzyex xeexz ambxe qbhxb ybxyi xepxb ffcxx kxrbe ABCdE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (22%) |
Metre | 0111001000 11111101 0010011010 11010101 111001010 11011101 111110010 11001100 1101011101 011110110 11111100 1011111100 011101 011010010 1111010 11111100 1011101 0111101 0111110 1111010 11010100 1111011 0111010 1011101 0100110010 1101010100 1111110 11111110 010101110 010111010 11010110 1101011 11001110 010111110 11110101 110101110 01111010 11111110 110100110 111001010 1101010111 01001010 01011101 11110101 11001100 1101001101 10010100 10010111 1000010001 101101101 11110111 01011110 110101111 110111110 11101011111 1100111010 010111001 1111111101 1100100101 11110010100 11110111 11010101 1110101 10111011 010111101 110001010 11010101 111101 01110101 1101011010 01001010111 11010011110 1010101110 01111011 1001010110 11010011 11011101 1101010101 11010011 111110101 101111111 100111111 01011011 1101111101 010101101011 10101010101 0101110100010 10100100 10010001 0100001101 001110101 11101110 10100110101 110010101 1010011 01011101110 10011110110 1010110110 11010010010 101110101111 1101001101 1010010110 101011110 1010101001 11101011010 01011111010 11011010 0101011 010101 1101010110 11001100 110101001 10101010 11011110 11101101 101001110 11110111 0100101100 10111100100 110110101 01110101 0101010 0110101 01101001 00011101 01110110100 01001100100 1010011010 11010011010 01111 01010101 01010111 11010101 0101111 01001010 0111001000 11111101 0010011010 11010101 111001010 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 4,978 |
Words | 995 |
Sentences | 46 |
Stanzas | 28 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 |
Lines Amount | 140 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 139 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 30 |
About this poem
This poem, “The Thought That Lingers: Part Five,” is Part Five of a collection of twelve poems laden with interconnecting ideas. The interweaving central theme of the entire series of poems is that of “The Thought That Lingers “ (hence the umbrella title of the entire collection), forming altogether an anthology of metaphysical, philosophical, existential poetry that was composed in the year 2000, and is now published online on poetry.com for public consumption.
Written on May 05, 2000
Submitted by karlcfolkes on April 10, 2023
Modified by karlcfolkes on April 11, 2023
- 4:58 min read
- 379 Views
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"The Thought That Lingers: Part Five" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/156608/the-thought-that-lingers%3A-part-five>.
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