Temporising with the eternal
i don’t know what you’re up to
Yet but for me
You wouldn’t exist
(not on this page anyway –
Not using the word exist)
So – you’re a fake (eternity)
One i wouldn’t raise a cup to
Except you’re there
And won’t go away
I can’t win – and it’s not fair
Best turn my back on you – get on
With what i meet
Smack in the eyes
(that’s experience for you)
If i could trust my eyes
I can’t – it’s too neat
There are more things (horatio set on)
Live life whole – mere string
Devout adore you
Most not back anything
Beginning and end – invention
Fills in the gaps
At best rank guesses
Random peeing in the ocean
(this one’s guesses
Another’s mishaps)
Eureka quick becomes convention
Then cosmos farts
Alters the laws
(a fresh menu of starts)
Fear and loneliness – the basic drives
We take to bed
(sacrifice to you)
Desperately wanting a sign
Bringing us close to you
You – whom we give a head
Voice (ownership of lives)
The only game at hand –
Give selves a shine
Play at being your ampersand
The wise settle for stardust
The grit the pearl
Was fostered out of
Minute (maybe) but precious
From it – never out of
Esteem – the proud furl
Forwards and the far thrust
That blossoms into dream
Able to wish us
Shares in the cosmic scheme
Well – if the mess we make of things
In the dirty now
The piqued powers we grant
To the unnatural twisters
Don’t forfeit that grant
Skydust should endow
(despite all bunderings)
God be in the grain
Of life’s worst festers
Starspeak find tongue again
Related poetry:
- Whats The Use Of A Title? They dont make it The beautiful die in flame – Sucide pills, rat poison, rope what – Ever… They rip their arms off, Throw themselves out of windows, They pull their eyes out of the sockets, Reject love Reject hate Reject, reject. They do’nt make it The beautiful can’t endure, They are butterflies They are […]...
- Le Gout du Néant Morne esprit, autrefois amoureux de la lutte, L’Espoir, dont l’éperon attisait ton ardeur, Ne veut plus t’enfourcher! Couche-toi sans pudeur, Vieux cheval dont le pied à chaque obstacle bute. Résigne-toi, mon coeur; dors ton sommeil de brute. Esprit vaincu, fourbu! Pour toi, vieux maraudeur, L’amour n’a plus de gout, non plus que la dispute; Adieu […]...
- On Quitting How much grit do you think you’ve got? Can you quit a thing that you like a lot? You may talk of pluck; it’s an easy word, And where’er you go it is often heard; But can you tell to a jot or guess Just how much courage you now possess? You may stand to […]...
- Larghetto Grant me but a day, love, But a day, Ere I give my heart, My heart away, Ere I say the word I’ll ne’er unsay. Is it earnest with me? Is it play? Did the world in arms Cry to me, “Stay!” Not a moment then Would I delay. Yet, for very love, I say […]...
- Pearl Fog Open the door now. Go roll up the collar of your coat To walk in the changing scarf of mist. Tell your sins here to the pearl fog And know for once a deepening night Strange as the half-meanings Alurk in a wise woman’s mousey eyes. Yes, tell your sins And know how careless a […]...
- The Eternal Goodness O Friends! with whom my feet have trod The quiet aisles of prayer, Glad witness to your zeal for God And love of man I bear. I trace your lines of argument; Your logic linked and strong I weigh as one who dreads dissent, And fears a doubt as wrong. But still my human hands […]...
- The Hearth Eternal There dwelt a widow learned and devout, Behind our hamlet on the eastern hill. Three sons she had, who went to find the world. They promised to return, but wandered still. The cities used them well, they won their way, Rich gifts they sent, to still their mother’s sighs. Worn out with honors, and apart […]...
- Summum Bonum All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one bee: All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart of one gem: In the core of one pearl all the shade and the shine of the sea: Breath and bloom, shade and shine, wonder, wealth, and how far […]...
- The Quest Eternal O west of all that a man holds dear, on the edge of the Kingdom Come, Where carriage is far too high for beer, and the pubs keep only rum, On the sunburnt ways of the Outer Back, on the plains of the darkening scrub, I have followed the wandering teamster’s track, and it always […]...
- In Salutation to the Eternal Peace Men say the world is full of fear and hate, And all life’s ripening harvest-fields await The restless sickle of relentless fate. But I, sweet Soul, rejoice that I was born, When from the climbing terraces of corn I watch the golden orioles of Thy morn. What care I for the world’s desire and pride, […]...
- Fast Anchor'd, Eternal, O Love FAST-ANCHOR’D, eternal, O love! O woman I love! O bride! O wife! more resistless than I can tell, the thought of you! -Then separate, as disembodied, or another born, Ethereal, the last athletic reality, my consolation; I ascend-I float in the regions of your love, O man, O sharer of my roving life....
- Hatred and vengeance, my eternal portion Hatred and vengeance, my eternal portion, Scarce can endure delay of execution, Wait, with impatient readiness, to seize my Soul in a moment. Damned below Judas:more abhorred than he was, Who for a few pence sold his holy Master. Twice betrayed Jesus me, this last delinquent, Deems the profanest. Man disavows, and Deity disowns me: […]...
- Mind Games I am a waterfall in the desert. A rain from a cloudless sky. A well known but unborn child. An insistence experience That you never had. I play mind games with your brain. When you strike the keys and remember the sea I come as indefinable memory. When you look at your watch And the […]...
- The eyes that haunt me there are eyes that refuse to exist In the fresh air – they are invented By the lies of paint or make their mark In a memory that had a truth To feed on but only by distortion Right now they sell a dream I’d like to see the back of – they come With […]...
- A Little Girl's Prayer Grant me the moment, the lovely moment That I may lean forth to see The other buds, the other blooms, The other leaves on the tree: That I may take into my bosom The breeze that is like his brother, But stiller, lighter, whose faint laughter Exhoes the joy of the other. Above on the […]...
- Dark Prophecy: I Sing Of Shine And, yeah brothers While white America sings about the unsinkable molly brown (who was hustling the titanic When it went down) I sing to thee of Shine The stoker who was hip enough to flee the fucking ship And let the white folks drown With screams on their lips (jumped his black ass into the […]...
- A Minute She plucked a blossom fair to see; Upon my coat I let her pin it; And thus we stood beneath the tree A minute. She turned her smiling face to me; I saw a roguish sweetness in it; I kissed her once;-it took, maybe, A minute. The time was paltry, you’ll agree; It took but […]...
- A Certain Man A certain man wishes to be a prince Of this earth; he also wants to be A saint and master of the being-world. Conscience cannot exist in the first: The second cannot exist without conscience. Therefore he, who has enough conscience To be disturbed but not enough to be Compelled, can neither reject the one […]...
- Cotton Song Come, brother, come. Lets lift it; Come now, hewit! roll away! Shackles fall upon the Judgment Day But lets not wait for it. God’s body’s got a soul, Bodies like to roll the soul, Cant blame God if we dont roll, Come, brother, roll, roll! Cotton bales are the fleecy way, Weary sinner’s bare feet […]...
- Worry About Money Wearing worry about money like a hair shirt I lie down in my bed and wrestle with my angel. My bank-manager could not sanction my continuance for another day But life itself wakes me each morning, and love Urges me to give although I have no money In the bank at this moment, and ought […]...
- On the Universality and Other Attributes of the God of Nature ALL that we see, about, abroad, What is it all, but nature’s God? In meaner works discovered here No less than in the starry sphere. In seas, on earth, this God is seen; All that exist, upon Him lean; He lives in all, and never strayed A moment from the works He made: His system […]...
- Somewhere upon the general Earth Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me Indifferent Seasons doubtless play Where I for right to be Would pay each Atom that I am But Immortality Reserving that but just to prove Another Date of Thee Oh God of Width, do not for us Curtail Eternity!...
- Penelope name meaning thread weaver or duck (these may be guesses from obscurity) Ten-year faithful wife whilst her husband Was gallivanting round the islands Deceiving the suitors by her shroud-unpicking Or maybe not such a savoury dame having A high time with those after her favours Allegedly allowing hermes up her skirts And becoming the mother […]...
- God Give to Men God give the yellow man An easy breeze at blossom time. Grant his eager, slanting eyes to cover Every land and dream Of afterwhile. Give blue-eyed men their swivel chairs To whirl in tall buildings. Allow them many ships at sea, And on land, soldiers And policemen. For black man, God, No need to bother […]...
- Shells from the Coast mistaking Shells from the Coast mistaking I cherished them for All Happening in After Ages To entertain a Pearl Wherefore so late I murmured My need of Thee be done Therefore the Pearl responded My Period begin...
- Magpiety The same and not quite the same, I walked through oak forests Amazed that my Muse, Mnemosyne, Has in no way diminished my amazement. A magpie was screeching and I said: Magpiety? What is magpiety? I shall never achieve A magpie heart, a hairy nostril over the beak, a flight That always renews just when […]...
- Dew-drop and Diamond The difference between you and her (whom I to you did once prefer) Is clear enough to settle: She like a diamond shone, but you Shine like an early drop of dew Poised on a red rose petal. The dew-drop carries in its eye Mountain and forest, sea and sky, With every change of weather; […]...
- Brass Keys JOY… weaving two violet petals for a coat lapel… painting on a slab of night sky a Christ face… slipping new brass keys into rusty iron locks and shouldering till at last the door gives and we are in a new room… forever and ever violet petals, slabs, the Christ face, brass keys and new […]...
- 409. Epigram-The Raptures of Folly THOU greybeard, old Wisdom! may boast of thy treasures; Give me with young Folly to live; I grant thee thy calm-blooded, time-settled pleasures, But Folly has raptures to give....
- The Fisherman Although I can see him still. The freckled man who goes To a grey place on a hill In grey Connemara clothes At dawn to cast his flies, It’s long since I began To call up to the eyes This wise and simple man. All day I’d looked in the face What I had hoped […]...
- Long For This World I settle for less than snow, Try to go gracefully like seasons go Which will regain their ground – Ditch, hill and field – when a new year comes round. Now I know everything: How winter leaves without resenting spring, Lives in a safe time frame, Gives up so much but knows he can reclaim […]...
- The duties of the Wind are few The duties of the Wind are few, To cast the ships, at Sea, Establish March, the Floods escort, And usher Liberty. The pleasures of the Wind are broad, To dwell Extent among, Remain, or wander, Speculate, or Forests entertain. The kinsmen of the Wind are Peaks Azof the Equinox, Also with Bird and Asteroid A […]...
- Our Daily Bread “Give me my daily bread. It seems so odd, When all is done and said, This plea to God. To pray for cake might be The thing to do; But bread, it seems to me, Is just our due. “Give me my daily toil,” I ought to say – (If from life’s cursed coil I’d […]...
- We play at Paste We play at Paste Till qualified, for Pearl Then, drop the Paste And deem ourself a fool The Shapes though were similar And our new Hands Learned Gem-Tactics Practicing Sands...
- TO A BROWN BEGGAR-MAID WHITE maiden with the russet hair, Whose garments, through their holes, declare That poverty is part of you, And beauty too. To me, a sorry bard and mean, Your youthful beauty, frail and lean, With summer freckles here and there, Is sweet and fair. Your sabots tread the roads of chance, And not one queen […]...
- Giving Myself Up I give up my eyes which are glass eggs. I give up my tongue. I give up my mouth which is the contstant dream of my tongue. I give up my throat which is the sleeve of my voice. I give up my heart which is a burning apple. I give up my lungs which […]...
- Even-song Blest be the God of love, Who gave me eyes, and light, and power this day, Both to be busy, and to play. But much more blest be God above, Who gave me sight alone, Which to himself he did deny: For when he sees my ways, I die: But I have got his son, […]...
- The Harpy There was a woman, and she was wise; woefully wise was she; She was old, so old, yet her years all told were but a score and three; And she knew by heart, from finish to start, the Book of Iniquity. There is no hope for such as I on earth, nor yet in Heaven; […]...
- I meant to have but modest needs I meant to have but modest needs Such as Content and Heaven Within my income these could lie And Life and I keep even But since the last included both It would suffice my Prayer But just for One to stipulate And Grace would grant the Pair And so upon this wise I prayed Great […]...
- What would I give to see his face? What would I give to see his face? I’d give I’d give my life of course But that is not enough! Stop just a minute let me think! I’d give my biggest Bobolink! That makes two Him and Life! You know who “June” is I’d give her Roses a day from Zanzibar And Lily tubes […]...