i wrote this poem for gate at a moment when i did not have an answer and instead

this poem is a reminder to forget. the beauty of forgetting. the love of a good emptiness. to play the game where forget.

the void is one of christopher alexander's fifteen properties of life. structure-preserving transformations result in a void adjacent rich complexity.

i like the opportunity to reflect on the true shape of things. i like noise followed by silence. complexity, then the void. what can exist in such an empty space before it ceases to function as this particular type of void is unknown to me. i know only that there is a characteristic void, meaning that there exists also some not-void. a space slightly too loud for emptiness to thrive.

this poem is a reminder to be empty and to remember and to forget and to be full.

play the game where empty.

"a nothing memory could take
 the place of nothings a memory
 replaces with fire
       and life sweet
 nothing that memories
 kill hideous
 nothing too put to death
 by memorys
 advent and always memory
 kills cuckoo
 like and like water fills
 the massive vessel empty with nothing
 who dies like a nothing memory
 to blame."

these poems are a kind of reminder of the inevitability of playing.

"remember [that you have] to play."

"do you know anything meaning
 even black skies still
 drifting and sidewalks long
 city walks
 do you know?"

"it's pretty
 bright and beautiful
 gods on earth play
 killing games as an illustration
 meaning cows
 mortal games for becoming
 more than mirrors reflecting
 moons shining or plaything."
 

"do you think
 we only play at being alive
 with each other pretend
 moving makes us greater than
 believing that
 believing in each other
 having ends without ends
 our meaning?"

this poem is an attempt to hold on to the slippery nature of slipperiness, smooth action, like and unlike a chambered device  admitting machined parts just so. are we machines?

"turning
 always turning grace
 and smooth thinking
 how slipping serpentine between snakes
 scales and forgetting school
 just swimming as one

 washing water with water and always forever
 turn."
 

this poem is another desperate attempt to cling to a fleeting sensation that someday something will justify the awarding of a single point, but it's not today, but it's something like a precious hope for the future, for a tomorrow where the score counter finally changes, a hope

"i made a practice of saying no instead
 closing my eyes and heart too and doors
 the hundred fish i did not catch because."

"ten months of this and a large bird
 waited to look at me like a shining stone
 lost humanity for the better
 the passages remained quietly shut."

"how long i wondered must i leave
 these silences sustained forever
 in white hoping for something grey
 on black horizons."

these poems, this poem, wants me to know death, to remember to love -- well, i swiped live, but yes love too. human love, human mean. human mean wrong all the time, but human mean like poison poison. this i know.

"poison airs
 we have no direction
 onion soup feed and remember
 magma flow."

"eleven eyes
 look and kill
 for the killer."

"we sell poison we know
 human mean."

this poem is a reminder that three words can be enough. it's got everything!

this poem is a reminder of the right attitude to have around curiosity.