[John Riley]

Yes, Tony, it’s complicated. I personally think less than ten people have ever read all of Being and Time. One of the reasons Heidegger moved on from phenomenology was his need to address earlier assumptions about nothingness. To reject Spinoza and the rationalists. My point is considerably simpler and as I said may be of no concern to most readers. Your poem seems to celebrate Being in a manner counter to his statement. A sort of here’s your Beings right here sucker! when the statement is actually in agreement with your poem’s sympathies. If I’m misinterpreting it won’t be the last time.

Yes he talked Nazi BS until he felt it closing it despite having a Jewish student mistress for years. To me it’s a frightening example of the romanticism of fascism. How it works on the emotions and bypasses even the smartest people’s intelligence. He was from an ugly area of Germany when it came to barbarism too. You are watching the emotional lure of fascism everywhere now to the point I’m almost convinced democracy will always be doomed in the face to it.

My question is with the epigraph. Although now I think I’ve beat the horse to death.

*If you choose to go deeper into the roots of his philosophy you need a different poem IMO. Good luck with that. As regards nothingness he was right. Any nothing we see is full of matter and who knows what else.