Haiku

the Way is also
a bird living in a cage,
heedless of the sky.

Haiku

thinking and thinking –
seasons change and rivers run,
but nothing gets done.

Haiku

sudden gust of wind a thousand leaves fly away waiting for the rain.

1917

A friend writes, on occasion of the centenary of the October Revolution: “it brings the only kind of freedom worth having: freedom from exploitation (…) freedom that is not only inscribed in the law, but in the very relations of production, and therefore, in real life.”

I agree wholeheartedly with the premise that bourgeois freedom is a mere spectre, a veil of illusion. But I also know that where there is advanced technology, there will be division of labour, and therefore bureaucracy. And wherever bureaucracy reigns, freedom remains a rhetorical ploy, materialised in the same repetitive tasks, the same living death, the same ideological spooks.

The October Revolution has done much for humanity’s progress, and it has taught us many lessons, in what should be done and what should not be done. In my opinion, it has also taught us that the genie cannot be forced back into the bottle: division of labour leads to a double tyranny, one external and one internal: the tyranny of the mode of production, and the tyranny of dependence on technological comforts. And finally, that death of the spirit that overtakes Man when he no is no longer in control of his own destiny.

Small Poems

“But out here, the map is but a blank expanse of nothingness. In the City, we live by our representations: our maps, our clocks, our languages. They are woven deep within the fabric of who we are. But here, where I choose to walk, the hills need no names. Time is nothing but the steady transformation of all that is into its next state. No word is spoken, for no word is needed. And what a shame: there were no dragons, after all.”

“I always walk uneasily amidst the sea of faces. Their voices fade into an incoherent turmoil, joy here, aggravation there, mostly studied indifference. I know they live one step away from erupting into whatever torments them at 4 o’clock in the morning, into the fiend that worships at the altar of fear. But the abyss is mine, and I have freely chosen the path of trials. I fear them not”