Monday, August 27, 2007

April 29, 2005 - Tenuous

This theme had been swimming in my head, but it was incomplete until the rediscovery of the words of Sophocles. *No relation between these words and this powerful film.*




Tenuous



For Ralos



The prophet is brother to the heretic

One is an artist the other a poet

Both make clear through obscurity



They speak of what no other know

Whispers of truth in their ear

Only to proclaim ambiguous

They can do no more

Blessed are those who seek

Do not ask

Do not ask

He has done his task

To coerce him to explain

Is to pluck a butterfly’s wings

For he knows no more than you

To shut him up

Is to cloak the earth from darkness



Be not fooled by erudition

Be not entranced by esoteric metaphor

He knows less than you

He seeks only to evoke confusion

To intimidate to submission

The blind leads his trusting disciples

Close not your eyes

Strain your ears for what you cannot hear

Listen for the hollow echo within his soul

“Whoever thinks he alone possesses intelligence,

the gift of eloquence, he and no one else,

and character too…such men, I tell you,

spread them open—you will find them empty.” (from Antigone by Sophocles)



One is an artist the other a poet

Both make clear through obscurity

The prophet is brother to the heretic

Tenuous is the line that divides

Oft they don each other’s raiment

One suffocates the truth

The other grants vision through his kaleidoscope



The line is tenuous. Which are you.

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