In darkness I find many things
Mostly trivial I guess
Tricks of the neurological apparatus
Samples of inward prosthesis
How a lack of neural stimulation stimulates
Like tinnitus or a phantom limb
Therefore lacking in significance
Except perhaps as some psychological lever
To pry open the
Well it’s embarrassing to say

How shall I characterize them
These non-ontological entities
They aren’t representations of things
They aren’t things in themselves
They are an experience
Doubtless shared by everybody
Doubtless dismissed by any serious person
Kind of like a poem

And like a poem these formless forms
Associate themselves with feelings
Which are trivial aren’t they
When they aren’t positively destructive
Emotional attitudes distract at best
From the serious matter
Of the phenomenal world
Of protecting oneself from its assaults
Exploiting its resources

I cannot justify the habit
Of seeking refuge in the dark
Of communing with familiar patterns
Instead of with my human friends
Another source of self-contempt
Another need another addiction
Not so much I lack the will
I lack the mere desire
To renounce that which
In darkness I find