You Can't See Out Thin Windows, When Smoke Gets In Your Eyes*

for Rabbit, of course, with love

Riddle me this: what failure is success? what success, is failure? Even 

A butterfly's wing, beating, can, as far away as Heaven,

Be the initial condition from which sensitive dependence all Hell

Breaks loose, then how can you, who, like some punk Bucky Fuller,^* dare to tell --

If you knew, for what potential, for what freedom, how little is needed  --

Tell me, O human, O riddle's answer, how you can wish you'd succeeded.

*Title track, from Nail, by Foetus:

(tell me in comments if you cannot access the music and i will make it so you can)

**

R. Buckminster Fuller-The Planet's Friendly Genius

        In 1927, at the age of 32, Buckminster Fuller stood on the shores of Lake Michigan, prepared to throw himself into the freezing waters. His first child had died. He was bankrupt, discredited and jobless, and he had a wife and new-born daughter. On the verge of suicide, it suddenly struck him that his life belonged, not to himself, but to the universe. He chose at that moment to embark on what he called “an experiment to discover what the little, penniless, unknown individual might be able to do effectively on behalf of all humanity.” 

Over the next fifty-four years, he proved, time and again, that his most controversial ideas were practical and workable.

During the course of his remarkable experiment he:

•was awarded 25 U.S. patents

•authored 28 books

•received 47 honorary doctorates in the arts, science, engineering and the humanities

•received dozens of major architectural and design awards including, among many others, the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects and the Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects

•created work which found itself into the permanent collections of museums around the world •circled the globe 57 times, reaching millions through his public lectures and interviews.

Buckminster Fuller is best known for the invention of the geodesic dome–the lightest, strongest, and most cost-effective structure ever devised. The geodesic dome is able to cover more space without internal supports than any other enclosure.

(read more)

As always, the poem is in text form somewhere on this page.