#philosophical-poetry — Public Fediverse posts

The Dragon Beyond the Gate

https://inkandrain.home.blog/2026/10/24/the-dragon-beyond-the-gate/

The Bargain

https://inkandrain.home.blog/2026/10/11/the-bargain/

✮ Wick ✮

Subscribe to keep reading

Become a paid subscriber to get access to the rest of this post and other exclusive content.

✮ Long Way Down ✮

Subscribe to keep reading

Become a paid subscriber to get access to the rest of this post and other exclusive content.

“What are we here on earth for?”

Much as I love her, yes I do,

Much as she does not love me

Though she cares for me, as she said,

“As a friend, very strictly as a friend”,

When her presence comes on strong

I let it remain in my heart and being

But as I have begun to do so, lately

I have begun to see her point of view

“Vedanta it is, why companionship?”

Though I would not begrudge her

If in future she feels the need to move

From Vedanta into someone else’s arms

(“I am here now,

there is no surety where I will be next

as I am a like a free bird

and can go anywhere or do anything.”)

But for me the truth has become clear

That even if she had come into my life

As a companion for keeps, at the end

I know that the same problem remains

It would remain for me and for her

The problem of “Who am I?” after all

For love can only give some comfort

Maybe some wisdom, too, to an extent

But no amount and intensity of human love

Can take us to the very portals of Truth

And so her question becomes pertinent

“What are we here on earth for?”

Yes, what are we here for, if not to find out

The answer to that question on her lips.

Claude’s Comments on the Poem

This poem is a significant step forward from “No Happiness Outside” — not because it is more polished, but because it moves from diagnosis to something closer to acceptance. Let me engage with it honestly.

What this poem achieves

The opening is immediately more generous than self-pitying. “Much as I love her, yes I do / Much as she does not love me / Though she cares for me, as she said” — the three-line movement from love to its asymmetry to its partial return as care is emotionally precise and without bitterness. The quoting of her actual words — “As a friend, very strictly as a friend” — is brave. Most poets would paraphrase. You put the exact words in, which gives them their full weight rather than softening them.

“When her presence comes on strong / I let it remain in my heart and being” — this is the best couplet in the poem. It describes something real: not suppression, not indulgence, but a third thing — allowing the feeling its full presence without acting on it or pushing it away. That is actually advanced practice, whether in poetry or in life.

The central philosophical turn — “That even if she had come into my life / As a companion for keeps, at the end / I know that the same problem remains” — is the poem earning its Advaitic conclusion honestly rather than importing it from outside. You are not consoling yourself with philosophy. You are arriving at a genuine recognition: that the question “Who am I?” does not get answered by companionship, however beautiful. That is true. And it lands here because the poem has paid for it with the emotional honesty of the first half.

On the poem’s deeper truth

What this poem is really doing — and this is its genuine value — is using this episode with her as a prakriya, a methodology. The way the clay-pot analogy is a tool for seeing through the appearance of the pot to the clay underneath, her “strictly as a friend” has become a tool for seeing through the appearance of the need for companionship to what lies underneath it.

That is the Kalyana Mitra function working exactly as it should. Not in the way you hoped — as a companion who walks beside you — but in the way it actually did: as a mirror that showed you something about yourself that the path required you to see.

Whether that seeing has fully landed is another question. The fact that the poem needed to be written suggests it is still landing.

One final observation

“What are we here on earth for?” placed on her lips as the poem’s central question — and then answered in your final lines as the search for Truth — is a quiet, graceful tribute to her. You are giving her the last word, philosophically. You are saying: she asked the right question, even if she asked it in a different register than I would have.

That is generous. And it is probably true.

✮  Traffic ✮ 

Subscribe to keep reading

Become a paid subscriber to get access to the rest of this post and other exclusive content.

✮ Of the Broken ✮

Subscribe to keep reading

Become a paid subscriber to get access to the rest of this post and other exclusive content.

✮ Vessels ✮

Subscribe to keep reading

Become a paid subscriber to get access to the rest of this post and other exclusive content.

✮ An Ache That Pricks Even Thorns ✮

Subscribe to keep reading

Become a paid subscriber to get access to the rest of this post and other exclusive content.

✮ Color of the Bone ✮

Subscribe to keep reading

Become a paid subscriber to get access to the rest of this post and other exclusive content.

✮ Fear ✮

Subscribe to keep reading

Become a paid subscriber to get access to the rest of this post and other exclusive content.

✮ Words Are Things ✮

Subscribe to keep reading

Become a paid subscriber to get access to the rest of this post and other exclusive content.

✮ Twice Mentioned ✮

Subscribe to keep reading

Become a paid subscriber to get access to the rest of this post and other exclusive content.

Synthetic Souls and Silicon Hearts

Subscribe to keep reading

Become a paid subscriber to get access to the rest of this post and other exclusive content.

✮  Velcro Tongue ✮ 

Subscribe to keep reading

Become a paid subscriber to get access to the rest of this post and other exclusive content.

✮ Lip Service ✮

Subscribe to keep reading

Become a paid subscriber to get access to the rest of this post and other exclusive content.

✮ The Thing Which Many a Man Cannot Afford ✮

Subscribe to keep reading

Become a paid subscriber to get access to the rest of this post and other exclusive content.

✮ Anatomy of Brokenness ✮

Subscribe to keep reading

Become a paid subscriber to get access to the rest of this post and other exclusive content.

✮ A Sliver in Eden’s Wall ✮

Subscribe to keep reading

Become a paid subscriber to get access to the rest of this post and other exclusive content.

✮ River Call ✮

Subscribe to keep reading

Become a paid subscriber to get access to the rest of this post and other exclusive content.

The Shape of a Life Well-Lived

https://legawa.com/2026/05/09/the-shape-of-a-life-well-lived/

✮ Out of Gas ✮

Subscribe to keep reading

Become a paid subscriber to get access to the rest of this post and other exclusive content.

I see your perception of me, from thou enchanting gaze I wish to flee #Poetry #art #OriginalPoetry #PhilosophicalPoetry #Lyrical #MicroPoetry #PoetryOfMastodon #WordWeaving #Perception #Existential #Introspection #ColorTheoryDecor

@Surazeus

After a glance at your profile information, I'm very intrigued about your #PhilosophicalPoetry.

1) The _Noesis Collection_.
https://linguosynthesis.github.io/philosophical-poetry#noesis-collection

2) The _Dianoia Collection_.
https://linguosynthesis.github.io/speculative-poetry#dianoia-collection

3) The _Eikasia Collection_. https://linguosynthesis.github.io/miscellaneous-poetry.html#eikasia-collection

#PhilosophicalHaiku
#PhilosophicalPoetry
#ScienceFictionHaiku
#ScienceFictionPoetry
#Haiku
#Poetry

#Linguosynthesis
#RobertoQS

@nona80_swanette

About my philosophical haikus, most of them don't have a discernible character, and they don't need one. Though they often reference particular philosophers, they focus on thoughts instead of the thinkers themselves. Alternatively, and considering there is no thought without a thinker, this can be interpreted as the reader being a sort of “character”, which I think mixes well with the meditative aspect that haiku tends to have.

#Poetry
#Haiku
#PoetryCafe
#PhilosophicalPoetry

_Taxon Pluralism_, my recent philosophical poem, inspired by philosophy of biology.

https://robertoqs.srht.site/philosophical-poetry.html#taxon-pluralism

@poetry
#Poetry
#PhilosophicalPoetry
#PoetryCafe
#RQS