Perne in a Gyre [by Mitch Sisskind]

1.
Think about it for a minute and you'll see
How nothing is further in the past than 
Anything else. Either it's in the past or
It's not. Boom, bang. Case closed.

You may think the pyramids are far 

In the past but there's no such thing
As far in the past or close in the past,
There's only the past plain and simple
With no far or near so if somebody
Dies they get grandma on one side
And King Tut on the other side, 
All in the same boat so don't make it
More complicated than it has to be

Like a lot of people tend to do.

 

2.
What about the future? The future is

Like a swirling maelstrom or vortex
Of water where many outcomes are
Possible whereas the past is like
When the water has turned into ice
And you're stuck with it indefinitely.
Unlike the past some things are
Further in the future than others
But I admit I don't know exactly
How it works. Maybe the ice melts
And the past turns into the future 
Again so you can get another 
Chance at it like in karma or in
The movie "Groundhog Day." 

3.
I am not the smartest person 
In the world and anyway who is
The smartest person in the world?
I asked my mother that question 
In 1952 and she said Albert Einstein

Which might have been correct in  

1952 but everything is always in flux.
That is what A.N. Whitehead meant  

By process and reality or how when  

W.B. Yeats wrote perne in a gyre 
Nobody knew what he meant and 
We still don't know so its meaning
Is always in flux. Or what if we're all 

Inside some big computer game?

 

Comments

[Ijay Ewnhamay]

What is perne in a gyre? What happens when it widens?

[mitch sisskind]

No one knows exactly what it means in his poem
"Sailing to Byzantium." He also refers
to a gyre, which is a kind of vortex, in "The Second
Coming" but perne is the tricky part.