[poem] Everything happens for a reason:

[kaberett]

As a species, we are dedicated
to post hoc rationalisation:
the tidying away of inconvenient emotion
the reduction of the self
to an ordered
             sequence
                     of steps.
If this, then that. Well, no:
everything happens for a reason.
The reason, though, does not come carved deep into stone
(every conceivable dictator
being characterised by sublime indifference):
but is rather what you make of it.
This is what it means to tell the story of your life:
to take your whys and somehow give them form.
This is the solid ground of poetry:
two roads diverged; think, two things, both at once:
and every meaning you create is true
or true enough for now. Is this about...?

Yes. Yes, it is.

If only for this moment, we
are mirrored mirror twins.
I only wish I'd any clue
along which lines I'd break.

Comments

[davidgillon]

Oh. This.
Two ways and everything true makes me think Quantum Physics and Many Worlds Interpretatiom - an unexpected direction for late night poetry and thoughts.

[kaberett]

I'm frustrated that it still doesn't do quite what I want - it feels like it was being awfully recalcitrant - but it's... sort of partway there? "Two things, both at once" is from Homecoming, by Simon Armitage - one of my GCSE Eng Lit set texts. Interestingly, while the syllabus as a whole made me fall in love with poetry, I think I didn't really get the point of Homecoming at the time.

Perhaps I will try to write the essay this poem is attempting to side-step, and see if having done so I can rework this so it is more true to what I mean.

[alexseanchai]

+1

[fyreharper]

I feel as if there ought to be a more appropriate response to this than 'well, f*ck', but, well.

<3

[kaberett]

♥

[cadenzamuse]

I am apparently in a very gentle affectionate sarcastic mood:

I am retitling this poem "Alex invents narrative therapy: a poem."

[kaberett]

works for me. :-)