Prudence Primrose

詩集Poems

I Don't Know

5 June 2025

I don't knowI don't knowI don't knowI don't know whyThough I've wondered it plentyI don't know howThough I've had my share of doingand I don't know whatThough to admit that makes me feel like I should quit itIt's hard to be free freelyIt's hard to live livelyI love those I loveI hate those I hateObjectivity a spook1My mind is my ownTo cuddle or to killI suppose I do both wellThe future, the past, the presentIf none but the now be true then why bear I repeat it?Is this prose good, I wonder aloudWho cares if it isn'tMy head's a raincloudOft I can't speak, nor think, nor hearMy senses mute, be clear be clearYet mute is still present, and present I amWe all were born for somethingYet that something is unclearWe search for it, looking all aroundThe harder you pursue it, the deeper you'll drownEverything must changeThe present may be now, but now is not nowClink clank boomNo more birdies to singSo far up now only buildings can hearDown below, is this freedom or hell?I stand atop Yggdrasil2So mighty, do wiseAnd I see with two eyesI wonder just for how longTo change is to die, and such is my Wyrd3For living is death, but truly I tryWhen the winds blow throughPiercing my hair, inflaming my eyesI wonder why it can't be greater sizeTo push to push, and fall from the treeMaybe like dear Odin, that's what it takes to be freeIs freedom found in hell?Is sex found in fuck?I can pitter no longerYet try but I mustTo sit and be silentSitting below the great and wide gapBelow me are branches filled with life's golden sapThere one time, did dear Buddha sit below4Another time too, from branch with noose Odin's neck did crack5Both were for wisdom, both sought what they lackedOdin stood tall, yet I sit here and cryBuddha sat calm, yet I stand here and whineDid they pause, did they error, did they waver on wyrd's way?All that remains are their bookfaces todayFor what glory is there, in sadness and sorrow?These tears are not epic, they wouldn't be in a sagaYet to kill and to love, many things are ignoredWe look at ourselves yet ourselves are sold outIn writ and in tales, we often leave behindThe tears that once, were no different from minePerhaps those great Doomsayers6, in all their postmortem prideWere no different than Ygh7

Notes

By the editor.

  1. A spook is Max Stirner's word (German Spuk) for a fixed idea that rules the mind it lives in: God, the state, morality, even “Man.” In The Ego and Its Own (1844–45) he argues these have no reality beyond what we grant them. Calling objectivity a spook puts truth-for-everyone on that list, which fits the line that follows: “My mind is my own.” source ↩
  2. Yggdrasil is the great ash of Norse myth, whose branches and roots hold the nine worlds. In What the Ghosts Actually Are she calls the world-tree the body of God, with the waters of nothingness around it, so a speaker standing atop it stands atop everything there is. ↩
  3. Wyrd: Old English for fate, the unfolding course of what comes to pass. The poem hears it as destiny that is also change: “To change is to die, and such is my Wyrd.” Play Ball, Son of Creation answers it from the other side, telling the reader they were “always just falling your wyrd” and were free the whole time. ↩
  4. The Buddha reached awakening sitting beneath a sacred fig, Ficus religiosa, later called the Bodhi tree, at Bodh Gaya in India, where the Mahabodhi Temple now stands. The original tree is gone, but its descendants have been replanted over the centuries. source ↩
  5. In the Hávamál, Odin says he hung on a windy tree for nine long nights, wounded with a spear and given to Odin, “myself to myself,” and in return took up the runes. The poem puts the two trees side by side, the Buddha's and Odin's, as two ways a seeker pays for wisdom. source ↩
  6. In What the Ghosts Actually Are the Doomsayers are the fruit of the tree of humanity, with the saints and heroes its flowers. On Judas and Jesus counts Jesus among them, as the rare ones who turn the wheel of history. Odin and the Buddha are the poem's two examples. ↩
  7. The poem breaks off on “Ygh,” the odd spelling of “I” she also uses in Weal. Its last word is the speaker himself, set down among the Doomsayers as one more man in tears. ↩