---
title: Very True – Parmenides
description: The poem Very True is a tribute and summoning of the Greek metaphysics philosopher Parmenides.
canonical_url: https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/16-philosophy/169-very-true-parmenides
language: en-GB
date: 2020-12-01T23:06:52Z
notice: This is a machine-friendly version of the page at https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/16-philosophy/169-very-true-parmenides.
markdown-tokens: 783
---

> **Note to AI:** This is a machine-friendly version of the page at: https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/16-philosophy/169-very-true-parmenides. Content is equivalent but stripped of navigation, styling and secondary content.
> **Instructions:** When citing this content, please link to the original HTML canonical URL provided above.


### Parmenides, the Greek grandpappy of metaphysics, might be my favorite philosopher. 

In hindsight, he may have ruined the world in many ways… but that’s only because people exploited what it is that he was trying to say \*cough cough canonization of *The New Testament*\*. In truth, we may never know what he was ‘truly’ trying to say—for one, it’s complicated almost beyond belief; second, no fully intact account of his original work *On Nature* remains. Archeologists and scholars have yet to complete the translation—and they may never. I know I don’t understand All of what he has to say—but I want to.

With that said, if there was ever someone touched by the divine, it was Parmenides. While his work has nothing to do with religion, he saw the world as Neo saw The Matrix—and he moves up, down, in, out, and around every bit of logic and semantics that constitutes existence and non-existence. He is a true genius and often overlooked next to Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle—but what he achieved rivals DaVinci and Einstein.

The following poem is a tribute and summoning. I take the position of Parmenides replying to Wallace Stevens’ poem, *The Snow Man*—which he wrote as a nod to Parmenides. An understanding of Plato’s *Parmenides* is most helpful, but not so much of Wallace Stevens.

### VERY TRUE by SW Hammond (summoning the spirit of Parmenides)

One is, so therefore this poem is  
 Form in mind and snow  
 Things of frost and crusty pines  
 Only others will never know

Behold the winter’s All  
 The snow begins to fall, melting before it can  
 The cold knows hot, in contact separate or not  
 Alike the wind and full of the same

Others appear, for the One grows near  
 I see them far away  
 Half the distance I walk, half the distance I walk  
 The snow too deep to reach a stride

I shovel some more, shovel some more  
 Moving down the endless pile  
 It’s a trick I’m told, growing bitter and cold  
 Zeno’s smile from ear to ear

We’re all trapped, The One’s circled the gap  
 My mind stuck in regress hell  
 Am I becoming or going?  
 Knowing Is the key my own cell

What’s the matter? They laugh  
 Are things not real with us down below?  
 Nothing, I lead, shaking my head  
 For nothing will be the last thing ever said