The Ethics, Continued

[1] [2]

the essence of things

that cracks open under the weight of a thousand questions

like daggers in the dark[3]-

bright blue day of confidence

turns out

to be a shadow of something else . . .

that something else is behind a screen,

and we’ve created the blue, or the screen,

or both

or everything

or[4] nothing

“There is a proof for that”

sez Spinoza

“and it goes like this[5]:

Jesus died for your sins;

but there are no sins,

no death,

and no Jesus.

There’s a red wheelbarrow,

and maybe Billie the Kid

but fuck that taxonomy, anyway

more or less depends on them

than you’ve been led to believe.[6] [7]”

I awake to a cold bright day

and understand that I am alone[8]

and what is left

is to breathe deep the air

and begin again,

always again[9]

There is another way,

there is always another way.[10]

*           *           *           *           *

Spinoza clears his throat:[11]

“What the masses learned to accept without reason

reason cannot refute.

And pretty baubles and grand gestures

trip the light and sell the rabble[12] [13]

while logic becomes dressed as witchcraft

and is danced

from fear

to shame,

and returns,

hollowed out,

as sham and excuse.[14]

My beautiful mathematics require commitment most find beyond the pale:

Fascists bully words to their own purpose,

while Capitalists simply purchase meaning.

The rest lack all vision.[15]

I sit here in the corpse-colored twilight,

tallow candle a-sputter,

and commit truth to the page

against all odds.”

(Spinoza doesn’t write poetry by the light of day.)

*          *           *          *          *

PART ONE[16]

“There are truths

and they are self-evident.”

Spinoza emerges into a cold dawn

candle extinguished, sheaves of parchment falling from his table,

drifting snow,

flesh snow[17]

“or, as they should be, at least.

Everything follows inexorably,[18] [19]

a calculus of the real,

a shape of what is.

Only fools question the otherwise,

for here is here.”

There is a wave and a shuffle

Spinoza turns his face to the cold sun.

“Your investments mean nothing to me.

Your lineage[20] means nothing to me.

Your rights, your culture,

that house of straw

that you defend with your dying breath?

It means nothing to me.

The essence of mankind

does not involve

the necessary existence of mankind;

this sun cares not that you caper below it.[21] [22]

You are, that’s all.” [23] [24]

Spinoza scrambles off,

rocks spraying from his feet,

then turns for a last salvo:

“The order of things

is the order of thought.

The mind is nothing not constituted by idea.

Idea is the thing,

idea is the flow

mind the machine

buckling down and locking in to the flow.[25]

The idea creates the mind

the mind delimits the idea

and its all connected,

virtually the same . . .

bodies in respect to bodies

machines in respect to machines

bodies assembled

and bodies inscrutable

machines and flows inextricable

from what wellspring?

to what ocean?”

He turned abruptly

to the stone path rising above him

and was gone in a clatter.[26]  [27]

*          *          *          *          *

A word can’t mean two things

it can mean one thing, then another

Or it can mean everything,

or the nothing at the core of everything.[28] [29]

---

[1] as to him alone does existence appertain

[2] PROP. XXV.  God is the efficient cause not only of the existence of things, but also of their essence.

[3] everything

[4] intellect in function     finite      infinite     will

[5] PROP. XXXII. Will cannot be called a free cause, but only a necessary cause.

[6] eternity

[7] imperfection in God

[8] concerning created things

[9] truth

[10] I assume a starting point

[11] they only look for knowledge of the final causes of events

[12] anxious

[13] reduction, not to the impossible, but to ignorance

[14] such persons know that, with the removal of ignorance, the wonder which forms their only available means for approving and preserving their authority would vanish also.

[15] is things corrupt to the point of putridity, loathsome

[16] V.  We feel and perceive no particular things, save bodies and modes of thought

[17] power of God the free will

[18] knowledge of the cause

[19] effect

[20] things are said to exist

[21] PROP. XI.  The first element, which constitutes the actual being of the human mind, is the idea of some particular thing actually existing.

[22] modes of the attributes

[23] We thus comprehend, not only that the human mind is united to the body, but also the nature of the union between mind and body.

[24] nature of our body

[25] large superfices

[26] the human body is affected in a

[27] external body     presence

[28] one possible explanation

[29] I am very far from the truth