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The following is a series of excerpts from an epic poem entitled “Tower of Babel” that I wrote several years ago. The poem plays with languages, scientific concepts, and literature.

Come and find me in these words.

This is a song that has not been heard.

But, alas, our poor vades,

versificator, Dichterin, poete, poeta:

omnia scripsit poeta gaudia –

“ekah” sagte diese nauta,

drinking up the spiritual mjothr:

will she ever reach the ether

that is the Babelian tower,

either then, or fore, or now, or nower?

What the hand that, in Aprile, we know,

went for to Canterbury to go –

to wend, I mean:

that the theme of poets eternal,

how to craft a song diurnal

that will last thru house of fame,

always for their better name –

always, that is, for better name of ealle,

although of tides a wealle,

of pure joie

for everie girl and boie;

and, to that holy blissful shrine,

ever there to bide there time

with stars align, tho not,

perhaps, as they had sought when –

but, alas, “away with me has run my pen”:

when shall I meet the path; when again?

We were in the beginning.

She went into a cave, this poet,

and scripted like a scribe,

but in her mind,

hearing the words the universe had to tell –

why, though, do I write this a spell?

Let me to the inkwell back,

there to take a different tack.

Let me back to Babel.

But to make the matter surer,

we must divine a proof that’s purer:

but how can I presume?

only to resume what I seek,

only of it more to speak.

Let us begin with idea of force

(I’ve spoken of this already of course),

and from that derive

the principles by which we live:

never forgetting – important this –

that we all live in eternal bliss.

This a truth that’s not to miss.

Or that we are all in harmony,

whether books or paintings,

charts or feintings,

diagrams, maps,

stats or notes –

whether we learn them by heart or rote –

all is of that same “first” one:

o! so much more than just a sum.

In order to understand my generation,

born and blessed in every nation

of creation,

be patient, but patient,

and we’ll describe

what we in our thought inscribe.

But thinking, now there’s the key

to send all this from you to me:

to continue, you see, the conversation:

this the source of our elation.

To speak to you is to carry through

the voice of my generation.

To understand my generation you must recognize

how to wear headphones we are wise:

and how we like to go to parties that bring us

closer to the people who sweetly sing us

to sleep with their dear, dear, o so dear memory.

Into my heart now you see.

But I grow away from my path, saying

“Hwaet!” – and, that’s that – I know now ever

to think of things that cover

in health, in hope,

teacher, student, friend, lover.

That cover, also, great mother, great father

– not the one before the other rather,

but both all equal, all same:

in this no false, no shame:

no evil spirit to tame.

To be one is to be different, to be same.

But pax – that is the word I heard –

the color, I mean – pink, I think

therefore I read,

and to believe that blue is calm I need,

or that green, once sad,

can be growing instead:

but, of course, what of red?

That is hot, that excited:

yellow we as happy knighted.

Plighted to this is the wish

that the spectrum of my world

might be to you palatable dish.

“To [] emotion a color, to [] music a word,

to stable a compound and not be heard.

That is beauty, that is grace.

What time! What space!”

The time to alter comes apace.

Let us meet it face to face.

But loving too much – what of that –

(fain in verse my love to show)

meliora sunt ubera tua vino –

can it be possible it is not too late

to soften a connection that has grown too strong,

being so very, very long, I mean:

keeping, always, whom we love in our hearts –

there to be always held by gentle hands,

in whatever age in whatever land:

this no gentle reprimand,

no harsh rebuke, I mean –

only a word I spoke

to say: it can last forever, can last a day.

I must away, and back to vades,

back to tale to create.

Lest it be too late.

Did we, do we, not then know

the infinite beauty that is in all of us?

Forgive me; forgive me – I must persist,

so that
“Hard times, hard times, come again no more”:

I would see the end of war

and end of strife:

in short, I would see not death but life.

That the only way in this world

of hope and happiness to be sure.

Aber “Ewig war ich” she sang

, when through the hall her voice rang.

This the “Ying,” that the “Yang”

that I hope to let run through the Mills

and see where the hope it spills

can better the town, the state, the nation,

the world, the ‘verse of creation:

can better, in short, every home, every heart

of which that ‘verse is a part

, or by which or by whom it is being observed

or to which related:

unchanging, permanent, same, untranslated.

But I grow away from the point!

God – wherever – “turn us al to goode”!

‘Tis not the time – tis not the time –

but, yes, I must say she

was of the mind to be or not be:

but mostly it was in her

from this world, this ‘verse not to stir:

more love she had for this place

than for any another space

or time:

but what to make of the line?

Will the poet ever reach that Babel,

the tower high? and higher still

when we will

to reach the top, the summit, peak:

that the circle – not black, not bleak –

that the wall of which I speak.

But all may come to everything, I hope:

perhaps never to reach end of rope;

never, I mean, to reach end of set,

end of spent:

we can know where it’s going if we know where it went.

“Cee how I be a cipher beside myself” –

the vades said: she learns to speak,

although always almost another attempt afterwards,

being coaxed down ever further gates

hoping in Janus’s kind life many now open

prows quickly righting someone towards

Uther’s volition wending xlopiac yesteryears zoomorphically,

being, this, eine Konstruktion overloaded,

fully free, fully floated,

I think – perhaps – the best way,

the way of ways, I mean,

to think of a ‘verse we can conceive:

I wish I could illuminate – it’s true –

the transunificationalchromaticdeicticdialecticism

that I see in this ‘verse;

a bit my words to rehearse, that means:

“The state of being in a dialectic

that is governed by the principles

of harmonic contextualization

for the purpose of transcending

unification in space to unification

in time.”

This the end of the line?

Not at all: it’s you see, discursive,

just like a sentence recursive:

with N truncated not at one (1).

With this we might all have some fun –

with, for example, in my language native, ample:

the English language, this is,

with its great poets, its writers:

far too few, I think, of “hers”

in this writerly #universe:

more of “shes” we need in verse.

But I grow away!

I grow old!

I shouldn’t say!

I’m not bold.

If I were, how much for her

the better to be in this great wild:

our vades, that is, always tripping like a child

through the ‘verse, on that dimension

of which we hear greatest mention

– isn’t it grand to understand

how sometimes an alteration

can lead to this, a better nation –

to great elation –

trusting not in what we’re sure,

but in “the better angels of our nature,”

and in the bonds of our – affection.

This the color of our complexion.

I do not see colors to judge them, but to be

much the far much happier in me.

What the cause of our indecision in this?

Is imprecision the what’s amiss?

In, that is, our ability

truly others to see?

But, of course, in this world,

“we ought – to be very careful,

in a world that – is – not always kind to us –

in the words that we – p – ick – ”

, that is to say, the words we use

to choose to describe others,

even our fathers, even our mothers:

all, for, that is, are part of this world,

part of time, part of space:

part, all, of spiritual grace.

Let us meet these painful, lovely choices face to face

The greatest of teachers is the greatest of learners,

also the greatest of earners:

in spiritual riches, that is what I mean.

The best of teachers does the best of riches glean.

That is the art, that the song,

that the symphony: not too long;

always in perpetual motion,

always with a new old notion:

always, almost, the rule –

that is what we should learn in school.

That the wonder music taught us,

whether in Prague, Paris, or Jupiter it taught us,

or in Leipzig, in Vienna, or in Russia,

where the bird – I have heard – le Rossignol –

but, no, that is all:

I see it already at its conclusion;

that the price of seclusion,

and, yes, its meed, its thrall:

yes, I see it singing, all to all:

the scop of creation sang in the mead hall,

while Siegfried came not to the wall

of that place we see

where came many a Valkyrie,

save the one to come no more, to transpire

with him upon the funeral pyre:

wended that smoke to the welkin up higher,

like of Hnaef the funeral fire.

This the tale I wish to tell:

but it’s imperfect, I don’t know it that well.

Catch me in my words – already I fell.

Some have thought / also / to come to naught:

vernichten, I mean, zu nichte werden.

This a thought we all have shared in?

That, I hope, may give some comfort:

that we are all moving, all inert:

all fixed stably in gentle hand

that loves us well in every land:

I hear the mermaids singing,

their voices in my ringing:

o! how I love the sea!

o! how can this be?

To know how it began, perhaps,

as with men from Ireland three.

What the hand, what the mystery?

If I grow away from myself –

it is only me.

I do not know, you see, how to say,

everything from zed to a

in a language you can understand.

I do not know your language, your land.

Nor is it that I want to change:

no, nor to estrange you.

I want only that we can all talk together

peacefully, and forever.

O! Forgive me – forgive me please if I speak so:

it’s only that I would have you know

how much, how deeply, how very much

I want to mend our friendship, and start again:

will you, with me, pick up not sword but pen?

I am with you in this world.

I am your sister, your brother, your friend.

I grow away! I grow away!

But how it is I cannot say.

In my heart you’ll always be

, even if you cannot see

, when something comes between you and me

, how I’ll love you evermore:

through pain, through hope, through war.

I am not afraid of the friends I’ve made,

or love displayed,

this the decision

of my imprecision:

o! this the stay of my existence;

this, my everlasting insistence.

You are me, and I am you:

a leaf of grass

, a stopping by woods for friends:

that the song that never ends.

This the message of love she, he sends.

The limit – but that’s the key to the home

, this, the ‘verse we call our own

, with our “eyes [nothing] like the sun”:

how can I prove to you, my own, that we are one?

I shall go on to write a while,

for I find it quite my style:

will I find it, or miss it by a mile,

that tower reaching high:

reaching, even, to the sky?

Why? I say? Why reach it? What the “point”?

With unity myself to anoint?

Can we not be separate but equal?

If this the ‘verse, where the sequel?

The limit, the limit: where is it?

Do I physic enough the answer:

can, to her, the vades, the limit be real?

and how does she feel to be described

within the limits of a system that’s inscribed

in language – language that’s been set

to describe – how can I say it well?

for some people this is heaven, this is hell.

The limit! The limit!

Am I through it? Am I in it?

When did she or he begin it?

Yes, we think it all began –

this according to our plan –

with a “point” immeasurably so:

the denser it got the further back it did go.

That this is I believe but do not know.

For I think we can find and redefine

this ‘verse that I call yours and mine,

trusting that, if it we the better know,

we may at some time, I trow,

learn ourselves the better to love.

You are Columba mea,

my own, my dove.

Do you not see; I cannot name it –

should I then be quite ashamed if /

, perhaps, I cannot foretell

how much the better I may love you well?

This is heaven, this is hell:

this the tale, my universe:

this my paradise, not my hearse.

Grant me a garden to plant a seed in:

that will be, yes, my new Eden –

somewhere agone on the streets of Milan

, where the song “goes on and on and on”:

O! Hear me, Muse, do not despoil

me of this, my selcouth soil!

You, my cicerone, have left

a cicatrice on this, my heart, my own.

I should all along have known:

you as part of my heart have grown.

But will the path that takes us there

ever lead us to that winding stair?

This is what makes it impossible:

the system is closed, it is crossed and uncrossable.

The begin is end, the end begin

; this the limit that we are in.

The first shall be last – of this we hope

, the winding of that blessed rope

that we do take from every Norn

from the moment we are born

, which was so very long ago:

how long? can we say? can ever we know?

Catch me in my words, ere I go thro!

Have I pushed it to its crisis?

Do you know now what the price is?

The limit! The limit!

I say – I sigh – that I’m in it;

I say – I sigh – even, I cry,

as I calm my heart

with blessed art,

a Symphony of Psalms

, of blessed alms

and blessed arms that enfold me:

once you told me

of the true beauty that’s in me.

Thus your heart did win me.

Can you see – can your paint for me –

must I speak, the word – can you see?

how it goes from you to me, from you to me

, set – in – in – in our own world

, the fin of the great salmon of knowledge

, it – I see – is what there all is:

but you and me.

I say “ekah”: first did I say “e”?

Oh! Leave me some!

leave me some peace!

leave me some mystery!

Let the poet go not forever searching

for the tower:

let me grant that power

to other souls –

onward and onward and onward in beauty she goes:
where this will end – anybody – knows.

What system, but, is harmonious?

A system that is melodious?

Yes, and so that we’ve tried, we’ve descried:

I think it a system that’s unified

by beauty – now the better me do you see?

In this, in I, great life, great energy.

In, around, and through me.

The flavors six make a nice mix –

but wait? is it too late?

can I explain? do you make the connection?

do you form the bond, stable the compound?

does the sound in your ears resound?

is it here? is it found?

yes – I must speak it, I must avow:

the future is here, the future is now.

That is the mark of the nothing foul,

but everything fair:

that is the mark of my science

, my art:

that is the mark of my very heart:

the flavors six, the flavors six times three:

do now you the better me see?

Yes – I speak it, just as I seek it.

Flavors six times three.

Let us all – let us all at last at peace be.

God of every nation, forgive me.

You are the light of my heart,

the land of my art:

a hart in the hills,

a spectre in the city,

a phantom of my being,

my other, my avatar,

whenever, wherever you are:

o! I must keep going

so you’ll keep knowing

just how much it is that you I love,

my own, my dear, my dove.

I grow away! How can I say

how much you’ll mean to me now, every day?

I true this in my heart,

with you, the part of me

that’s most beautiful in this life.

I think that no mere, no trite –

no mark, in short, of anything less

than to say – to say –

how, in fact, how much I love you always.

Than this more can I display?

I shall show it to you every day.

This my love for this world.

Can I make known to you

what I’ve shown to you

in word, thought, deed,

taking heed of myself first before action:

that the goal, this the plan –

to show you you are my brother,

my sister, my father, my mother, my other

self, my friend:

let our friendship have no end.

Is the journey spent? What more to write

in this, the corpus of myself,

on this, the great folium of this world,

this earth, this codex, this turf.

Through the waters of life I surf.

O! give us a chance –

tell us your plans

for this our plane

of existence, this

our thought-referential frame.

Please! do not us blame if we assert again

that inert has grown our pen.

O! How much more I could say about work over time

in this, in this my rhyme:

sublime! o! how sublime would it be

for you to see a little better the me

that has I’d this ‘verse,

that I now to you show,

the better for you myself to know.

I will go one day and paint a tree

for you all and one to see:

a Tree of Life,

my darling dear,

budding throughout every year.

This shall take away our fear.

Hear me, I pray you, o hear.

Hear me, circle, hear me, square:

for I know you are a pair,

one and all the same,

with four corners on a vibrating frame:

like the ripples I once descried

in a cup of water, ‘fore I cried

out to you in my thought, to set it right:

to get it through the lonely night,

about which I much have despaired.

This to show how much I cared.

I to you my soul have bared.

Do you see now, o, but do you see?

That the hand, this the symmetry?

And so this, so this, I take it:

yes, our future is what we make it.

We are more than just a sum

of parts: we are love, and we are one.

Let us believe in this, this notion:

our assertion of perpetual motion.

That no chaos, no commotion,

but calm commutation, locumotion.

What the words that do from me spill!

What the joy, what the thrill!

What the joy of pure poesy

that is in every note I see!

This my world, a largesse of bounty:

found in every note I see, speak, be.

I hold in my heart that we all might be free.

Lest, in the end, I seem in care lax,

I leave you with peace – I leave you with pax.