he en Lisant Sml

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    pamela swan

    www.poetpam.

    le philosopheen lisant

    Rembrandt - Philosopher Readingphilosophe en lisant

    ...these poems came together from a poster that gracedmy walls for many years...

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    I

    a print -i stare within white bordersto enter cobwebs of a hidden room -yellow-brown reections whisper inthrough a window somewhere out of sight -

    gathering the musty scent into my hairi seean old man sitting -dark brown robeloose bootsa softbound book that needs two arms for full support -bony hands collect the open pagein nger bent protectionalmost white -

    pale face in play of light and shade -downcast eyes intent

    on words i cannot see -

    world within a world within a world -he does not know i stare -he does not see his room -white balding headwhite beard -as if his life lived in the printed wordand clothing light and chair were but an afterthoughtthat grew around his world like a dream -

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    i knew him once in sleep

    as grandfather who smiled distantly -then as fathersilent solemn guide -between the years he grew to self-reectionof a life i lived within my rooms -not me - yet of mecarrying my mindout of confusions to pursue a searchfor answers that no questions could explain -

    beyond me in his silences -within my opening dreams -the yellow warmth of solitude my own -the hidden corners of his room recedegathering the shadows of the oorin secrets that surround himin a prayer of challengesi do not understand -these i enter like a novice

    to absorb and penetratethe growing mystery.

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    halfway caught between realitiesthought-images emerge within my headas if the old man spoke and yet did not -and i am bound againwithin the tunnel of my sight -

    white hair and face merge into halo light -an old and holy mansitting on a stoolback supported by a wooden beam -

    he holds a bible carefullypages worn and curled -

    abovebehind his heada wooden shelfthrown to loose straw and clothin bedding for a night he has not found -

    an evening hour of solitude

    a barren dim-lit room -a brown robed monkin meditation of the holy book -

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    a lion that is almost lambgrows in a mirage from shelf to wall -faint outline brown on brownthat spirals yellow into circulating walls

    like a melody of distant hymns -

    withinbeyondhe reads -no conict arguing the worth of breathor quality of cloth -

    he sits apartas if the room was circled

    timeless in the knowledgeof the deathless lifethat roots in every man.

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    tonightthe hermit studieslonely and obscure -nine lives of tarot walk within his brain -incense of cinnamongathers from the oortowards a hidden source of gold brown light -

    sorcerer of truth

    master of the nighthe rides the shadows into golden dawn -the book of prophecy lives in his handshis eyes consumeelude the printed word -mind diving deep between the linesto penetrate the mystic root of power -

    his whisper weaves as in a closing prayer -out of - into

    hypnotic silences -...de profundus

    a maximus ad minimaet ad extremum...

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    IV

    as an image of my psychethe old man reads -a silent guidewho draws me to explorethe shadows of a secret room -

    i see the moving walls in redgoldbrownas energy as calm as camouage -his wisdom isolatesilluminates

    until out of my blindness i perceivethe chair of my beliefsthe shelf that hides the dreams i dare not speakthe book that writes in centuries around my lifewith words i know but do not understand -

    the old man sitsreading through my mind

    pivoting my energiesto penetrate the darkest corners

    of the earthen oor -

    and when i barricade myselfto cancel violent streets and screaming storeshe sits as company for lonelinessuntil the room grows deepabsorbed withinhis white gold silences.

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    print of a paintingyellow brown

    light and dark in ow -the only ickering of whitecatches between an open book of handsand the sudden forehead of a sage -

    the aging scholar sitsstooped in philosophies -knowing his roomas the creation of his mindthat wraps him earth in dampness

    like an obscure puzzle to be solved -

    listening carefullythe ear can catch the bristles of his breathingbeardwhen it rasps the woven brown that is his robe -no other sound -the stillness rises like a tidethat plans to suffocate -

    ancient concepts rise in moleculesto know that nothing is without its opposite -to balance light the darkness grows immense -

    the outward eye swims through a golden seaof wall escaping into scent of straw -a small shelf warps towards a blackened oortill sight is caught inside an easing shadeto nd againthe old philosopher -

    he studies brown in depthreecting gold -an alchemist of thoughtforever trappedexploring the penumbra of eclipse.

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    VI

    book of agesonion skinin gold edged conictwith the cover -faded cloth bent dulldarkened into years of ngerprints -

    out of the silenceout of black calligraphysymbols pierce the pupilsof an old mans eyes -heavy lidscircled dark from lack of sleephe reads -

    a worn and lonely manhead bentback slouched into shadows -chair and oor absorbed in almost night -

    shnet cobwebs eat the dustinto wooden beamsthe wooden shelfthe straw -in a quiet symphony of red and goldthe dying sun withdraws -

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    when was he young?white hair and white-grey beard -his brown robe wornsplit open at the kneefalling to loose shadows and loose shoes -

    where did he grow -this white haired ghost of childhood?what ambitions carried him

    a solitary searchtrying to dene the camouageof violent thoughts he locked within his skull?

    a golden warm creeps easily into his skin -he readssomewhere at peaceas if the truth he soughtwas captured in the wordshe saw too many times to understand -

    he stares through the reectionsof a life he never sawand yet it seemshe searched too long to care.

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    VII

    staring at the print -the old man -as through a window framei wonderif his wall holds a print of mesitting at my deskfrozen in an image two dimensional -

    perhaps i grew somewhere within his head

    projected in full historyuntil i lived -or maybe both of us existas separate livesas pictures on the wall -

    when i am not here -he nishes his reading -stretches -grabs an apple for a midnight snack -

    pulls his bedding off the shelfand goes to sleep -and when i am spaced deep within a bookhe stares at mewondering my nameand my reality.

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    VII

    as i watch it seemsthe wandering jew lives quietlysilentlywithin the picture frame -

    two thousand years of wanderingto bethe rebel born to some forgotten cause -grown old and agelessin solitary thought

    that holds him exile to the common ow -

    all names are his -unbelieverwho knew where not to believe -once called hereticuntil he disappeared and someone else was foundto take his place -

    then called eccentric

    except the rich alonehold the excuse for eccentricity -owning nothing but his robeand one worn bookthe world called him crazyand let him be -

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    now he lives in solitudesomewhere forgotten in a corner of the earth -nothing owned leaves nothing to be lost -mellow gold and brownwith sun for company -a cave made room for sheltera stump for stool -a shelf for strawloose stufng for a mattresssomewhere invisibleand his needs are met -

    for luxuryone bookin which his mind can travelthe dimensions of word metaphor -

    nothing lost

    nothing gained -he waits some miracle of starsto be recalled to wanderingas lonely prophetechoing deaf ears.

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    who is he?this old manthat someone painted to createa world once removed?

    is he a god?the fringe of hair that wraps around his headlike fuzzed remnants of white wool -the grey white beard that rests upon his robe -the puckered forehead

    bony ngersgather to project illusions of antiquity -

    the hidden sundenes a wrinkled wallto collect an eerie trinity of lightin white to yellowbrown to black -the black predominates -

    what does he read?the book rests heavily between his handsas if the weight of words had curled page and coverin omens of a shadowed destiny -

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    this is no book for sun -it gathers darkness like a promiseunfullled -a strange mythology recalling sui-cides

    between the heroes history denied -

    above the old mans heada shelf half emptywaiting between straw and shadeto hide the book from eyesuntil the fragile pages crumble intodust -

    face worn beyond his years

    the old man reads-one step outside of time -his knowledge threading secretsthat leave imagination blind.

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    riddle put to light and shadelike old man of the moongrown between refractionsthat disturb a nowhere sun -

    his earth wall pivots memoriesof ridge and pit reliefyellow-brown-red-black emergewhere colour never lived -

    stray smoke gathers slowlywhere no re can be foundgathering as in a cloudthat has no word for rain -

    there is no age without the childno word for sleep where sleep is notno voice within the echoof a silence born in thought -

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    the old man reads an empty bookone nger drew in blood -where no one traced the death of lifelife is not understood -

    straw that is not straw recallsa shelf above his headtrapping wooden memoriesof shape without a form -

    he rides the shadows like a chairno eyes have ever seen -weaves a robe from darknessthat his knowledge never owned -

    somehow a shoe that knows no toeout of a time that time forgot -somewhere a oor that never was -he is where all is not.

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    tonight the picture burnsred gold smouldering -wearyomnipotentthe old man does not move -

    tonight he is prometheusthat great father of the godswho createdform out of the formless

    making men -he gave them reto hide their helplessness -

    now he sits in haze of smoke and heatthe human world burns -he does not turn -out of his stillnesssmoke eats into cloudbalance out of chaos

    re bound by ood -

    the book of destiny is in his hands -he marks the centurythat writes him cruciedfor creativity.

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    XII

    just an old mansittingreading -

    no familyno friends -those he knewhave died or disappeared -

    too tired

    to begin againhe readsto escapethe connes of mortality -

    he is wisebut none ask for his wisdom -he is oldbut no one notices -

    secludedin his austere roomforgottenby the world -

    not happynot unhappyan old man reads.