About…

The poem is about the acquisition of knowledge versus that of understanding .

Book 301 is intended to be a collection of poems by Mike Burr for 2010 with no thematic precept.

Knew




three muted words and in pained idolatry
I stand alone
obsession moves like hot dry landscape
across my eyes and levels leaves to resonance or colour
its sharp bladed axe the deceiver and its fluid bore the sap tears
translated to a sanguine world
there is no boon of respite and the blinding lust
of desire or revenge or despair
mind-torn in my waking
the former nights of paradise unfolded
like the sky unfolds
as if the waters and the earth itself unhinged
flew open
and then I knew
tables of empiric law from dark boxes scattered through the vaults of genesis
as sundered leaves that screaming wild beyond the wind plagued plains
seeds like pearls that roll like planets in the camber of the new geometry
and spill around the hollowed floor
emotions trunk and malice branch levelled by dyspraxia
rained upon the universe of man physic
mean nothing to dimension in destruction
for i am not beholden to the laws of flesh and blood now
nor clothes upon a stick
that stick which itself died many years ago
had sloughed its roots
yet where the roots were once among a shredded path
now have sprung sap shoots
the gems of spring a rising
the nights of paradise return
and birds sing from my limbs and all grows
strong-ward to a newer sun
let patience paradigm be the colours of my foliage
for i know and i knew that then i did not know

Sources…

The idea is to highlight the notion that knowledge is not understanding. The reference to "I stand alone " are an analogy of an idea without full cognition or reference and that fixation upon an ideal may result in a blighting of the ability to conceptually grasp meaning. I have met many people to whom this certainly applies although here by implication I'm incriminating myself and pointing out that to be aware of this error allows regeneration

the "i know and i knew that then i did not know" is an oblique correction of a statement made by some gobshite politician whose memory fails me [sic]