The original Fragments of Heraclitus are powerful and puzzling. No one is sure of the original or meaning. No one is sure of the original order, context, and complete set. Hence, any presentation of the fragments, must make choices. Any choice will present some, not others, in a particular order, and thus will interpret Heraclitus.

Since interpretation is inevitable, each editor will interpret, and each reader will interpret; this interpretive effort is usually reserved and cautious. I thought it would be interesting exercise to go whole hog. In this interpretation I have freely interpreted the fragments we have in order to construct a (purely hypothetical) coherent unity. The result is quite obviously not a reconstruction of “Heraclitus,” but a kind of “found poem” of my own using Heraclitian fragments as raw material. The result is an original poem. It “flows” in a way certainly unlike Heraclitus’ original, but offers a look at what a coherent version of Heraclitus’ fragments might have looked like.

Read “Heraclitus Defragmented” here.