Martin Smallridge's Blog

Postcards from the End of Time

Le Bord du destin, 1836–38 · Samuel Colman
Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, USA

I am after seeing the universe drown, and the vision settles on my chest like peat smoke in a wool coat, so it does. Late light slips across the glass; the sound from the street fades to a hush that knows both courage and prayer. A library holds the room together with its timber ribs and the long breath of paper. Shelves stand like patient regiments. Great tables welcome elbows and thought. Leather and glue mingle with the sweetness of dust. That calm expands, and then the first dark stain appears on the parquet, slow as an incoming tide with perfect manners. It edges forward, sure-footed as a clerk with a ledger, and makes treaty with gravity. Every inch announces the arrival of a power that accepts no rival and seeks no applause. The water does its work with the solemn ease of an old profession, and the books acknowledge the appointment by lifting the faint smell of ink into the air. This house of learning always lived as more than a building. It offered a map of the cosmos as we wished the cosmos to behave: ordered shelves, exact catalogues, spines aligned like constellations, footnotes glowing like familiar stars. The architecture steadied more than beams; it steadied the heart. Each book carried a world; each shelf carried a galaxy; the whole created a universe curated by the will to understand. Borges lingers in the corner like a quiet uncle with a key to eternity, and the reading room grows into a heaven with windows. The moment the flood enters, that careful astronomy softens. Water rises with the calm of a priest; shape yields to an element without edges; the great hall receives a baptism it never requested. A buried dream surfaces: the dream of being overwhelmed and carried, the old fear that comes when a sleeper feels a wave climb the stairs of the mind. The current moves with grey patience, licks the spines of encyclopaedias, climbs the legs of oaken tables that supported generations who leaned, curled small as foetuses over the page, and begins its precise liturgy of erasure.

Beauty walks beside the wreckage and claims equal authority. The inks loosen and run toward evening colours: bruised violet, bell-blue, a smoke of mulberry and wine. A thousand thousand pages release pigment and breath into one wide river that glows with its own dusk. Paper succumbs with a sound that resembles a sigh through cupped hands. Columns of print loosen and drift; serif becomes wave; logic turns to weather; argument enters a season of rain. A cleansing goes about its business, a purification with deep memory that reaches clay before it accepted any shape. The collected memory of our species tilts into suspension, a lively slurry of fibre and colour. Temples of knowledge never admitted fragility in their brochures; the flood supplies the missing paragraph, and the lesson arrives without malice. We watch a smaller theatre of endings every week on screens and applaud the choreography. Meanwhile slow apocalypses proceed in ordinary rooms. The collapse of a library erases cherished artefacts, first editions, marginalia where great minds cleared their throats, receipts from the soul’s shop. The severing of that thread carries grief; the severing also opens a quiet in which a person breathes more deeply, as if the mind acquired new gills.

From the grand theatre the gaze drops to a single survivor. Amid the gentle rotation of a half-drowned globe, a fragment of heavy cream paper turns with improbable grace. One character sits upon it, stark and black against the pale field. Here lives the smallest working engine in the workshop of meaning, a grapheme, an atom of language that keeps its edge inside the flood. Catalogues pass into broth. Epics settle into pulp. Stern treatises release their arguments like flocks taking to air and vanish into colour. This one letter persists. It carries the latent power of an unread message, the ghost-light of intention. A whisper moves from one soul toward another across the water. Meaning remains unwritten and entirely present. Perhaps the mark begins a beginning; perhaps it answers for a wound; perhaps it opens a mouth into a circle of astonishment. Stripped of every sentence that once granted it company, the sign offers itself as a vessel for everything lost. The letter becomes a reliquary that holds the absence of a system and the presence of a hand.

Endings fascinate us because story governs our lungs. People breathe by narrative, and narrative inclines toward a last chord the way a river inclines toward sea. Apocalyptic tales offer a shelter where dread rehearses itself safely. A frame appears: a start, a knot, a closing cadence. The final page eases the ache that suspense breeds and grants the relief of completion. The full stop presses a small stone into the palm, and the heart closes its fingers around that reassurance. The greatest conclusion of all, the grand ending of worlds, grants coherence to the scatter of days and raises a promise that renewal arrives just beyond the firebreak. Floods cleanse and carry a new generation of seed. Flames purge husk and leave room for fresh shoots. Structures collapse and the cleared field invites a more gracious architecture. Stories about endings therefore work as manuals for resilience. People love to imagine a place within that trial: a refuge on high ground, a companion found at the worst hour, a pot of soup that tastes of courage, love that glows hotter against a rough horizon.

Another consolation steps forward and carries a thorn in its palm. A mind fixed upon a single transforming event receives a holiday from duty. Focus narrows to kairos, that rip in time that welcomes decisive action, and the slow labour of repairs takes a seat on the bench. The fantasy of the end behaves like absolution and hands out unearned leave. A sentence begins to travel from mouth to mouth: the structure failed forever; the scale exceeds remedy; corruption gnaws at every beam; cleansing fire would shorten the argument. A delicious clarity follows and splits the field into pure brightness and wicked shadow. That clarity seduces. The dream of a clean slate sparkles, and the page from tomorrow looks whiter than fresh linen. Desire for a final page grows into a habit and the habit drains fuel from the hard middle chapters where care learns rhythm, where neighbourliness grows bone, where mending becomes art. The longing for decisive conclusion turns into a theatre in which collective death appears with the wings of salvation. A dangerous sweetness rides that performance; the ticket costs a city. We live inside those middle chapters and the paper grows heavy with water. A smaller apocalypse continues in plain view, familiar as rain on slate. Mark Fisher, may the earth lie easy over him, left a phrase that serves as a compass in fog: capitalist realism. The phrase names a climate that surrounds thought and directs desire, a weather that encourages maintenance rather than invention. A sense circulates that one arrangement owns tomorrow, that novelty amounts to replacement rather than reimagining, that the imagination serves retail. A saying rolls through conversations in studios and pubs: imagining the end of the world comes easier than imagining the end of that arrangement. The flooded library plays like a parable for that paralysis. Great blueprints and revolutionary sermons melt into illegible pulp; proposals for other mornings drift through the hall like smoke; the mind feels marooned inside a present that repeats itself with a professional smile. The single floating letter addresses that weariness with cheerful stubbornness and winks like a postcard stamped at the edge of time.

So what follows for a reader who holds that survivor and studies the single sign while the room murmurs with water? We study the mark until counsel rises. We turn it as a rosary bead while thought walks. We welcome the eloquence of endurance. Artefacts that pass through ordeal and keep their edges radiate a steady beauty. The language that carries these lines springs from endurance as well. Hiberno-English arrived through pressure and learned to sing inside a borrowed instrument. A people accepted a master’s tongue and laced it with local memory, saints and cattle, field names and sly wit, the first person and the plural, the laugh that softens an argument. That braid holds; that braid sings. A lesson rises from that survival. Grand systems tilt and fall; small gestures keep meaning alive; one letter can lift the roof for a minute and let light in. Solace grows from particulars. A letter that refuses surrender. A torn recipe with butter stains that guide a winter kitchen. A parish air carried by three neighbours and a kettle. A shoreline field where a book once dried on a rope between two hawthorns. A historian closes the cover on the dream of a universal archive and pockets a homemade edition written by the heart. A young scholar copies a paragraph and keeps it as a talisman. A child learns a proverb from a grandparent and gifts it years later on a bridge where a friend stares at water. A printer reaches into the flood and rescues a page; the page goes between boards and waits. Meaning survives through such acts with stubborn grace. A culture survives through the circulation of short, faithful gestures. A people survives through the habit of handing a thing of worth to another with ceremony and craic.

The room goes deeper into water and a mild composure settles on the scene. Light from a high window talks to the brown surface. Dust floats like pollen across a drowned atlas, and the continents blur into a single patience. A chair tips, rights itself, and glides toward a case where pamphlets once argued with perfect manners. A name swims past: a martyr, a mathematics master, a lover who signed flyleaves with a flourish. Everything loosens and enters a dance with the current. Calm expands because the worst arrived and passed. Calm deepens because attention returns to the one survivor rather than a thousand losses. A person learns to keep eyes on what remains, the way a sailor keeps eyes on the small bright ring that marks the harbour mouth. Across the island a whisper answers with durable cheer: keep going. Keep a hand on the rope and the rope guides your steps through smoke. Keep a hand on the sentence and the sentence leads you home. We carry a phrase for that stubborn company — mar iad a maireann — the ones who remain. The letter belongs with that crowd. So do the scribblers who work the margins through long weather while the wind hums at the sash. So do the binders who stitch folios with thread and faith. So do the readers who whistle on the road and carry a book like a loaf. Work goes on. Love learns additional names. The craft of attention proves itself again and again on ordinary Tuesdays. I walk through the flooded hall with their company around me and feel a lively fellowship. Scholars wave from ladders as if the rungs floated through time rather than air. A poet with a sea-stained coat leans on a table and offers a line about rain that always arrives sideways. A philosopher clears the throat, raises a finger, and points toward the floating mark. Agreement spreads around the room in a warm ripple: begin from there. Build a word. Offer a blessing. Speak a truth that fits inside one breath. Pass it along. Attach courage to grammar and grace to cadence. No committee meeting lasts as long as that decision. The method reveals itself with unadorned simplicity and serious demand: tend to the smallest unit with care, and then join it to a companion with care again.

I raise the letter in imagination and hold it to the skylight. Water rounds it with a tender sheen and reveals the fine grain within the cream, as delicate as the lines on a palm. A black stroke rests upon it with the weight of a small oar. The mark feels both ancient and newborn. It remembers the scriptorium’s lamp, the schoolroom’s bell, the kitchen ledger that measured eggs and tobacco, the ticket window with its brass rail, the love note placed in a pocket before a journey west. It volunteers for any duty the future assigns. From that readiness a method blossoms: shape tomorrow from single strokes; write a livelihood for meaning from letters that behave like good neighbours; build a sentence that bears weight the way a beam bears weight and sings while bearing it. A message travels through the flood with a smile of calm: grandeur yields to fidelity. Systems loosen; gestures endure. The ocean arrives; a pebble in the pocket keeps its shape. Memory thins into water; intention holds. Great houses drown; readers appear in doorways with candles, with boots wet to the ankles, with grins that say, sure, we keep going. This country learned that art across centuries of pressure. People here turned loss into style, difficulty into music, a borrowed language into a fiddle tuned for home airs and dances that lift floors. Every parish carries another proof that endurance breeds ornament, that care breeds its own grandeur.

I leave the library with the mark in mind and step onto a street rinsed with after-rain. Clouds lift and show their bellies like seals. Puddles gather starlets of sky. A boy on a bicycle carries a loaf under his arm like a medal. A woman sings as she shoulders a bag of survivors. The city lifts like a chest that remembers breath after a long dive. The world looks washed and slightly amused. I imagine the letter slipping into a pocket and streaking the lining with the scent of salt and oak. I imagine a second page, then a third, until an alphabet reassembles like a flock that coalesces over a field and lifts as one bright body into clear air. The image pleases the mind; the body straightens under it. So I write a postcard from the end of time and sign it with a flourish borrowed from old flyleaves. The address reads: to anyone who keeps guard over memory and hope. The message runs like this: create worlds from fragments. Gather fallen letters and set them singing. Build sturdy shelves again inside the mind. Grant hospitality to surprise and mercy. Walk to the river and give thanks for the power that erases and the grace that preserves. Carry your book the way a farmer carries seed. Teach by sharing. Repair by patience. Laugh while mending. Sing when the page fills. Bless what stays. Bless what leaves. Bless the stubborn gift that a single mark confers.

A library breathes again wherever one letter receives full attention. A universe regathers wherever two letters recognise kinship and stand shoulder to shoulder. A people rises wherever a sentence finds a mouth and an ear and a hand that turns the page. I watch the waters subside within the theatre of the mind and see shelves that wait for a harvest of futures. A quiet resolve spreads across the island like brightness across clover after rain. Endings continue to parade across screens and collect their applause. Meanwhile small beginnings take the lanes in ordinary shoes. Meanwhile fragments learn to speak with authority. Meanwhile meaning arrives through the gate and pays for tea. So the letter floats, and so do we. We read it together and then we add our own. We build a present fit to house a future because courage teaches patience to move, and patience teaches courage to listen. We carry the old into the new through craft. We treat each mark as a vow and each breath as a scribe. The flood delivers a fierce lesson and the survivors deliver a finer one. Worlds end every hour somewhere, and a world begins every minute wherever attention and love assemble words. I stand in the doorway of the drowned library and feel the earth tilt toward morning. The city holds the hush of an audience before a first note. A skylight shows a bright square. A tide falls. The letter rests on my palm and warms to the skin, and I send it onward with a nod, so I do.

[image error]

Postcards from the End of Time was originally published in Agora24 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Truth That Wears Its Own Mask

Truth today arrives in borrowed clothes, tailored from pixels, stitched by inference, paraded through mirrors polished by opinion. It pledges allegiance to the performance of fact — gleaming, curated, viral. Once held in the gravity of stone and consequence, it now travels light, agile as rumour, sleek as code. The old oaths of philosophers, prophets, and judges have yielded to trending tags and algorithmic consensus. The truth we once knew has migrated. It still speaks, aye, in a voice altered by filters, flattened through repetition, its resonance become a notification’s chime, a sound filling the space of a cathedral’s echo. Sir Francis Bacon, with his ink-stained fingers and restless stare, spoke of jesting Pilate asking, “What is truth?” then turning before an answer could rise. That same question rings now across fibre optic lines, echoed in comment sections, in deepfaked speeches, the jest grown elaborate, and Pilate, reborn a pundit, lingers just long enough to monetise the doubt. Bacon sought truth in observation, in method, in the patient peeling of nature’s veils. Writing today, he might begin his essay between browser tabs, his quill a machine autocompleting his thoughts before he can weigh them. Even then, he’d feel the same tremor in the air — a human longing for certainty, for anchorage, for the steadying pulse of what endures.

And what endures now? We once thought of truth as granite, as that which rests beneath the sediment of falsehoods, waiting to be unearthed. Today it floats — buoyant, reactive, caught in a swirl of competing narratives, each demanding belief. The shift is subtle and seismic both: our question has become “Is it persuasive?” and even “Is it shareable?”, inquiries that stand where “Is it true?” once stood. The feed is our new courtroom; engagement is our new testimony. A well-lit anecdote outweighs a library of facts. In this strange ecology, truth survives through masquerade — adapting to the aesthetic of certainty, a form that eclipses its content. What we call truth often functions as a brand. It accumulates followers, defends its market share, cultivates an identity. Competing truths vie like political parties, each promising access to reality with just enough friction for a feeling of involvement. The “truth” of the hour may stand opposite yesterday’s certainties, and so long as the story satisfies, the shift feels like evolution, a movement away from any sense of betrayal. We re-style truth. It becomes a costume party of conviction where everyone arrives overdressed. The philosopher’s lamp, once lit to illumine the path of reason, flickers beside a neon billboard where “truth” is hashtagged, monetised, and stored in a cloud server owned by someone who builds tools to bend it. The thirst remains. The hunger for the real — for something that withstands the scroll, the swipe, the slant. Beneath the spectacle, the soul still reaches for something that holds its own form.

In this new terrain, truth feels malleable because its casing has grown so soft. Beneath the layers of post, pose, and parody, it holds steady. Its challenge has become a matter of being felt, a presence that comes after being found. The digital realm saturates us with exposure while it starves us of touch. We witness more and we know less. We see the world, refracted through endless eyes, and we learn to trust other visions before our own. Francis Bacon lived in a world where truth required labour — observation, experiment, refinement. Today, it demands navigation. We sift through noise to detect coherence, to sense the pulse beneath the static. If Bacon walked among us now, he’d call for a new method, one of spiritual clarity alongside science. He’d urge us to grow discernment, to shape our gaze like a lens, to live as craftsmen of clear attention. In his day, truth stepped through the stirred dust of hard questioning. In ours, it sits in plain sight, draped in its own plenty. Its treatment now carries a slyness where once fierce outrage flared. Satire serves as sermon, memes function as missives. We laugh from a place of disorientation, a feeling that has taken the place of amusement. The age of sincerity feels naïve. To speak plainly risks sounding old-fashioned, or even unengaged. In such a climate, truth’s greatest threat becomes a certain kind of laughter, the kind that deflates, a sound distinct from the laughter that frees.

Even lies once carried ambition. The lie aimed to deceive, and also to persuade. Deception now operates by diffusion. The aim is to exhaust, a goal that has supplanted the aim to convince. In the avalanche of conflicting truths, the very act of caring wears thin. Doubt, once the philosopher’s tool, now functions as a weapon. Where skepticism once cleared the ground for deeper faith, today it seeds a haze that chokes belief before it can bloom. Still, truth lives — in gestures, in bodies, in breath. It moves in the rhythm of real things: the tremble of a voice, a pause filled with weight, a silence rich with meaning. Truth steps away from speech, then gathers again through presence. A father’s quiet fear, a mother’s waiting hours, a child’s deep trust — these speak with a clarity beyond captions. We must remember that truth always promised revelation, a state apart from comfort. Its nature is revelation, a state apart from ease. It calls something forth in us: the courage to attend, the grace to reshape, the patience to stay open. In a world that celebrates the instant, truth invites us to linger. Where the market chases novelty, truth often waits in the familiar. It hums beneath the din, a sound quieter than a shout.

To honour truth now requires a kind of monastic attention, a devotion, a turning toward something with our full being. A readiness to return the gaze, to hear beneath the headline, to hold our own applause in wonder. The practice of truth rises as resistance — to easy answers, to polished certainty, to the pressing of the world into edible lines. What emerges as truth, then, in this flickering light? It is the quietest claim, the one that travels by foot. It arrives shyly, often through questions, a form that precedes declarations. It prefers texture over clarity, nuance over slogan. It requires time, attention, and the risk of being wrong. It walks slowly, even when everything around us runs. And it changes us. When we encounter truth as an encounter, a presence instead of a spectacle, we do more than learn; we remember. Something ancient stirs, some primal thread of recognition. Truth invites the self to shed its costume. It calls us back to the quiet knowledge we carried before we learned to perform.

Francis Bacon, seated now with the screen’s glow upon his inked face, would write of poise. He would speak for the slow cultivation of trust, a counterpoint to the ease of certainty. He would remind us that truth, like the sun, shines its presence. And in its light, all shadows take form. To write of truth today is to write a kind of elegy and invocation both. An elegy for the trust we traded for convenience. An invocation of the presence that still pulses beneath. It is to stand in the noise and listen for the note that holds. Because truth endures, touched and alive. It shapeshifts, yes. It bends to expression, to culture, to voice. Beneath every form it takes, there lies a fidelity — to what is, to what matters, to what calls us inward and forward. The task has become to create the space where truth may be heard, a purpose that comes after merely speaking it. In that space — quiet, open, human — the real begins again.

[image error]

Between Ash and Snow

War has a way of clawing through time, dragging the past into the present and stitching wounds that span generations. When I finished Occasional Ballad, I never imagined it would find itself resurrected in the shadow of a new war. It was written as a lament, a howl for those nameless boys crucified by history, for mothers wailing under an indifferent sky. I wrote of Agamemnons and Ulysses-like figures pulling nations apart, of Christlike faces disappearing into anonymity. And though the verses were bound in Poland’s soil — its own long history of blood and sacrifice—their echoes rang tragically clear as news poured in from Ukraine in the spring of 2022.

I was not in Ukraine during this war, though I had been there before—long ago, in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Kyiv’s streets then were quieter, the people stoic, the air thick with that post-Soviet disorientation shared by so many Eastern European countries. I wandered between markets and courtyards, a younger man with no understanding of how fragile peace could be. My connection to Ukraine had always been a personal one: my father’s mother, an unwavering Ukrainian woman, had married my Polish grandfather, a colonel whose life revolved around uniformed duty and tightly kept order. She brought stories, traditions, a gentler cadence to the sharp consonants of my Polish childhood. There were times I wondered whether her voice echoed the grief of generations past — the same grief that now trembled through Ukraine’s streets as Russian tanks rolled across borders in 2022.

When Bucha and Irpin entered the world’s vocabulary, I could not write. I remember staring at the reports, the images — families shot point-blank in basements, corpses strewn along streets, hands tied with crude twine behind their backs. At first, I tried to look away, but how can one unsee the grotesque contortion of human dignity, the frozen expressions of civilians robbed of both life and peace? The war, the atrocities — these were not merely news reports. They were echoes of a poem I had written years before, words I thought were safely buried within history’s pages.

“Here, every nameless face bears Christ’s visage…”

These lines from Occasional Ballad became unbearable to me in those weeks. Each face from Bucha, from Irpin, carried the unmistakable weight of that line. Each frozen figure, buried hastily or left to rot, seemed to possess that same martyrdom — nameless, crucified, stripped of youth and breath. When I wrote those words, I had imagined Poland’s long history of rebellion and war, our fields littered with nameless graves, mothers who had already buried too much hope. But war does not belong to the past, does it? It remains a beast lurking just beyond the firelight, waiting for its chance to tear the fabric of lives once more.

I recall seeing a photograph from Irpin: a child’s stuffed animal discarded in the mud, its arms splayed, its smile grotesquely cheerful in the wreckage. It was not unlike the image of my own words — “We need children — not Christs!” I had written this line as a plea, a demand for life over sacrifice, for hope over ruin. And yet, as mothers dragged their children to shelter under relentless shelling, it seemed the choice had been stolen from them. In war, youth is the first offering on the altar of violence, whether they hold a rifle or a doll.

Ukraine’s suffering felt visceral to me not only because of my family’s roots but because of the legacy of Eastern Europe itself. To live in this part of the world is to inherit a history that drips with blood. We are the children of barricades and revolts, of empires rising and falling, of homes lost and names erased. “That youth — though it loves life dearly — / Finds its end most often in death’s embrace.” These words of mine were as much about the boys of Bucha as they were about the generations that had come before. In Irpin, the young fought to defend their streets, their neighbors, their land, knowing full well that heroism often walks hand-in-hand with a violent, unmarked grave.

And what of the mothers? “Weep for the fate of mothers! They are as willows, / Their fingers severed, reaching still to a pale, unanswering sky.” I remember my father speaking of his mother’s hands — my Ukrainian grandmother’s — strong yet gentle, always holding a book or gathering the world in her quiet embrace. She was an officer’s wife; she understood the weight of what she had chosen. Her hands were both shield and cradle, steady and tender, the kind of hands that held families together, that carried burdens without complaint. She was a woman of endurance, her hands symbols of creation and care, but I have no doubt they also knew grief. Now, I picture those same hands reaching skyward — empty, trembling, desperate — like the mothers of Bucha, of Mariupol, of Kharkiv. What solace can the sky possibly offer when children lie buried in shallow pits?

It is impossible to think of Ukraine without recalling its long, scarred history. From Holodomor to Chernobyl, from Soviet purges to the Orange Revolution, Ukraine has lived under the boot of Agamemnons and Ullyses alike — figures who pull the nation in opposite directions, leaving only suffering in their wake. And yet, even as war cleaves lives and homes apart, there remains something stubborn and eternal in its soil. The women, the mothers, the matronly love of which I wrote — “And only the women’s fidelity — / The matron’s love, unbroken — / Allows you to press the crown of heroism / Upon your brow…” — it is this quiet endurance that holds nations together when men are called to war.

When I wrote Occasional Ballad, I believed I was speaking to the past, to ghosts long silenced, to boys who had died for names carved on monuments no one reads. I now understand that the poem was not just a reflection on memory, but a warning. War is not a relic. It waits, like winter beneath the soil, ready to bloom in crimson.

In those spring days of 2022, as Ukraine bled, I found myself recalling the frozen fields I had once crossed in my youth — visits that now felt worlds away. I thought of the birches of Smolensk, far across the border in Russia, beneath which lie tens of thousands of Polish officers, murdered with a single shot to the back of the head. I thought of the ash, the frost, and the unbearable weight of a shared history that stretches across generations. I was not standing in Ukraine then, but I carried its grief as if it were my own.

And so, as a poet, what am I to do? My words are not a balm. They cannot resurrect the dead or rebuild the ruins. And yet, still, I write. “For even the scarred horizon should be seen.” To witness, to speak, to give form to silence — this, I think, is the task of those of us who hold pens instead of weapons. If Occasional Ballad is my only offering, let it be a testament, a lament, and a refusal to forget.

In war, memory becomes sacred. And I will remember. I will write. For Bucha, for Irpin, for every mother who weeps and every child whose life was stolen. I will keep the flame alive, not out of hope but out of duty — to the dead, to the living, and to the unrelenting truth of history.

OCCASIONAL BALLAD

And now — weep! If you knew not how to weep
In the mournful hour of black steeds,
Bound in silvered harness,
Then weep! For only sorrow can endure the tempered hoof,
And only the broken-hearted will tread
Over ice’s brittle crust, and cross it still above.
With frozen hands buried in the plume-tipped manes,
Their faces pressed to the heads of their mounts,
For one last gallop, they chase across the cracking snow — 
A soul freed from flesh, wandering, seeking
Through twisted roads and brambled paths.
Draped in barricades long gone cold,
In the last exhale of crucified boys.

Here, every nameless face bears Christ’s visage,
And dreams His martyr’s death through suffocating nights.
And this, too, is a cruel temptation,
For they cast themselves into it,
Laying their youth like ripened stalks before the scythe’s sharp edge.
And the blade cuts deep while harvest feeds its bloodied mouths,
As mothers wail — lungs devoured by cries,
Cursing the ruinous landscape of defeat.

We need children — not Christs!
We need men!
So weep for the fate of mothers! They are as willows,
Their fingers severed, reaching still to a pale, unanswering sky.
Weep for the nameless graves, where torrential rains
Will carve and sweep the soil.
When the next spring comes, the infants will crawl to the fields,
And some Agamemnon will cast his net again
Upon the hunchbacked back of freedom.

But here, brother, freedom is but loneliness.
The birds know this well — 
The feathered messengers of mothers,
Whose hopes never returned to Ithaca.
Weep, then, for the fate of children — 
For a prophet’s omen gnaws at me.
This will not be the first, nor the last, grenade
To bloom a rose upon the frozen underbrush.

I, a simple stone upon the field,
Have known but one truth since ancient sleep claimed me:
That youth — though it loves life dearly — 
Finds its end most often in death’s embrace.

This is the mark of the land curled beneath your boot.
One day it turns for an Agamemnon, the next for a Ulysses,
And both will pull in opposite directions,
While only the women’s fidelity — 
The matron’s love, unbroken — 
Allows you to press the crown of heroism
Upon your brow, a crown long slumbering
In the thorns of a silent, waiting wreath.

*** [You have just read an entry from my poetic diary — a place where I record my reflections and the poems that stir them, or sometimes the other way around, depending on where my inspiration leads and how my creative mood unfolds.]

[image error]

In the Valley of Moonlit Shadows — Mystery of Andrzej Mazur’s poetry

In the Valley of Moonlit Shadows — Mystery of Andrzej Mazur’s poetry

In the silent hush of Portlaoise night, I tread upon the shadowed path of Andrzej Mazur’s verse, “Lily from the Deep, Mountain-Enclosed Valley,” where each step is like a brush against the veils of time, uncovering hidden realms of thought and feeling. This poem unfurls not merely as written word but as a journey — a pilgrimage through the soul’s most secret gardens. Here, as in the works of Eliot and Whitman, the fleeting moment becomes eternal, each transient whisper forged into a monument of contemplation. Yet, within Mazur’s voice, one hears the timeless echoes of Kavanagh’s Irish musings, where the modest, rural life is imbued with the grandeur of ancient myth.

Andrzej Mazur, whose poetic journey began in 1977 with a debut in KAMENA, stands as a towering figure in the realm of contemporary poetry. His early years were shaped by the profound influence of the great Jerzy Grotowski, with whom he delved into the mystic arts of paratheatre — an experience that infused his work with a sense of the theatrical and the metaphysical. From the sacred stages of Wrocław to the quiet lanes of Lublin, where he both directed and performed, Mazur’s life has been a ceaseless quest for artistic truth. His career, marked by innovation, includes pioneering efforts in Networking Poetry, where he has woven the threads of tradition and modernity into a rich tapestry of verse. As both mentor and guide, Mazur’s wisdom has illuminated my own path, his insights a torch guiding me through the labyrinthine corridors of the poetic soul.

Lily from the Deep, Mountain-Enclosed Valley

On the late night sky, almost without clouds

almost without clouds

the Moon shines

the Moon entwines

navy blue that sky, whitish those clouds, whitish apple blossoms

on lawns, on sidewalks

The Illusionist weaves tales of these night climates intricately, Anoushka

Tomorrow I’m going to pick up the laundry: all nylon jackets: yellow like its glow, red like part of its essence,

it reflects the Sun, without saying anything, but yet we see: we see this mystery, we admire,

not knowing why. And these Two Beings invisibly overlaid

manifest their existence

As if a fan, the most wondrous one, made of slippery silk, the silkworm

produced threads from the mulberry tree, those nourished by the Sun, and rested in that almost cloudless Moon,

On lands in a warm climate where one can walk all day in the sun,

and all night as long as it’s

almost without clouds

the Moon shines

the Moon entwines

there religions were born: mystical if the proximity and distance were in the mountains, ascetic

if avoiding danger and disease was on the plains,

only then unique and original philosophies, having many twists on a single thread

and many scents of flowers

naked, white-edged, veined, arched, suffused with purple

were formulated

Since then, many millions of years have passed

In Mazur’s poetry, the world itself is a stage upon which the dance of light and shadow unfolds, where the lily blooms not merely in soil but in the fertile ground of the imagination. The valley, encircled by towering mountains, is at once a haven and a prison — a sanctuary where beauty is preserved in its most delicate form, yet remains isolated from the world’s harsh realities. The very title, “Lily from the Deep, Mountain-Enclosed Valley,” conjures an image of a flower protected by nature’s formidable defenses, yearning, perhaps, for the warm touch of the sun.

Mazur’s language is a finely tuned instrument, each word resonating with the depth of a struck chord. The interplay between “shines” and “entwines” is a masterstroke, capturing the dual nature of human existence — caught betwixt the light of understanding and the shadows of doubt. The Moon, that eternal witness to the world’s nocturnal mysteries, casts its light not to reveal but to weave a medley of half-seen truths and whispered secrets. The refrain “almost without clouds” serves as a subtle reminder that clarity is but a fleeting illusion, ever elusive, ever just beyond our reach.

Mazur’s work bears a striking kinship to the poetry of Patrick Kavanagh, particularly in the way both poets discover the divine within the mundane. In Kavanagh’s “The Great Hunger,” he writes, “The birds sing as the birds have always sung; / The land is what it always was.” This unchanging landscape mirrors the constancy of nature in Mazur’s line, “the Moon shines / the Moon entwines,” where the celestial and the earthly converge in a dance as old as time itself. In “Inniskeen Road: July Evening,” Kavanagh transforms a simple country road into a “mile of kingdom,” much like Mazur elevates the lily, growing in its secluded valley, to a symbol of life’s hidden truths.

As I contemplate Mazur’s place in the pantheon of modern poetry, I am reminded of the timeless struggle to find meaning in a world that often appears indifferent to our search. Like T.S. Eliot, Mazur’s work is steeped in the mystery of the human condition, where every revelation is tinged with uncertainty. And yet, like Walt Whitman, there is in Mazur’s verse a deep reverence for the interconnectedness of all things, a recognition that the smallest flower is part of the grandest design. In this, he shares a lineage with Kavanagh, whose poetry also seeks to uncover the sacred in the everyday, to find the extraordinary in the ordinary.

As I close my eyes, absorbing the final lines of the poem, I sense that I am leaving behind not mere words but ephemeral visions — glimpses of a reality that lies just beyond the veil of perception. Mazur’s poetry lingers, like the Moon’s fading glow, casting a gentle, introspective light upon the landscapes of my soul. The valley, with its solitary lily, transcends the poem, becoming a sacred space within myself — a hidden garden where light and shadow dance, and where truth remains perpetually “almost without clouds.”

In the end, “Lily from the Deep, Mountain-Enclosed Valley” transcends the bounds of mere poetry; it is an invitation to explore the deepest recesses of the human spirit, to seek out the beauty that lies hidden within the shadows, and to embrace the mysteries that surround us. As I step back into the world, I carry with me the knowledge that, like the Moon’s light, the truth is always “almost without clouds” — forever within reach, yet forever just beyond my grasp.

[image error]

In the Valley of Moonlit Shadows — Mystery of Andrzej Mazur’s poetry was originally published in Agora24 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Chase — A letter to contemporaries

The Chase — A letter to contemporariesFranz von Stuck — Wilde Jagd — Musee d Orsay — Paris — 1899 (Wikipedia)

I.

In night’s deep veil I fled, a thief in shadow’s guise,
This night, more burdened than the last, its weight did rise.
For with the dusk, a flight’s desire within me woke,
In life, there are such times, post vanity’s harsh stroke.

When one must face intentions’ bravery, unbound,
The body craves to run, though reason’s voice may sound.
As if a force, in thousands megawatts, did surge,
From fingertips to crown, an uncontrollable urge.

To race without a backward glance, in wild escape,
Wearied of joy’s facade, where true sadness takes its shape.
Long hidden from dear hearts, through shame, not care, I lied,
How can one sorrow feel, when beauty’s spread so wide?

Yet thoughts of ending pain, in night’s quiet, whispered soft,
To myself, I speak, as if to one met oft.
To dream of death, ungrateful seems, to lives I’ve brushed,
But from happiness’s spell, I knew I must be flushed.

Escape adds tragedy, to life’s already heavy load,
In a land of milk and honey, my heart abode.
Despair’s first reflex, in communal suffering sought,
True solitude’s endurance, by few can be wrought.

Yet as the last race dreamed, for solitude we yearn,
In protest’s form, alone, our spirits twist and turn.
As failures mount, the clearer death’s desire draws near,
If not the final sleep, then from this life to steer.

Away from fate’s gifts, both kind and cruel, we seek to flee,
In this crafted sonnet’s bounds, my soul’s plea.

II.

Amidst your throngs, no longer do I yearn to stay,
For living with you has led my heart astray.
No sanctuary found within your grasp, but chains,
As if my parting gifts were naught but pains.
With scorn I arm myself, your love, a cruel jest,
Inflates the wounds from words that never rest.

In dreams, unlike you, eternal flight I claim,
Above what I am, in slumber or awake, the same.
Seeking always a foundation yet caressing the essence pure,
Towards you, a bitter disillusionment I endure.
Not god nor man, within me humanity barely stirs,
Yet not a beast, though in us all, a primal instinct occurs.

Even beasts a modicum of empathy do seek,
In uniform society, our differences are meek.
The variance ‘twixt us, merely how our savagery is shown,
To those who dare to stray, by harsh judgment overthrown.

In realms of mist and fable, dissenters I have found,
Their tales of endless wandering, where lost souls are bound.
Under cover of the night, their crimes they carry near,
While loved ones at the break of dawn, their reasons fear to hear.

Emigration now as treachery is deemed,
And traitors without mercy, in their new graves they’re reamed.
Yet fleeing, in essence, buries memories so deep,
In our own funerals, we partake, yet cannot keep.

Across the threshold ventured, no path leads us back,
In foreign beds we slumber, our dreams no solace lack.
An exile’s dream upon new shores, a different tune we hum,
No yearnings of the past, but to new beginnings succumb.

III.

Let me now speak of a generation betrayed –
Of you, not traitors, but by fate dismayed.
In mad pursuit of the golden calf you sprint,
Told that in money, true happiness is mint.
Education, they claimed, would your success ensure,
Years of study, in hopes that wealth would be pure.

“The brightest minds of my era, by madness torn,
Starving, naked, at dawn through the streets worn.”
A decade’s journey ends, a merchandiser’s role embraced,
Dignity hidden, like treasure misplaced.

Through shadows, like thieves, we were forced to flee,
Our sun, inexplicably, ceased to be.
In darkness like moles, accustomed to night’s void,
Hope’s bath emptied, our dreams destroyed.

To lands unknown, where only natives find their sun,
Our betrayal rewarded with darkness, undone.
Wandering, seeking with a candle, our stolen homes’ trace,
Lost amidst warehouses, dishpits, each a disgrace.

Talking of art and history’s maze,
To those unaware of the right-hand ways.
Explaining, with care, our saviors’ tongue’s grace,
While our own vowels we disgrace.

Distant marches and cries in the night implore,
“Wake up, Homeland,” but it hears no more.
A giant sleeps, blocking the pilgrims’ sky,
While we, in foreign lands, silently cry.

“Awake, dear land,” the exiles plead,
But their homeland sleeps, pays them no heed.
A different war we wage, with other worries to face,
In memories and dreams, our only solace.

IV.

In our realm, what dies soon rises once more –
We, like dogs, our own wounds do adore,
Serving faithfully the creed of masters gained,
Or foxes, our freedom with maiming attained.
We fall into comas, paralysis spreads wide,
Madness infects us, our victims we chide.
To executioners, emotionless, we cling,
Our faces hidden, as tormented beings we sing.
We’d feign the vilest illness, it’s confessed,
To avoid the bitter truth by others professed.

We’re Jerusalem of the moved monsters, at dawn,
Heads in ash, by the Wailing Wall we mourn.
Evening finds us, from vodka and the dead’s dust,
Crafting ink, in ancient tongues we trust,
Known only to the eldest carrier doves — they bear
Our words through skies undying, landscapes bare.
They navigate past Alpha and Omega, prophets’ flight,
On currents rising, crossing bounds of night and light.
These messengers, from earth’s end they bring –
To deliver a message from the beyond, their wing.

For these letters wait our parents, foes, and mentors old,
Women who spared not love, men with courage bold,
Indians from forgotten reserves, New York’s ghetto sons,
Not to say they’re black, it’s not done; waits every one.
Gypsies from camps, Jews from the stock exchange in haste,
The Chinaman from the souvenir shop, blame misplaced,
The freckled Irish from Cabra, Inuit with reindeer fur upon his face,
And Snowman from childhood’s last winter embrace.
They wait for apologies, explanations — why did I flee?

I fled before dawn — for what in you becomes clear,
When you gaze upon me, filled me with fear.
A need for existence, for death a sudden call,
For a new homeland — a deserter, an outlaw,
In a long-distance effort, no need to look back,
No need to foresee, on my and your wreck,
I run, and I run for Life — a thirty-year-old emigrant, indeed,
Raised by the Vistula, from its teachings, I proceed.

_______________________

In “The Chase — A Letter to Contemporaries,” I sought to weave a narrative that traverses the contours of escape, disillusionment, the stark critique of our societal constructs, and the profound existential quest that underlies our generation’s journey. This collection of sonnets is my attempt to distill the essence of our collective and individual struggles, our identities, and our ceaseless yearning for a place where we truly belong, where understanding is not a scarce commodity. In the opening stanza, I introduce the motif of escape, likening it to a nocturnal flight, akin to a thief shrouded in darkness. This image is emblematic of the universal urge to flee from various facets of our lives — be it the turmoil within, the crushing weight of societal expectations, or the disillusionment borne from the realization that the pursuit of material wealth is a hollow endeavor. Here, I speak of the overwhelming desire to break free, a longing to shed the fetters of conformity and pursue a path less trodden, guided solely by one’s inner convictions. As the narrative unfolds, I delve deeper into the complexities of escape and disillusionment, articulating a palpable sense of betrayal by societal norms that exalt material success above genuine human connection and self-fulfillment. Through the lens of emigration — portrayed as an act of treachery — I reflect on the physical and metaphorical journeys undertaken in search of authenticity and purpose. This odyssey, fraught with the trials of adapting to foreign lands, symbolizes the enduring quest for identity and belonging that persists, irrespective of one’s geographic anchorage. In this section, I critique the structural and economic paradigms that have led to a feeling of betrayal among my generation. We find ourselves ensnared in a relentless chase after illusory idols of success, sacrificing our dignity and potential at the altar of material gain. Through vivid imagery, I lament the squandering of brilliance and the erosion of self-worth in the relentless pursuit of wealth. The recurring themes of shadowy flight and the quest for a new homeland underscore our ongoing struggle to find meaning in a world from which we feel increasingly alienated. The concluding part of my sonnet series addresses the notion of resurrection, suggesting that despite the depths of despair and disillusionment, there exists an indomitable human spirit — a force that compels us to rise, to seek out connections beyond our immediate realities. The act of composing letters in ancient tongues, entrusted to carrier doves, serves as a metaphor for our attempts to bridge the chasms of experience, culture, and comprehension. This segment is a testament to the enduring human need for connection, understanding, and empathy, even in the face of profound isolation and disconnection.

In crafting “The Chase — A Letter to Contemporaries,” my aim was to offer a candid reflection on the human condition, to explore the intricate dance between the desire for something more tangible, more real, and the often elusive nature of such aspirations. Through this poetic journey, I invite readers to contemplate the relentless pursuit of authenticity in a world that seems to offer everything but.

[image error]

The Chase — A letter to contemporaries was originally published in Agora24 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Reserve

درفش کاویانی — Own work (Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0 DEED)

O silence… let the departed rest, unsaid,
here is the whisper…
and there’s a pale stag in rut, a dream half-fed,
unaware, transgressing the legends’ thread.

Lads in the mire, beneath celestial wings,
storm the graveyard old when twilight swings,
no words, just gasps in throats aching,
fearless hearts in innocence, still breaking.

Deer carve through paths, a diagonal plight,
and in the shadowed woods –
let not ill words touch the deceased’s light,
Hence for living — everything and every height.

To whom and where did hearts unfurl?
Who hung a fleece, a snowy pearl,
with antlers keen, like a razor’s slice,
drew legend’s blood, a tale precise.

Orchards swell, the sky in hues profound,
elderly eyes, like once, chapel-bound,
seek angels, chastise the youthful market,
where once permitted, now ill words target.

Today, the aged endure disdain,
tomorrow… memories shall wane,
only the stag, in a slumber’s reserve,
shall hush the violated lore’s nerve.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

*

“The Reserve” for me is a profound odyssey, an intricate exploration of memory, the ebb and flow of generations, and the interplay of tradition woven through carefully chosen metaphors and symbolic imagery. As readers embark on this lyrical journey, they are invited to navigate the intricate dance between life and death, as well as the ever-evolving dynamics that characterize the relationships between the old and the young.

In crafting the verses, I sought to create a space where the “whisper in the silence” resonates, urging readers to engage in contemplation. The “pale stag in rut,” a dream half-fed and oblivious to its own transgressions, holds a central position in this personal narrative, serving as a poignant metaphor embodying the delicate yet powerful connection between the living and the legends of days gone by.

The poem, for me, serves as an introduction to the dichotomy between the vibrant youth and the seasoned elderly, vividly portrayed through the image of “Lads in the mire” storming the graveyard beneath celestial wings. The deliberate absence of words and the audible gasps in throats capture the emotional intensity, while the depiction of “fearless hearts in innocence” resonates with the vulnerability and unbridled passion intrinsic to youth. The aged, steadfastly chapel-bound in their spiritual pursuits, emerge as the custodians of cultural heritage, bravely standing against the perceived recklessness of the “youthful market” despite facing disdain.

Nature, in my personal narrative, assumes a pivotal role, particularly in the image of deer cutting through paths in a diagonal plight. This imagery symbolizes life’s unpredictable journey, with the broken roads reflecting the inherent challenges faced. The dark forest, a metaphor for the unknown, underscores the profound mysteries embedded in both life and death.

Within the stanzas, I extend an intimate invitation for contemplation, urging readers to grapple with the philosophical tension between tradition and modernity. The snowy fleece and razor-like antlers take on a mythical quality, conveying the idea that preserving tradition demands a delicate balance of gentleness and strength. The violation of the lore’s nerve and the subsequent hushing by the stag subtly hint at the cyclicality inherent in generational clashes, adding layers of personal reflection to the thematic exploration of the poem.

[image error]

A STREAK OF LIGHT

Joseph N Hall 20:37, 31 August 2006 CC BY 2.5

We ventured back,
my loyal hound and I,
from the edge of shadows black,
where, like a serpent sly,
the light did twist and ply,
of the fallen, its radiant stack.

In our daily haste,
we tread upon its beams,
like on an autumn cast,
shed from lids in dreams,
of friends, lost it seems,
a sibling to us, erased.

Not dog, nor human kin,
but a shaman from on high,
softly whispers in the din,
“Oh, thou one gone awry,
a part of you, oh my,
is missing deep within.

You know this beam,
for you can feel it pass,
through you, a radiant stream,
casting like stained glass,
its spindle, by God’s grace,
you know, a luminous dream.

[image error]

A STREAK OF LIGHT was originally published in Agora24 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

THRUSH ON A BARRICADE

Mark Kilner — Song Thrush (Wikipedia CC BY-SA 2.0)

In a coil, my mind, a delicate embryo’s cradle,
I thread through the street’s snares, a poetic wade,
In squares, flowered beds, and gardens so vital,
A thrush on a baricade — uncertain serenade.

It hums, “Whither go you?” as if in jest,
Will you return, or stray on this quest?

A hunger consumes, a terrible need,
To wander and wade, in thoughts to feed,
Waist-deep, nose-deep, ear-deep in the town’s hum,
Feel the compulsion of fire, let it into the soul, succumb.

In ominous laughter, as spring’s ‘enta’ clashes,
Toppling, resurrecting, in nature’s grand flashes.
Through fields, like ball of dust, columns parade,
Skulls adorned, ceremoniously displayed.

A craving, a terrible hunger, takes hold,
Step out of myself, in freedom be bold,
Like the thrush on that baricade, unrestrained,
Living beneath the sky, where dreams and screams are unchained.

In the roar of flashes, in a profetic flame,
A rusty blood river, takes its long-waited claim.
In shattered houses, fallen towers tall,
Windows like coffins, within poetic sprawl.

In the blizzard of barricades, where chaos contends,
And the scream of bells, a symphony transcends.
“Whither go you, proud one?” echoes the refrain,
In the rhythmic dance, where poetic tempests gain.

[image error]

All in one gulp

Pixiebay

Freedom is said to reside where no man dwells,
it’s dull, lame, sore and ugly -
to a point of excess.

Hegel thought of it as a whore to be cornered
utilizing a persistent discipline and the brokerage of a cunning intellect.

Nietzsche was ready to perish the whole earth just for a short peep into her dim pupils, the Nobel Prize laureate Miłosz read it as if it were an ancient formula to cure all sorrows of casual drunks… For as he said: there are various definitions of this force whereas one of them claims that freedom is the ability to drink unlimited amounts of booze!

Undoubtedly, the poet would be agreed by another outstanding writer — Yerofeyev, who like me, barely 20 years ago worshipped vodka for its Promethean ability to lift thoughts from the dregs of despair…

Freedom is an acid-resistant tattoo,
it pinches and shakes the pyramids of slaves wearing spoon shoes,
and yells at night, that she has little to drink, little to sin, little to live!!!

Always too little as she demands it all in one gulp.
I am here! I’m here! Yours very truly — an eternal hump!

[image error]

All in one gulp was originally published in Agora24 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

En route towards the pyre…

Pixibay: By MrWoodElli

We are the Generation Zero grafted sensibilities to features of the world that we cannot be sure would yield to our attempts of definition, but nevertheless we have adopted them on a whim! It’s an imposed construct tailored to our financial/physical/intellectual needs — invented by Google, Meta, services like Netflix, Prime, Disney+ and everyone else we allow to use cookies without wondering what it entails. Our identity is defined by the constant accumulation of different needs within us — modelling behaviours and creating urges, all with one goal: to maximise profits. We are fuel for the corporations — we are not walking to the pyre anymore, we became one!

A few words on a time that never came

Nowadays, people strive toward fulfilment, and curiously enough, these feelings are mostly on an ambitious level, created and fueled, fitting people into roles and suits they don’t feel comfortable in — yeah! They pinch and squeeze from every side and make us consume our success only to be sucker-punched at the end? For some time now, always and everywhere we have been accompanied by that strange sensation of emptiness lurking up ahead. It crops up in our consciousness as we give in to the overpowering feeling of fulfilment causing risk-taking as we balance on the edge reaching for new emotions. This seemingly internal process that pushes us towards perdition is in fact a pure manipulation of forces faced by every human being on this planet — waging a battle of which he often is unaware.

Looking at life in recent years, one would like to exclaim: this is where I am wrestling my shadow, though it is always a step ahead! Everyday life and repetitiveness as an all-encompassing emptiness? Filled with the hustle and bustle of life and yet terrifyingly barren, cold and dark. We live under the pillory of uniformity, where everyone thinks they have to match someone or something — hence it’s reinforced feeling. Added to this is the awareness of loss. Well, that’s a fundamentally false belief, but painfully perceptible.

On our return to normality, barely a day after we found the world at the moment of solstice, in the confusion of the violence of the density of time. We are like the wolf that bit off its paw to free itself from the trap. Apparently free, but incomplete. Emerging from the darkness directly under the piercing rays of the light, we feel everyday life with redoubled strength of all the added values — it seems stunning, marked by love, winged by dreams that have been longing for their moment. But it is also a world that has verged on madness, a reality suspended on the threshold of extinction — with its ever-recurring spectre deeply rooted in our mass culture. This is why the question of identity is so important. Since, in essence, the problem of emptiness is an attempt at identification — I, that is, who?

It can be seen very clearly amongst children, who today need even more acceptance and understanding. For if so many of us (adults) couldn’t find ourselves in a time that never existed, how will they cope in a time that hasn’t come yet? But a world pushed into oblivion may be brought to the present, by calling things and people by their names, this seemingly elusive time, through the voices of those rescued from getfulness, has the power to reveal the empty place left by a life annihilated through fear and uncertainty. As we now understand more, we can uncover this void and write it over again.

Yet the ease with which we can pass over any diagnosis or solution is misleading in fact, for revealing the gap will not lead to its cicatrization. The absence keeps staring at us ominously from the nearby abyss. In this breath, the horror of recent years lies dormant. But there is also a glimmer of hope, a crack open to the possibility of re-evaluating old truths. All hope lies within our children for their journey through time has changed them, making anew as it were, more malleable. It is as if someone gave us a second chance. The question is, have we taken full advantage of it?

I am afraid of the answer. I see that we are still looking for ways to survive, but on this wandering, should we look for new ways at the cost of renouncing ourselves, rejecting who we are, crossing out our memories, uprooting ourselves? How is the core of one’s humanity linked to the tradition that has shaped them? What is the essence of this tradition, it’s living, profound current? And how does the experience of falling — occurring often at crucial moments — fit into this?

Was it an impulse of harebrained reason or a calculation of many years? Now, after almost 3 months of struggle, it no longer matters. Time (again) stopped on the 24th of February and stands by watching us with a mocking smile, as we struggle to put the pendulum back in motion.

There is a proverb about misfortunes that come in pairs… So what if it is? It makes it even worse, especially when we realise who are the architects of these misfortunes. Is the death of defenceless people, children, women, and old people murdered in Bucha a watershed moment for us (the civilized West)? Do the bombs falling on schools, hospitals, kindergartens and theatres have enough power to shake us and become a breakthrough in our perception of ourselves and the world? I will answer for you — No! Those who suffered the horrors of war are like convicts marching towards the scene of execution — anaesthetised and sunken in themselves. Their time stands still or goes back to the moment before the catastrophe. Where the vision of humanity corresponded to the image of man and his roots that held him firmly upright…

A super-unreality

Looking at the war from afar, having in mind the experience of isolation and restrictions, allowing impairment to perceptions of reality I see two different planes. The first is what it is: painfully bloody and crying out for the intervention of thoughtful Logos. Evil shows itself here in all its glory, priding itself on how it has grown, and to what extent it has infected people. The second one is a product of cunning reason acting only for itself (and everything that happens by its will is connected with loss and sacrifices) creating a tangible space contained in the words and deeds of those who brought the first reality into existence. At a glance, the analogy I would like to use here may seem quite inadequate, but it is only an illusion since the mechanism of negation and the lack of logic are the common denominator here. The creators of the second “plane” are like and operate on the same principle as, the “anti/never generation”, where denial and contempt for the rest is the axis of action and the fuel for hatred leading to violence. The narrative of fascists in Ukraine is based on the same founding lie as the narrative of a vaccine designed either to eliminate weaker individuals or to control those who have received it. The initial falsehood is much like a drug taken in ever-increasing doses — it engulfs, absorbs and changes reality, at some point becoming its building block. Thus, everything that comes into being afterwards is contaminated and falls under the notion of super-unreality. Unfortunately, the more unreal this second reality becomes, the more people depart the world. Rape becomes a virtue, robbery a reward, murder is considered a heroic act and accepting a vaccination is synonymous with naivety and susceptibility to the dictates of unspecified forces ruling the world. In this way, dictators, demagogues or those for whom profit has become the prime value introduce a new man into the world. This creates a division between vulnerable and non-vulnerable men. As Milton rightly pointed out, this is the shortest route to upheaval.

For every upheaval has its mad prophets, and at any given time there will be some Cassandra crying Woe to you, O House of Priam! Unfortunately, what we see on our TV screens is not a film directed by Wolfgang Petersen, although, as the Commander of the 36th Infantry Brigade defending the Azovstal plant Serhiy Volynskyi wrote: “I ended up in some hellish reality show where we are fighting for our lives and the whole world is watching this interesting play”. Alas, he was wrong. Hardly half of the world, or even less. And indeed those who are watching sometimes say with a smile on their lips: „it is all propaganda and a staged performance.” People becoming increasingly passive and even sceptical, not from a lack of information, but on account of its widespread availability. From morning to evening we are inundated with a constant stream of news coverage by many sources, divisible into different types of ‘truth’: amplified, distorted, transformed and newly produced. Some of us resist by using various filters, read and feel with our hearts, others take everything in with their eyes, and a few give up, accepting the straightforward messages from the transmitters of “ super-unreality”. In a free world, in a realm of choice, super-unreality occupies a special place, an easy option and always within reach, with its door perpetually open — it is the shortest route to the pyre , where the image of who we were, who we are and who we could be is burned.

All wars begin with one man’s head and result in the suffering of millions, that is what my grandmother used to say, and she was right. She lived through both of the worst conflicts in the history of mankind. When the Great War began, she was already a married woman. By the time Hitler rolled his armoured divisions through Poland, she had already given birth to four children, one of whom was taken away by the Spanish flu, and the other three were in their teens or had already grown up. So you can’t deny her “expert” qualities, as they say nowadays — all you have to do is to have seen or heard something to become an expert. So, it seems to me that despite her terrible experience of both conflicts, she would still be terrified by the vision of war in Ukraine. As this war that is taking place far away has already taken place in our homes — it oozes out of our screens to our hearts and minds. It is on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. It lives with us, sleeps with us, wakes up with us and then we take it to work, to social meetings, to sports halls — it has attached itself to us as if it were some kind of implant that we can never get rid of.

Transplanted identity, a prison without bars!

We are the Generation Zero grafted sensibilities to features of the world that we cannot be sure would yield to our attempts of definition, but nevertheless, we have adopted them on a whim! It’s an imposed construct tailored to our financial/physical/intellectual needs — invented by Google, Meta, services like Netflix, Prime, Disney+ and everyone else we allow to use cookies without wondering what it entails. Our identity is defined by the constant accumulation of different needs within us — modelling behaviours and creating urges, all with one goal: to maximise profits. We are fuel for the corporations — we are not walking to the pyre anymore, we became one! Thus — wanting to exist, we cease to exist much like a blaze devouring itself, the more we struggle, the less we are. Thinking of it this way, I feel like Napoleon languishing for years on Saint Helena. I am seemingly free and yet it is only a prison without bars where everything that is mine turns out to be the same presumptive lie that so effectively distorts reality. The impulsive need to possess, the multiplication of wealth, excessive consumption, political sympathies, musical tastes, understanding of art, rationing of access to knowledge, acceptable patterns of social behaviour, the acceptance or condemnation of violence, which is also subject to strict rationing on both a moral and a physical level, all these are not me! And yet… It is me, who accepts the dictates of reality, same one who undergoes an identity transplant in an attempt to persist with hope that one day someone else, some better person will put out the fire! The problem is that others have always been burnt at the stake, fueled by ourselves. It is therefore an eternal paradox, where the victim devours the savior in the hope of becoming rescued.

Today’s man is a victim of cognitive distortions imposed on him from his earliest years, which result in a biased and falsified perception of reality and often creates anti-patterns — as an inducement for urge to leave the identity trap. In other words, our minds are being bombarded with a continuous flow of information thought to be true, when in fact they are not. An example of this is propaganda, or so-called factoids. These are at the very least inaccurate and usually aim to provoke negative thoughts and feelings. As a result, a person who often perceives the world on the basis of cognitive distortions (without realizing it) may have a very negative image of this world, of other people, and even of himself. The inability to distinguish truth from falsehood leads to mood disorders (depression) or apprehension issues. A peak in these public morbidities was observed after the Wuhan outbreak, and is now being felt by people over-exposed to the torrent of “news” related to the war in Ukraine. This is a constantly recurring pattern and it will intensify in the coming years. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to confront this acrimony, all the more so since there are countless pressure groups, individuals and organisations at regional or global level with particular interests in this area. An alternative reality — the putative lie has become the building block of a new world where truth dies before it is even spoken.

[image error]

En route towards the pyre… was originally published in Agora24 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.