An apple steadily rolls
across the dinner table,
garners speed and attention,
but my mind is blank,
not a worthwhile idea
to lay a new place for.
The chairs mock
with their emptiness,
as vacant as some white sheet,
both formless without an ident
of humanity,
yet as the apple gathers pace,
rumbles over the edge,
a hand reaches out instinctively,
would that we all could be,
as timely, reactionary.
December 8, 2008 at 9:39 am
I like that the word ‘pace’ brings to mind ‘space’, and that ‘pace’ is a colloquial word for speed, rooting these party Newtonian reflections in the everyday. Although I am grateful that you have shown a political association in the word ‘reaction’ to the law of mechanics, I do not wish we were all reactionary, and wonder why the voice outside the poem does.
December 8, 2008 at 11:23 am
Mark, I guess it depends in what sense or situation reactionary is applied to, in this case it’s refering to the title which is a line from Hamlet on how after death, you lose the name of action. A character, who perhaps, procrastinated too much and reacted too late.
I was just thinking in the poem, how if on occasion we just followed our instincts instead of dwelling over certain matters, it might be a reaction worth following at the time, in the moment, instead of letting slip.
December 9, 2008 at 3:07 am
I love it when you blitz philosophical.
July 20, 2009 at 6:28 pm
interesting material, where such topics do you find? I will often go
March 6, 2010 at 10:44 pm
q9pGD1 Excellent article, I will take note. Many thanks for the story!