ROSS COGAN studied philosophy, gaining a Ph.D. He has published three poetry collections, Stalin’s Desk (2005) and The Book I Never Wrote (2012), with Oversteps, and Bragr  (2018) with Seren. Ross received a Gregory Award in 1999, and has won the Exeter, Frogmore, Cannon Sonnet and Staple prizes, and been placed in others including second in the Troubadour. His poetry has been published in the Guardian, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry Wales, Poetry London, PN Review, New Welsh Review, Rialto, Acumen, Stand, Orbis and other magazines. A writer and editor, he was Creative Director of the Cheltenham Poetry Festival from 2010 to 2019

The world as will and idea

“L’histoire conte que le terrible Schopenhauer en était fort amateur de bière. Il jouait aussi de la clarinette, mais c’était peut-être pour embêter ses voisins.” (Jean Verdenal)

Schopenhauer, we’re told, had a great love

of beer. The man who let his mind

slip slyly under the stage curtain, behind

the painted backdrop of ideas,

to where the great undifferentiated ‘all’,

hungry and fierce and cruel,

pulls the levers and unties the ropes

from in the shadows that it also is;

the man who walked at night down certain half-

deserted streets to stand alone in

the blasted wasteland where the grim

indifferent wind whirls and one feels the frozen

hub of the world’s fever; this man

was not above

quenching his resulting thirst

in a long, cool glass of beer.

---

I like to picture him in a neat,

dark frockcoat, buttoned high,

a crisp, cambric shirt, a sumptuous tie,

surmounted by a simple pin,

reclining in a corner seat

in a favourite bierkeller, his face a lion’s, his thin

hair, grown bald on top, but wild and white

as foam blown from a pint.

---

And he might say “I who have torn

the veil of Maya, I who have seen

the hard world murder and create,

create and murder, who have felt

the chill of its indifference, I choose

to abjure it all, strangle the ego,

not to disturb the universe.

This renunciation, though, should not

be taken to extend to beer.”

---

Schopenhauer also learned the flute,

though this, it’s said, may in fact have been

merely to irritate his neighbours[1].

Philosophy

Was it Bacon who said

that a dram of philosophy

led one away from God

but that a yard downed

in one would lead you back?

---

I took it up, and drunk

on my own warm logic, went

into the world new-armed

with cloth and disinfectant

and a rod for straightening paths

and a saw for solving the worst

puzzles of branch and trunk.

---

But I got cold. And when,

sober, I turned for home

the pantomime God who’d peered

through clouds of beard, up in

the pastel ceiling where

his wires barely showed

was gone.

And standing round

were older Gods, hawk-faced

ammonite-horned, bright-scaled

bullock-roaring, their eyes

lit with pageants of fire

or hungry as the voids.

Sand

after Günter Eich

Yes, yes, by all means be the sand

in the thirsty machine.

Break open the petrol cap – drill

out the lock if you must –

and slide

the cubes of sugar down inside

the tank. Then, if you will,

sing those obscene

and inconvenient songs and hand

on bad advice. Be unhelpful. Bust

the tools that they kindly provide,

or lose them, or perhaps drop

them – cliché though it is – into the gears.

Randomly rearrange the wires;

release a virus onto the hard

drive, or hide

a dead rat in the pantry. Small fires

in waste baskets can set off smoke sensors and stop

work for hours. Or you could stoke fears

of wars, famine, disease, collapse. Dust will choke a charred

---

land. Just remember, no do not forget

will you?, that you are the machine

and the machine is you.

As you push back your chair and swill the bright red

Wine around your mouth, as you board the plane

for your holiday in Rome, Athens, Prague or that beach in Spain

as you select your groceries or lover from a screen

as you laugh with friends, tilting your head

back to an angle you know is fetching, as you get

wet on the way to work or saunter through

---

the snowdrop-drizzled woods, you are the machine

and your thoughts are its.

It’s late. The rich dinner lies in you like ballast and

besides you’re tired. You work too hard.

Slip off your clothes, fold them and place them on the chair,

lay your head on the pillows and slide the clean

sheets up to your chin, and the blankets.

Switch off the bedside light, feel the Egyptian cotton on your bare

soles. Feel also something else. Some sediment washed toward

your heart, precipitated into your veins. This is the sand.

---

[1] Verdenal was incorrect; Schopenhauer did indeed play the flute pour embêter ses voisins.