Roger’s Reality: A bit of poetry

Upon waking Wednesday

By Roger Owens










With our penchant for neo-syllogisms,
We feed the man behind the mask.
The One, Who could save us, if He only would.
Ex nihilo nihil fit,             
Not the modern, positive call of the vacant, nervous believer
Whistling past the boneyard; no.
No; not Lucretius’ misconstrued, patronizing optimism,
That nothing comes from nothing, so
Everything had to come from something, right?
We came from something, so we must be going to something.
Right? But Parmenides, his bust, so similar to
Aristotle, both carved by the great sculptor Lysippos; he sadly shakes
His shaggy head, his blind eyes seeing all and, seeing, compelled
To say no, my child, there is no man behind that mask.

Parmenides

Aristotle

Not “Nothing comes from nothing,” but rather,
“From nothing, comes nothing,” a far older, darker dread;
For, after all, He does not save us, does He?
He only looks on, eyes as blind as Parmenides’,
While we weave our hopeful, believing way toward oblivion;
We come from Nothing, and to Nothing we will go.

Copyright © 2018 by Roger Owens