Does the eye of God, seeing all,
see the eye of God seeing all?
And see the eye of God
seeing the eye of God
seeing the eye of God, seeing all,
and so on, and on, and on? Could it be
that this conveyor belt of divine apperceptions
is the ring binding universes
numberless as Buddha’s lotus petals
in the great flat folder of a phrase
like multiverse; or, infinity of infinities…?Ask Berkeley; he was – in some senses – Irish,
and may therefore have had the word-web wherewithal
to spin out of himself,
of his multi-layered, many-rooméd
book-of-Kells of a mind
the teletypic Molly-Bloomian infinity of Yes
it would take to spend eternity
affirming such a hall-of-mirrors God.
And hadn’t he – let alone Jehovah –
better things to be doing –
drinking tar-water, maybe,
thus bolstering the ubiety
of trees in empty quads…?
Ah, ubiety: the bird in all our hands;
the sure-thing we’ll all wager Heaven on –
I know I see these eye-blue, more than sky-blue flowers
of the borage here before me,
know as well as any Cartesian bore
I’ve tasted them before
in salads, and Summer lemonade;
know they taste of their colour
just as roses smell of theirs; their shading, shape,
small breeze-rilled rocking motion
are upside-down in the back of my eye
for moments so small they’re indivisible,
and then enter the mind that thinks of itself as me –
and still, I am an unreflective
un-God. There’s no infinity of Toby
outside first-year philosophy; the countless lotus petals
open only to let me see
that I am that I am – the mere miraculous act of seeing.
Like the soul that is sole, divinity
reveals itself in puns –
since standing up upon the wide Savannah of this earth
Man is self-same with vision. Esse es percipi –
what other meaning of I could there be?
- 115: SPACE
with A Sometimes
114: NO THEME 13
with J Toledo & C Tse
113: INVISIBLE WALLS
with A Walker & D Disney
112: TREAT
with T Dearborn
111: BABY
with S Deo & L Ferney
110: POP!
with Z Frost & B Jessen
109: NO THEME 12
with C Maling & N Rhook
108: DEDICATION
with L Patterson & L Garcia-Dolnik
107: LIMINAL
with B Li
106: OPEN
with C Lowe & J Langdon
105: NO THEME 11
with E Grills & E Stewart
104: KIN
with E Shiosaki
103: AMBLE
with E Gomez and S Gory
102: GAME
with R Green and J Maxwell
101: NO THEME 10
with J Kinsella and J Leanne
100: BROWNFACE
with W S Dunn
99: SINGAPORE
with J Ip and A Pang
97 & 98: PROPAGANDA
with M Breeze and S Groth
96: NO THEME IX
with M Gill and J Thayil
95: EARTH
with M Takolander
94: BAYT
with Z Hashem Beck
93: PEACH
with L Van, G Mouratidis, L Toong
92: NO THEME VIII
with C Gaskin
91: MONSTER
with N Curnow
90: AFRICAN DIASPORA
with S Umar
89: DOMESTIC
with N Harkin
88: TRANSQUEER
with S Barnes and Q Eades
87: DIFFICULT
with O Schwartz & H Isemonger
86: NO THEME VII
with L Gorton
85: PHILIPPINES
with Mookie L and S Lua
84: SUBURBIA
with L Brown and N O'Reilly
83: MATHEMATICS
with F Hile
82: LAND
with J Stuart and J Gibian
81: NEW CARIBBEAN
with V Lucien
80: NO THEME VI
with J Beveridge
57.1: EKPHRASTIC
with C Atherton and P Hetherington
57: CONFESSION
with K Glastonbury
56: EXPLODE
with D Disney
55.1: DALIT / INDIGENOUS
with M Chakraborty and K MacCarter
55: FUTURE MACHINES
with Bella Li
54: NO THEME V
with F Wright and O Sakr
53.0: THE END
with P Brown
52.0: TOIL
with C Jenkins
51.1: UMAMI
with L Davies and Lifted Brow
51.0: TRANSTASMAN
with B Cassidy
50.0: NO THEME IV
with J Tranter
49.1: A BRITISH / IRISH
with M Hall and S Seita
49.0: OBSOLETE
with T Ryan
48.1: CANADA
with K MacCarter and S Rhodes
48.0: CONSTRAINT
with C Wakeling
47.0: COLLABORATION
with L Armand and H Lambert
46.1: MELBOURNE
with M Farrell
46.0: NO THEME III
with F Plunkett
45.0: SILENCE
with J Owen
44.0: GONDWANALAND
with D Motion
43.1: PUMPKIN
with K MacCarter
43.0: MASQUE
with A Vickery
42.0: NO THEME II
with G Ryan
41.1: RATBAGGERY
with D Hose
41.0: TRANSPACIFIC
with J Rowe and M Nardone
40.1: INDONESIA
with K MacCarter
40.0: INTERLOCUTOR
with L Hart
39.1: GIBBERBIRD
with S Gory
39.0: JACKPOT!
with S Wagan Watson
38.0: SYDNEY
with A Lorange
37.1: NEBRASKA
with S Whalen
37.0: NO THEME!
with A Wearne
36.0: ELECTRONICA
with J Jones