the waiter sets down

the waiter sets down

the waiter sets down the beer
which is filled with sunlight

you place your hand
in the raspberry bowl
and mix in the cream

I used to drink
I used to enjoy the cream

but then the bright light burned
my eyes
and the cream froze
my teeth

and the chill
met with this burning

until
like Milton
the darkness becomes
something palpable

-Jeremy Nathan Marks

Chomsky-Foucault Debate

I have decided to keep with the “philosophy theme” here so I have posted the famous 1971 debate on Dutch television between Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky. This debate is available in book form and the book contains supplementary essays by both men which are enlightening and explore many of the topics raised in this discussion in greater detail. It is an enlightening debate which makes for a challenging but rewarding read.

There is no way to summarize this exchange, there is simply too much at play here. However, the debate covers topics like freedom, free will, the development of language, the use of “power” and the subject of anarchism. If you have the time to watch this you will not be disappointed.

A documentary on Martin Heidegger

I have been increasingly engaging with Heidegger’s thought over the last few years. Right now I am dealing with George Parkin Grant’s encounter with Heidegger’s work in my doctoral dissertation. It is a riveting -and difficult- subject. Heidegger makes the point -which Grant supports- that politics is impossible in the modern technological society. I have seen evidence of this in many places, including in my extensive reading of Noam Chomsky.

Martin Heidegger’s book The Question Concerning Technology is one of the most fascinating and challenging works I have ever encountered. I first read it three years ago and it has permanently altered the way I understand technology and think about modern poetry. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Heidegger’s examination of technology and poetry in that book has driven much of this blog, The Sand County. I often think that my poetry is my attempt to work through many of the questions Heidegger has encouraged in my thinking. When I read him I found that many of my own questions about the human interaction with the natural world and the role of traditional, Biblical morality in that interaction are covered in that book and elsewhere in his writings and lectures.

I think it took me some time to begin approaching Heidegger because he casts such an intimidating shadow because his thought is so rigorous. I can honestly say that he is perhaps the hardest but most illuminating reading I have ever undertaken.

The Desert

The Desert

The desert with its teeth
shoved its grit into my gums

and the high country cartilage
made me sprain all that
I had remaining

but still I scaled a molar
and now can gape
at my throat and into the sea

but before I meet the water
I still must feel
the heavier-than-the-air

salts blowing in on
the full sun

and then still there is that
one last peninsula
little larger than my finger

here

I won’t scale it
perhaps I won’t even sail it
but there are boats

that I am sending
and they move straight
past its point

they turn a corner
of humid and angry green
falling off into a pacific sea

Until all there is are their sails

and I know how they are mine
for they unfurl white flags
and their pilots shout

“Here is the last great desert!”

-Jeremy Nathan Marks

The woman on the roof

The woman on the roof

The woman on the roof
of the world

Drops dimes of light
that embed

I stand over the balcony
with tear drops

The grass gestures
with a whisper

-Jeremy Nathan Marks

the frogs in their pond

the frogs in their pond

sitting out on the patio
under the blossoming tree
eating a bowl of walnuts

the whole earth
and its history
fills my mouth

I intake one breath
and hold it for three
tasting every stage
of a coming into being

but then I hear
once I’ve exhaled
the frogs down
at their pond

and I remember
sunrise in a frog’s eye
and frost on
a frog’s skin

that slow peeping of her metabolism

then the whole earth
and its history
is simply one thought
and it fills only my mouth

and my mind starts
wandering again
pressed on by the frogs
crossing my meditation

-Jeremy Nathan Marks

I dig my thumb

I dig my thumb