Aphorism
Bordering on the prose poem, the joke, the notebook, the tweet. Philosophy’s haiku. You’re trying to come out with a string for the present situation, but there’s no one to listen, and you have nothing to write with. I mean. No sentence is good enough for the word, but no word is good enough for the language. If you trace them back far enough words are not themselves. The first true word was the word for word. After that, language was conscious: it existed. For the word for word to exist, there must have been a prior word behind it. After the word, the aphorism. With the first aphorism, philosophy existed. Brevity is the soul of wit is not an aphorism: an aphorism should be at least long enough to contradict itself, although contradiction is not a requisite. It should be as long as a poem, but no longer. Each aphorism should entertain the possibility that it is nonsense. It is the opposite of the truism, but should not be untrue. Heraclitus is in fragments and the sea is half lightning-strike, half him. When I splash, he trembles. He turns to cloud but won’t fall. He hangs on a leaf by his fist. He pulls a sentence out and descends on it. His finger points out to the wine-dark sea, his fingers are the sea. I hold him in glass, and drink.