"Phantom V" by Don Paterson

Mea culpa re line 8: I confusedly combined both possible readings-- this is either acephalous hexameter or first foot anapest iambic pentameter.  Topics discussed in this episode include: -Write to me about classes! -The Error by Don Paterson-Idealism, Nominalism, Transcendental critique-Plato, Plotinus, Ockham, Kant-Paterson's band, Lammas-His many books-Michael Donaghy-Blank Verse by Robert B. Shaw, and the 3 Types-Nietzsche's "Beyond Good and Evil"-Pseudo-Dionysius and the Via Negativa-Plotinus's plenum meets Nagarjuna's vacuum (sunyata)-God as Eclipse (and my episode/poem on this idea)-Auto-martyrdom on Yggdrasil-Beholding the Nothing That Is Text of poem: Phantom VWe come from nothing and return to it. It lends us out to time, and when we liein silent contemplation of the voidthey say we feel it contemplating us. This is wrong, but who could bear the truth.We are ourselves the void in contemplation. We are its only nerve and hand and eye. There is something vast and distant and enthronedwith which you are one and continuous,staring through your mind, staring and staringlike a black sun, constant, silent, radiantwith neither love nor hate nor apathyas we have no human name for its regard. Your thought is the bright shadows that it makes as it plays across the objects of the earthor such icons of them as your mind has forged.The book in sunlight or the tree in rainbursts at its touch into a blaze of signs. But when the mind rests and the dark light stills,the tree will rise untethered to its stationbetween earth and heaven, the open bookturn runic and unreadable again,and if a word then rises to our lips we speak it on behalf of everything. Support the showVISIT MY WEBSITE HERE.BUY VERSECRAFT MERCH HERE.VISIT THE VERSECRAFT SUBSTACK HERE.Please subscribe, rate, and review! Thanks so much for listening.You can leave me a tip, support the podcast, or request a commission here! TikTok:  @versecraftSend me a note at: [email protected] favorite poetry podcasts for: Sharp thoughts and cutting truths (Matthew): Sleerickets  Lovely introspection and sensitive reflection (Alice): Poetry Says The landscape of Ohioan poetry (Jeremy): Poetry Spotlight  Supported in part by The Ohio Poetry AssociationArt by David Anthony KlugList of the most common metrical feet: Iamb: weak-STRONG (u /)Trochee: STRONG-weak (/ u)Anapest: weak-weak-STRONG (u u /)Amphibrach: weak-STRONG-weak (u / u)Dactyl: STRONG-weak-weak (/ u u)Cretic: STRONG-weak-STRONG (/ u /)Pyrrhic: weak-weak (u u)Spondee: STRONG-STRONG (/ /)