Reference is to sense
as deference to motive.

Some words are indications,
others, supplications.

There are things we understand
and people we obey.

I occasionally sacrifice pangrammatical precision to ordinary usage.

Style composes aspects with manners, appearances with surfaces.

A local style collates the aspects of things lying around in a vicinity with the manners of a people going about their business there. It coordinates the surfaces that are manifest with the appearances that are maintained.

A personal style does its own thing as someone or other sees fit.

What is it about a fact that allows us to write it down?
By this aspect, it is known.
And what is it about an act that lets us put it in writing?
In this manner,* we master it.

____
*I had previously written "By this conceit" because I needed a "grasp" (ceit = cept) to go with the "look" (spect). I wasn't happy with it because "concept" belongs with knowledge, not power. Then "manner" occured to me and I looked it up: "manus" (hand).

Sometimes I lack the courage
to tell the truth.
Sometimes I don't have the heart.

Trying is to becoming
as seeming, to being:

between the doing
and the act,
the seeing
and the fact.

Privacy is an institution; secrecy is an organization.

The beautiful woman goes outside
and is desired.

The intelligent woman opens her mouth
and is believed.

The talented woman gets to work
and suffers.

The scientist implicates the object in our knowledge.

The politician implicates the subject in our power.

The philosopher extricates the concept from the thinking.

The poet extricates the emotion
from the feeling.

Decency is to power
as honesty to knowledge.

The truth is cruel.
Justice is a lie.

The modern fact
                      is extended.
The modern act
                      is intentional;

the modern subject,
                      extentionless;
the modern object,
                      unintended.

The modern image
                      is a concept
backed like
                      an emotion.

The modern mind
                      is cracked.
The modern heart
                      is broken.

Let us see people again
and hear how they feel.
Let us do things, and let
us say what we think.

Intention

Don't act in desperation
nor disavow the deed.

Whatever the outcome,
it will not be yours to claim,
nor will you learn
from your mistake.

Let everything you do express
a promise or a hope.

Find the point of rest
and wait
for the universe
to come around.

What must happen in the mind when we write?
First, a fact must be imagined, or a motion.
Our concepts still the image, hold it firm.
Our emotions move its focus, draw us in.
The words come after to name the parts,
then sentences to make the pictures,
arranged in paragraphs to give them life.

Lived Experience

To lose one's way.
To have a body.
To be a person.
To become oneself.

People who think well are good at using concepts.
Are people who feel well good at using emotions?

We try to discourage them
from going down
the roads we have known
and succeed only
in giving them the courage
to go further.

There is no honest time to leave a summer masquerade,
but if you catch a woman's eye then why not go that way?

(With apologies to Leonard Cohen.)

Your wisdom can no more justify your philosophy than your love, your poetry.