In response to rozk

[avevale_intelligencer]

A friend tells me that, if there is no soul,
There is no clash of body against mind.
I hate to be contentious, but I find
The case is rather different, on the whole.

For flesh and mind are clashing all the time;
The flesh says "eat!", the mind says "lose some weight."
The mind cries "run!", the flesh drones "vegetate,"
The soul is no wise guilty of this crime.

Am I the athlete who desires to run,
Or else the slugabed who yearns for quiet?
Do I crave food, or would I rather diet?
The I that speaks is both, and neither one.

When flesh and mind contend with shouts obscene
I place the soul--the self--smack in between.

Comments

[rozk.livejournal.com]

The body and the mind are the two hands
that weave the self between them, interplay
a dialogue that may change day to day
creates consistency. Self understands

what neither flesh nor mind can apprehend
yet is a fiction and a referee
yet needs to be reined in. So fluently
its guesses become fantasies and end

in things we cannot know, that are not there
-God, Hell and Heaven - all ways to deny
the simple tasks life gives us. Mortify
the flesh, confuse the mind. Hope and despair.

The self's a servant. Use it, never let
it rule, or you will die full of regret.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Regret's a tune to which we all must dance
Before the measure's ended, I would say.
And if the self's a servant too, who'll pay
The piper? Who's in charge here? Circumstance?

The flesh, the mind, are tools that One must wield,
Are horses to the chariot One must drive.
Or else, who uses? What here is alive?
Endless recursion never has appealed

To me. The buck stops somewhere. Call it soul,
Or self, or "I", or what may float your boat,
Conceived anew, or learned by ancient rote;
Something there is that makes our parts a whole,

Weaves fantasies, weighs truth with subtle skill;
Perhaps we might agree to call it "will"?


I doubt if we'll ever reach a consensus, but there might be a slim volume in this if we play our cards right. :D

[dickgloucester.livejournal.com]

I feel like a bystander at the Tudor court.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

I don't know where you'll get one at this time of night...

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Splutter! Please don't say things like that while I'm drinking *g*.

(I really envy the way you (two, or is it one?) can write this sort of thing. The highest I get in writing poetry is limericks.)

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

It's definitely two. rozk is a respected literary figure and way out of my league as a poet; I suspect my side is taking a lot more effort to produce than hers is.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

From where I sit you are all one, I've never seen the two of you together *g*.

[batyatoon]

See icon.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

My work here is done. :)

[rozk.livejournal.com]

There isn't any One. There is a void.
Part of the flesh, which we will call the mind,
argues back with the flesh that lies behind
its every subtlety. Gets quite annoyed

at having to be fed and given air,
The flesh copes with the mind. They get along,
but chatter back and forth might come out wrong.
And so the self, which is not really there

but marks the places where they disagree
and arbitrates perhaps. We also know
that when we die we do not change and grow
but rot. The self has no eternity

The body sleeps at night; and thinking seems
to go on. But we have no self in dreams.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

And so that which is not there arbitrates.
Perhaps. Although it seems a stretch to me.
But then, I know that something I can't see
Is held by many of my dearest mates

To rule the universe. I have no view
On that; and if we "know" we only rot,
(That's "knowledge" which in my case I've not got)
So be it. Nonetheless, I'm one, not two.

I arbitrate between the mind and flesh
And I am here. And so are you, I think.
Between the thought and substance, there's a link
Where those most unlike things conjoin and mesh.

Say "void," say "self," and round we go again;
No self in dreams? All right, who dreams them then?

[dickgloucester.livejournal.com]

*applauds* Adding to memories.

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

*DITTO* And likewise.

Who is answering? -- Who is asking?

No mirror will show this questing face itself.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

To find oneself, there must be one to seek.
Nasrudin gallops through the darkened streets
Upon his steed; when questioned why, he bleats
"I'm looking for my donkey!" When we speak

Of soul, we mean a thousand different things.
Some say we are our memories, some our will,
And some say void; and yet I wonder still
What joy, what truth, this spartan credo brings.

Whenever, in the span of human days,
We have declared that "this is all there be,"
We have been wrong. Some few have dared to see
Horizons new beyond our trodden ways.

This has been so throughout the world; and thus
I dare to think it might be true of us.

[filkerbaby.livejournal.com]

This is brilliant. Please continue.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Alas, I can't. My adversary's gone.
She's better things to do than bandy rhyme
With plebs like me. I've trespassed on her time
Enough, I think; but how can I go on?

My mill lacks grist; one cog cannot engage;
It twizzles blindly till the bearings smoke.
To say I'd won would be a hollow joke,
So this will be the last verse on this page.

The question--soul, or none--stands unresolved.
I still believe some such thing must exist,
For every tale needs a protagonist
Through whom the audience may get involved.

But who then is the audience? Don't ask me;
That answer's not in my philosophy.