Poem
Roddy Lumsden
All You Philosophers
All You Philosophers
All You Philosophers
who know the thing about two fingers in the riverknow also about the way the river does not rise
in the mind’s sync. You have persuasioned the river
and known its has is has. You have occasioned
perhaps another river and dimmed it to find
its river essence is other. You know the river
settles for you, if you dream best. That if the river
broaches, it will skim in your best morning dream.
Any river kisses you, for they are easy. You reckon?
A river arrives on the scent skills of my masters,
me being not-philosopher, and it rubs and goes.
If it were Tuesday, I would run down on thoughts
on rivers, but these are the early hours of Saturday
and a river is gunning through what I think of
as my house. The river has two edges, the river
coaxes to completion, these guesses are beyond guess.
The river as philosophy is the book I’ve not written,
okay, or read, but I can see it, sense its only scope.
Rivers and beasts are easy, they hum with all
that childhood left me. Philosophy loses rivers.
I have tried, but I am limited. I meet the grand ones.
But rivers slim by. I have not dived into one.
Casual sex happens by them, as does raucous noise.
The elements, which are among my trusted friends,
tell me rivers, but doubt, which is my harmony,
speaks that all that we say of rivers is nothing much,
is the empty in a pyramid, is the empty in a skull.
© 2014, Roddy Lumsden
Roddy Lumsden
(United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1966)
Roddy Lumsden is a Scottish poet, editor and poetry teacher, based in London, whose championing of several strands in current US poetry has helped to embed its influences in a rapidly broadening contemporary UK scene.
His poetry is marked by a wistful melancholy and self-examination, fractured narratives, and formal inventiveness. His addiction to the minutiae of form is reflected in his not-...
His poetry is marked by a wistful melancholy and self-examination, fractured narratives, and formal inventiveness. His addiction to the minutiae of form is reflected in his not-...
Poems
Poems of Roddy Lumsden
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All You Philosophers
who know the thing about two fingers in the riverknow also about the way the river does not rise
in the mind’s sync. You have persuasioned the river
and known its has is has. You have occasioned
perhaps another river and dimmed it to find
its river essence is other. You know the river
settles for you, if you dream best. That if the river
broaches, it will skim in your best morning dream.
Any river kisses you, for they are easy. You reckon?
A river arrives on the scent skills of my masters,
me being not-philosopher, and it rubs and goes.
If it were Tuesday, I would run down on thoughts
on rivers, but these are the early hours of Saturday
and a river is gunning through what I think of
as my house. The river has two edges, the river
coaxes to completion, these guesses are beyond guess.
The river as philosophy is the book I’ve not written,
okay, or read, but I can see it, sense its only scope.
Rivers and beasts are easy, they hum with all
that childhood left me. Philosophy loses rivers.
I have tried, but I am limited. I meet the grand ones.
But rivers slim by. I have not dived into one.
Casual sex happens by them, as does raucous noise.
The elements, which are among my trusted friends,
tell me rivers, but doubt, which is my harmony,
speaks that all that we say of rivers is nothing much,
is the empty in a pyramid, is the empty in a skull.
All You Philosophers
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