to be incapturable

nothing is pure.

nothing is so, so, pure.

nothing is pure, and nothing, is not--

              is(n’t) (im)pure 

no, thing, is.

not a thing--

To be weighted with meaning is to be weighted with lack.

to be is to be lacking.

To lack is to sink, 

to touch and be touched,

To affect and be effected.

To be stopped by a period or

pursed between parentheses or

slowed by a comma 

is to be shackled to effect.

a noun can be weighed, a verb ripples through non-energy, and the weighing and the rippling violates the treatise of non-existence.

Bringing myself into this defines the state of being I’d rather not conjure, but--

The opposite of is,

is precisely what I want (not) to be.

Unfortunately, 

the opposite of is is usually is not, 

but even is not attempts to define one’s (lack of) being.

Being is confining, 

So frankly, I’d prefer to simply not.

I’d prefer not to prefer,

I’d prefer not to rely on verbs and nouns and adjectives given that description implies percievability.

When the only (non-)quality a (non-)thing has is indescription, it unbecomes.

And I don’t mean the indescribability people too often toss onto perfectly describable objects that have merely rendered them speechless--

When I say indescribable, I mean 

incapturable.

Even the pause that doesn’t (does not not, not, is and doesn’t) exist after the press of a question mark--

Even the hemispherical untouchable clarity of space behind eyes that face only air, when the evocation of imagery becomes impossible--

Even the existential push-apart triggered by exhalation--

Even the forgotten place of a limb long-ago numbed by novocaine--

Even the sudden suspension of sound without echo--

Even the briefest non-moment of a slightly longer-than-normal blink--

They lack, and my attempt to describe these nearly-non-things is almost violent, in that I am quite literally sentencing them to describability.

Nevertheless, it is as close as I can come to picturing a non-picturable thing, and I’ve done it more for your benefit than for mine.

To be is not, not is not, is not is not.

To be, is not.

Not to be--

To exist is to be--

To be is not--

Not to be.

(There is beauty in being, however. I’d only like to avoid existence within the context of self-- existence in full-connection to surroundings or earth or universe goes beyond the bounds of what the word “perfection” can describe. It is incapturable, and that is as far as I will go. Further explanation risks evoking tangibility.)

Author's Note

October 23, 2021 at 5:34pm

A little pretentious..

Reviews

[Jargyn]

"They lack, and my attempt to describe these nearly-non-things is almost violent, in that I am quite literally sentencing them to describability." do not worry my friend, you are not sentencing them to describability, you are merely replacing them with something there but not quite- warping their image. the more you describe the undescribable, the quicker it slips through your fingers and soon all you have left is the gunkish pile of words that you will never be able to unsee, the undescribable no longer recognizable when all that is left is your mind's muddying of it.

probably completely off track from your original intentions but that line just reminded me of the abstract undescribable things that are close to your mind, but the more you try to comprehend them and see them better the further they get from you and all you're left with is a mossy, colorfully distant shell of what it originally was. like dreams.
lovely poem I'll keep coming back to this one