Paradox of PhD and Poetry
How very odd! As I turned to re-enter the highly constrained academic container to commence my doctoral journey – amidst other personal and professional challenges – I found myself writing poetry. I did not decide to. I did not yearn to. I simply followed juicy little threads of words and found many tumbling forth. This was the first to arrive sitting in post-graduate room at Hull University Business School:
Particular Abyss
Whether we gaze out through heavens to the stars
or drive our eyes into the Particular
abyss for answers of the universe; do
we not simply perceive what we are apt to
see? Patterns of imagination? Defined
manifestations made so by eyes and minds
that cannot not craft worlds of explanation?
Is ‘all in all’ our most profound delusion?
Perhaps, matter and matters of scale are nought
but orderly illusions made real by thought;
by those who meddle in realms beyond their Selves
in search of truth which lies in etheric shelves?
What consummate distraction by magician
minds who avert our gaze by reaching out and
out; and down and down, to what? For what? Where is
THE place these searching souls don’t dare to quiz?
As jet black nights fuel our fears, deluded minds
with unrelenting pace, drive us wild with blind
demands to play the tunes; so devilish hands
can pull our puppet strings and command our dance.
Those veiled rampant powers that yank our clanking chains
have us trip and choke and burdened by our shame,
for what we did and did not do. Shocked. Bemused.
Caught by fear of blame. Bewildered and confused
that once again – to make the change, we fail.
So on, on and on we chase horizon’s tail –
to catch the holy grail of hidden truths.
And so the mirage beckons; teases sleuths
who’ll be seduced by promises of fame
and grandeur. Make your name! Court worldly acclaim!
Or choose the Noble Quest: Risk ruthless enmity
over fame or vapid anonymity?
© Louie J N Gardiner 15th October 2014
