Richard Mather
On the Presence of Being Everywhere
2-Theory
i
Apeiron
beginning; ur-reality: eternal, infinite,
boundless, indefinite;
yielding every thing
through the actions of opposites:
hot-cold, wet-dry, soul-body, one-many;
and in time
will decohere & return
to the infinite beginning:
genesis and decay,
ceaseless becoming
​
ii
Absence
‘The fact of the matter is
that we must acknowledge that
in the last resort
there is no theory.’
And in the first resort,
there is no beginning to speak of,
no genesis or ur-text,
no being or non-being,
not even becoming.
There is not even
the fact of the matter
with which to discuss
our absence of theory.
​
Allure
Allured by the oil lamp suspended
from a beam, a yellow shell moth
flits and flashes. Light and wing
make contact.
Potato eaters, tanned with dirt,
sit five to a table, drinking tea.
A man enters, lifts his hat, coughs,
studies the scene.
Something is said but not recorded;
a fork is lifted but not depicted.
Concealed by the shadows the hands
of the clock move slowly, slowly
And still the moth flits, irresistibly
drawn to the hot yellow moon.
The Potato Eaters
Potato eaters –
five peasant women,
clothed in rags,
seated round
a square table
in a brown room.
The scene is set.
Outside the frame,
a famous artist
inspects the dim
and manifold
prospect…
Five chairs,
two forks,
an oil lamp,
a tablecloth,
people, a kettle,
wooden beams.
But nothing –
not a single
thing –
can be fully
described,
recorded, depicted.
Every angle
of vision –
each perception –
refuses to yield
the clock’s essence,
the kettle’s nature.
Perturbed
and defeated,
the artist withdraws.
And the plates,
chairs, women,
clock, oil lamp,
continue to
equally exist
on the flat surface.
Being Flat: Apartment 1a
Refrigerator, baby, shoelace, moth,
quarks, ceiling, “background,” sink, magazine, sieve,
“environment,” pencil, cactus, cloth,
“climate,” atoms, paper, bottle,
“conatus,” “nature,” paw, red,
“world,” electron, christmas tree, shadow, “love,”
Chloe, fibre, cigarettes, vinyl, fishing rod,
light bulb, bauble, “space,” picture frame,
“genealogy,” tap, king-size bed,
television, “universe,” pram,
metal, man, hand-carved ornamental cat,
coat, string, “cognition,” shape, Diazepam,
“place,” Ulysses, line, laptop, fake fur hat,
aerosol, “evolution,” “atmosphere,”
lung, “entropy,” kettle, cable, “cosmos,” cot,
“infomation,” polycotton, “future,” switch, mirror,
DVD player, carpet, money, “identity,”
machine, water, shape, toolbox, “four,”
plastic, image, radiation, wallpaper, eye,
writing, needle, dust, foam,
gift box, “color,” blender, “history,”
“apartment 1a,” “life,” “solids,” comb,
“materials,” flame, credit card, megabyte,
lipstick, perfume, cupboard, kitchen, “home”…
email, teddy bear, gluons, apple, datum, bait:
an unfinished set of things equally existing,
the set included.