Tom Beckett


JOHN DARK: Notes Toward Its Realization (an abandoned work)

Dark’s voices
Braid Its

Halo from
White noise.

Thought bubbles
Dance above

John Dark
Battle ready

In shapewear.


   *


John Dark
Is called

To read
Wittgenstein

And to
Sketch zombies.

JD
Does not

Know A
From Z.


   *


Does John
Dark equal

JD?
Does J

D always
Go dark?

Voices braid
Its shadows.


   *


Empty when
It wakes.

Barely more
Than nothing.

John Dark
Softens in

The night.
JD

Is made
Of It.

John Dark
Is Made.


   *


Wittgenstein 
And zombies

Caress one
The other

Just out
Of sight.

Effect, affect
Intertwine and

Wiggle together
With them.


   *


JD,
The Made

Are walking
Its beat

On feet 
Set in

Motion by
Braiding pulses.

In Its
Own words

John Dark
Is reminded

That answers
Like walks

Come to
A stop.

Just not 
Quite yet.

Still sooner
Than expected

Dark’s perimeter
(outline, plot)

Is insecure.
Life occurs

Within parentheses
And holes.


   *


JD
Considers W’s

And the Zees’
Entanglement recognizing

A family
Resemblance and

Collects Itself
From that.

But who
Knows W

From Z?


   *


John Dark’s
Shapeworn voices

Braid what
Stakes are

On offer.
If one

Appears to
Be lyin’

Another won’t
Understand It.


   *


John Dark,
The Made

Known misquoters

Project on
One another.


   *


Lots of
Things one

Prepares for
Don’t happen.

Lots more
Things one

Doesn’t prepare
For do.


   *


Forms and
Images emerge

From stains.
Words, phrases,

Sentences come
From and

Return to
White noise.

Assertions are
Poor substitutes

For fill-
In-the-

Blank.  For
Nonfiction’s alterity?

Assertions are
Disguised questions?


   *


John Dark
Considers Poetry

And Truth
To be

The embrace
Of Wittgenstein

And zombies.


   *


JD
Doesn’t know

A from
P-zombies.

Everyone is
A zombie

Some or
Most of

The time.
Even Wittgenstein.


   *


Included in

The list
Of things

Dark is
Included in

Are sense
Data and

Thought experiments
Gone wrong.


   *


Leaps of
Faith, leaps

Of reason.
Nothing is

Finished after
Its fall.

It’s exhausting
Being Dark.


   *


John Dark:
The Made.

JD:
A version.

John Dark,
JD

Collapsing into
Each other

Like Wittgenstein
And zombies.


   *


To imagine
A life-form

Is to
Imagine zombies.

To imagine
A language

Is to
Imagine 

A form
Of love.


   *


John Dark
Wants to

Make revolution
But keeps

Going around
In circles.

History is
Cyclic John

Dark says
To Itself

Getting dizzy
Within It.


   *


Duck-zombies
And rabbit-

Zombies don’t
See themselves

In each
Other but

John Dark
Sees Wittgenstein

In them
And everyone

In Itself.


   *


Dark’s trials
Are many.

Its world
The case cage

In question.

Dark doesn’t
Know in

From out
Or one

From ten.


   *


Reason is
Stranger than

Its relations.
John Dark

Is mostly
Hole.  Things

Don’t exist
For Dark.

Maybe through
Though.  Separate

From Its
Information.  John

Dark fails
Persistently, religiously

To parse
Its sense.


   *


Dark’s really
About entities

Not concepts.
John Dark

Is not
Self-possessed.


   *


Describe It
In three

Words.  The
Open question. 

Describe It
In three

Different words.
Who am

I?  Nothing
Stands alone.

Tom Beckett lives and writes in Kent, Ohio.

 
 

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