the vertigo of ontology / there is the self (diptych)

(March 2022. Phone notes from a beach in Rincon, Puerto Rico. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to split this into two different poems for two different core ideas, or keep them together because I wrote them at the same time. In the end I did both. I may change my mind.)

i)

poesis is
to fill in the implications of the language
to produce what is possible
to see what could be said

although i have not chosen
all that has touched me
i will choose
all i touch

have you felt the vertigo of ontology?
have you looked through your feet
to see the steepness of history,
the endless distance of stretching shadow
upon which you stand,
from which you fall
forever into presence?

ii)

there is the self like dark ocean
the unfathomable depths immense
infinity crashing itself
the unspeakable speaking too many names in the night
resolving into the dull roar of identitilessness

there is the self like lights and people
the brightness of the beckoning hearth
the feeling of a center, a fire, a tribe,
a restaurant up the beach
yellow with music and merry fellowship,
the self that can laugh and play roles
and find contentment in parthood,
happiness in crumpling infinity to trade
for finite brightness as a fragile cluster
of nebulous stars for now shining

here is the self like a shoreline,
changing shape with each crashing wave,
and sitting here on this sand
between two selves,
semipermeable,
i think that the soul
is a social solitude