Ludwig W/A Sketch

You’re striding around my garden,

Arms flailing like a Dementor as you shout to a wordless sky.

And then the lengthy silences,

As you cogitate, ruminate,

And I can almost hear the gears moving.

 

I’m trying to believe there’s a Rhinoceros in my room.

I promise I didn’t look for it,

It’s the nth degree of certitude,

That I’m so attracted to.

 

 

I see you now, hands in pockets,

Striding around Russell’s study;

He’s slightly shell shocked,

Watching the Force of Nature, you,

And the 2 hour silences,

Followed by the explosions of breathtaking assessments,

This new son is a prodigy.

 

Rowing to the Norwegian cabin, perched over a fjord,

Glorious Nordic Nature streams in,

Only its emanations,

But they recleanse the fevered brain,

Mining philosophical diamonds.

 

I see you now,

Writing notes for Tractatus,

While over head Five Nines bombard your position,

Earth disturbed, ground shaken;

And your men, burrowing for shelter.

You’ve seen death, “Looked it in the face”,

This abstract proposition gains physicality,

And the mystery lessens.

You experience two World Wars;

And Philosophy is redundant, whilst the Soul seeks to find its transitional home,

In action for the good;

And words like `Soul` and `Good`;

Are the realities that can’t be analysed;

Only experienced:

 "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence"

 

I bought Tractatus for my seven year old Kindle Paper white,

Forty Nine Pence;

Value for money?

The biggest understatement of the Century;

And Bertand Russell is spinning in His Urn.

 

 

Tractatus

Line by numbered line

The DNA of logic

`2.61 In order to be a picture

A fact must have something in common with the picture`;

And the `bleeding obvious` is left naked, helpless and begging the question.

 

There’s a photo of you,

Perhaps in your Forties;

Such an attractive, care worn and honest face;

And two of your brothers committed suicide,

And you too, for a time,

Considered that fatal decision.

 

A Cambridge Professor of Philosophy,

Far too official for the philosophical `Happenings` that are your lectures;

Your vitality is the draw, the passion;

And integrity of a mind seen naked in its immanent revelations.

 

Finally Philosophical Investigations,

Posthumous, which is appropriate;

It’s not just a revision, or a rejection,

But life has informed and clarity is found in the refocus;

Now Logic is relegated to flesh and blood interactions,

Determining the parameters;

And the mind is another organ,

Acted upon.

 

A Confession

I read biographies,

And watch lectures concerning the meaning of your work,

There is a heart hope that I will understand,

At a level of real comprehension,

What you are offering me;

At the moment your life is the attraction.