Philosophic Fragments

by S.T. Brant

  i.   Space Zoroastrian

Absence is the fire that fills Being. Limitation,
All refutations of our desires sate
In a whirlwind turning through the desert,
Burning, holding the rays
Of the sun, juggling the fire of the day
As a plaything to pass the time
Of this world until the edges fuse and we twirl
Into the nothingness eternal.

  ii.   Time & Berkeley’s God

Love is a memory. Love is a memory that’s present,
A memory not resolved, not passing into past,
Fighting forward, a single current in a stream
Independent of the flow that lives spontaneously as its own
Tributary, going upward against time;
The concept preserved in the mind of god, sustained by god’s
Obsessed attention from disappearing every moment,
As we’re conjectured by the old philosophies,
But sustains itself through its wrought holding-on
To times resurrected from the dead before they’ve died

S. T. Brant is a Las Vegas high school teacher. His debut collection Melody in Exile will be out in 2022. His work has appeared in numerous journals including Honest Ulsterman, EcoTheo, Timber, and Rain Taxi. You can reach him on his website at ShaneBrant.com, Twitter: @terriblebinth, or Instagram: @shanelemagne