Sestina № 97027
Dear M Foucault, or, How I knew our relationship was doomed
Do you hold words so dear that
you hold words â so? Dear, that do.
Hold words so dear that you do
words that do hold you so, dear â
so dear. That you hold â Do words,
dear, that do you. Hold words so
that. Do you? (hold words?) So, dear.
42 comments
Leets see, you don't have a nine yet...
btw, there's no words per line limitation in a sestina - maybe in a septina there is....
Its a lot of frickin work and you'll have to fudge the end a bit; prolly not worth it, and besides with all the repetition in this as it is (works fine here) would look like ass after the sestina gets done with it.
1. John R. Searle
2. Michel Foucault
3. Bishop Berkeley
4. Thomas Hobbes - he was a sloppy cunt, State of Nature, State of my arse more like.
5. Jean Jacque Rosseau - credible right up to the part when he started fucking anything that moved including himself.
6. Locke - Would have had slightly more gravitas had his father not locked him up in a cupboard for the first 16 years of his life.
7. Darwin - rubbished in fine style by David Koresh.
8. Ron Atkinson - was for a time revered, however, recent actions have led to a revisionist backlash against what was formerly regarded as gospel.
Furthermore, to think about Wittgenstein's work is to expend hideous amounts of mental effort on a completely useless task. Anyone who is somehow proud of having tried to understand Wittgenstein is either being paid for it, or is so acutely aware of the total waste of time their life has been that they have to tell themselves it was incredibly fulfilling. Studying him as a requirement for a class is no excuse whatsoever.
Philosophers are the best at this, followed by writers. Any decent philosopher has to have noticed that no new idea has been formulated in the field of philosophy since 1) all questions in philosophy are steaming cornucopiae of bow'ls, and 2) this is probably because there's no way to really know anything with any degree of certainty. And maybe 3) there is no God worth thinking much about in this lifetime. As far as I know, all of these were said pretty well in the 19th century, if not before. Naturally, philosophers can't come out and say that or they'd lose tenure, so they've spun it out endlessly in gobbledygook code and hundreds if not thousands of people have lived long comfortable lives doing philosophy instead of having to work in coal mines or something.
That said, certain philosophers probably do think they're saying something new and important. These are the gay ones. The half-decent ones know it's just a game and treat it as such, i.e., Wittgenstein. That's fine. Incidentally, if you think you're life is something more than a game, then it's most likely just a more deadly game, i.e., designing super-cholera or participating in Middle Eastern politics.
I haven't read Wittgenstein since I was required to do so years ago, and I don't think I ever will again. It's sufficient for me to condense his entire body of work into a one-line summary which I use to whiffle-bat anyone who thinks anything means anything.
Also, what is this speech about wouldn't it be ace to be a philosopher? I never said there was anything wrong with professional philosophers. Indeede, I implied that it was OK to feel proud about studing Wittgenstein if you were being paid for it. Nice one!!
"life is a thing in which games take place"
"take place" as "occur", "manifest", "become; become apparent" - it all feels redundant. Games as a thing defined, as having a label and used by language - already exist.
"life is a thing in which games occur(...)" could be:
"life is a thing with games"
Yet, life as a thing has lots of things, in fact, it could be argued that it contains all things (including nothing) - not just games.
So really, it is meaningless to claim it has games. Life has belly-button lint too, but do we really need to state it?
"Life is a thing"
But really, we know life to encompass more than just things, it also contains the set of no-things.
"Life is"
Yet, sometimes it isn't - is that true also? Seriously - if life can contain the thing "no-thing" can it also contain the thing "non life"? And by doing so, does it negate its own existance?
Or rather, does it make it's definition meaningless - or at best - fruitless?
I offer the previous ruminations as proof that defining life is fruitless. As fruitless, at least, as wondering if Foucault would have had nearly the fame he enjoys if he wore a toupee and contacts.
"life is a game" = about 25,000
"life's a game" = about 8,430
TOTAL: 33,430
"life is not a game" = about 5,720
"life isn't a game" = about 588
TOTAL: 6,308
"life is a thing in which games take place" = nil
TOTAL: nil
Having applied a suitably democratic method of inquiring into the merits of your propositions, I find myself in the regrettable position of having to make the following announcement: you fail.
"The truth of a proposition is inversely proportional to the number of idiots who believe it" = nil
TOTAL: nil
Once again you fail.
BCDEFGA /
CDEFGBA /
DGACBEF /
EFGBCAD /
FGABCDE /
GABCDEF.
What the hell is that [all about].
2) Agents do not frequent anything, least of all online workshops.
3) Many of us are already published; you are not.
4) as an adverb, it's "too"; as a preposition, "to". We don't have to be sophisticated to know that.
5) This is a recent comment from the "mature,talented and classy" online poetry workshop, allpoetry.com: "This poem is a great start. I love the last two lines especially [All the time I spend thinking, Is the biggest waste of all.] I certainly know how that feels, spending so much time worrying and thinking it takes a while to realize NOT worrying and thinking so much would have been a lot less stressful and a lot more productive... I share your pain! Anyways the only criticism I have for this piece is: Maybe you could try experimenting with NOT ending almost all the lines in prepositions. Prepositions make things choppier and almost sound like you ended in the middle of an idea without ever getting to the punchline. Anyways, keep writing! I'll be back!"
6) Such comments are crap to the nth degree.
7) You are a nincompoop. Did you see my response to your comment on this page? Do you understand it?
either that, or spend the time brushing up on spelling and grammar.
<meow>
Log in to add a comment.