The Human Abstract

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1. The Human Face I. Soon Of all the springtimes of the world This one is the ugliest Of all of my ways of being To be trusting is the best Grass pushes up snow Like the stone of a tomb But I sleep within the storm And awaken eyes bright Slowness, brief time ends Where all streets must […]...
2. Hymn 68 The banquet of love. SS 2:1-4,6,7. Behold the Rose of Sharon here, The Lily which the valleys bear; Behold the Tree of Life, that gives Refreshing fruit and healing leaves. Amongst the thorns so lilies shine; Amongst wild gourds the noble vine; So in mine eyes my Savior proves, Amidst a thousand meaner loves. Beneath […]...
3. Cinema Calendar Of The Abstract Heart – 09 the fibres give in to your starry warmth A lamp is called green and sees Carefully stepping into a season of fever The wind has swept the rivers’ magic And i’ve perforated the nerve By the clear frozen lake Has snapped the sabre But the dance round terrace tables Shuts in the shock of the […]...
4. The End of the World Here, at the end of the world, The flowers bleed As if they were hearts, The hearts ooze a darkness Like india ink, & poets dip their pens in & they write. “Here, at the end of the world,” They write, Not knowing what it means. “Here, where the sky nurses on black milk, Where […]...
5. The Vanity of Human Wishes (excerpts) 1 Let observation with extensive view, 2 Survey mankind, from China to Peru; 3 Remark each anxious toil, each eager strife, 4 And watch the busy scenes of crowded life; 5 Then say how hope and fear, desire and hate, 6 O’erspread with snares the clouded maze of fate, 7 Where wav’ring man, betray’d by […]...
6. Sandpipers Sandland where the salt water kills the sweet potatoes. Homes for sandpipers-the script of their feet is on the sea shingles-they write in the morning, it is gone at noon-they write at noon, it is gone at night. Pity the land, the sea, the ten mile flats, pity anything but the sandpiper’s wire legs and […]...
7. Carbonara eyes Nicky said I couldn’t write, she’s got a charming Sense of social etiquette – given she’s a bitch (the canine sort, can’t spell for shit or even write A word) but then she has the most expressive eyes. So what she said was no surprise, she’d heard My lamentations, licked my hands, rested forepaws On […]...
8. Milton: But in the Wine-presses the Human Grapes Sing not nor Dance But in the Wine-presses the human grapes sing not nor dance: They howl and writhe in shoals of torment, in fierce flames consuming, In chains of iron and in dungeons circled with ceaseless fires, In pits and dens and shades of death, in shapes of torment and woe: The plates and screws and racks and […]...
9. Tell as a Marksman were forgotten Tell as a Marksman were forgotten Tell this Day endures Ruddy as that coeval Apple The Tradition bears Fresh as Mankind that humble story Though a statelier Tale Grown in the Repetition hoary Scarcely would prevail Tell had a son The ones that knew it Need not linger here Those who did not to Human […]...
10. Several Questions Answered What is it men in women do require? The lineaments of Gratified Desire. What is it women do in men require? The lineaments of Gratified Desire. The look of love alarms Because ’tis fill’d with fire; But the look of soft deceit Shall Win the lover’s hire. Soft Deceit & Idleness, These are Beauty’s sweetest […]...
11. The Human Seasons Four Seasons fill the measure of the year; There are four seasons in the mind of man: He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear Takes in all beauty with an easy span: He has his Summer, when luxuriously Spring’s honied cud of youthful thought he loves To ruminate, and by such dreaming high Is […]...
12. Human Life If dead, we cease to be ; if total gloom Swallow up life’s brief flash for aye, we fare As summer-gusts, of sudden birth and doom, Whose sound and motion not alone declare, But are their whole of being! If the breath Be Life itself, and not its task and tent, If even a soul […]...
13. On Being Human Angelic minds, they say, by simple intelligence Behold the Forms of nature. They discern Unerringly the Archtypes, all the verities Which mortals lack or indirectly learn. Transparent in primordial truth, unvarying, Pure Earthness and right Stonehood from their clear, High eminence are seen; unveiled, the seminal Huge Principles appear. The Tree-ness of the tree they […]...
14. Giant Fungus 40-acre growth found in Michigan. – The Los Angeles Times The sky is full of ruddy ducks And widgeon’s, mockingbirds, Bees, bats, swallowtails, Dragonflies, and great horned owls. The land below teems with elands And kit foxes, badgers, aardvarks, Juniper, banana slugs, larch, Cactus, heather, humankind. Under them, a dome of dirt. Under that, the […]...
15. The Human Tree Many have Earth’s lovers been, Tried in seas and wars, I ween; Yet the mightiest have I seen: Yea, the best saw I. One that in a field alone Stood up stiller than a stone Lest a moth should fly. Birds had nested in his hair, On his shoon were mosses rare, Insect empires flourished […]...
16. Human Knowledge Since thou readest in her what thou thyself hast there written, And, to gladden the eye, placest her wonders in groups; Since o’er her boundless expanses thy cords to extend thou art able, Thou dost think that thy mind wonderful Nature can grasp. Thus the astronomer draws his figures over the heavens, So that he […]...
17. HUMAN FEELINGS AH, ye gods! ye great immortals In the spacious heavens above us! Would ye on this earth but give us Steadfast minds and dauntless courage We, oh kindly ones, would leave you All your spacious heavens above us! 1815.*...
18. How Human Nature dotes How Human Nature dotes On what it can’t detect. The moment that a Plot is plumbed Prospective is extinct Prospective is the friend Reserved for us to know When Constancy is clarified Of Curiosity Of subjects that resist Redoubtablest is this Where go we Go we anywhere Creation after this?...
19. A Man Young And Old: II. Human Dignity Like the moon her kindness is, If kindness I may call What has no comprehension in’t, But is the same for all As though my sorrow were a scene Upon a painted wall. So like a bit of stone I lie Under a broken tree. I could recover if I shrieked My heart’s agony To […]...
20. Human Life's Mystery We sow the glebe, we reap the corn, We build the house where we may rest, And then, at moments, suddenly, We look up to the great wide sky, Inquiring wherefore we were born… For earnest or for jest? The senses folding thick and dark About the stifled soul within, We guess diviner things beyond, […]...
21. A koestler on the human brain the man and the horse and the crocodile Lay down on the couch together The man said This isn’t going to work The horse neighed I love you The crocodile Slimy as ever Neither complained nor adored Idly It snapped its jaws And got on with the feast...
22. Thoughts On The Shape Of The Human Body How can we find? how can we rest? how can We, being gods, win joy, or peace, being man? We, the gaunt zanies of a witless Fate, Who love the unloving and lover hate, Forget the moment ere the moment slips, Kiss with blind lips that seek beyond the lips, Who want, and know not […]...
23. Psalm 119 part 11 Breathing after holiness. Ver. 5,33 O that the Lord would guide my ways To keep his statutes still! O that my God would grant me grace To know and do his will! Ver. 29 O send thy Spirit down to write Thy law upon my heart! Nor let my tongue indulge deceit, Nor act the […]...
24. Lines and Squares Whenever I walk in a London street, I’m ever so careful to watch my feet; And I keep in the squares, And the masses of bears, Who wait at the corners all ready to eat The sillies who tread on the lines of the street Go back to their lairs, And I say to them, […]...
25. Genesis In the outer world that was before this earth, That was before all shape or space was born, Before the blind first hour of time had birth, Before night knew the moonlight or the morn; Yea, before any world had any light, Or anything called God or man drew breath, Slowly the strong sides of […]...
26. The Caterpillar Under this loop of honeysuckle, A creeping, coloured caterpillar, I gnaw the fresh green hawthorn spray, I nibble it leaf by leaf away. Down beneath grow dandelions, Daisies, old-man’s-looking-glasses; Rooks flap croaking across the lane. I eat and swallow and eat again. Here come raindrops helter-skelter; I munch and nibble unregarding: Hawthorn leaves are juicy […]...
27. The Puzzled Game-Birds They are not those who used to feed us When we were young they cannot be – These shapes that now bereave and bleed us? They are not those who used to feed us, – For would they not fair terms concede us? – If hearts can house such treachery They are not those who […]...
28. God Has Pity On Kindergarten Children God has pity on kindergarten children, He pities school children less. But adults he pities not at all. He abandons them, And sometimes they have to crawl on all fours In the scorching sand To reach the dressing station, Streaming with blood. But perhaps He will have pity on those who love truly And take […]...
29. A Question Whene’er I feed the barnyard folk My gentle soul is vexed; My sensibilities are torn And I am sore perplexed. The rooster so politely stands While waiting for his food, But when I feed him, what a change! He then is rough and rude. He crowds his gentle wives aside Or pecks them on the […]...
30. Ripe Fruit Through eyelet holes I watched the crowd Rain of confetti fling; Their joy is lush, their laughter loud, For Carnival is King. Behind his chariot I pace To ean my petty pay; They laugh to see my monster face: “Ripe Fruit,” I hear them say. I do not laugh: my shoulders sag; No heart have […]...
31. The Divine Image To Mercy Pity Peace and Love. All pray in their distress: And to these virtues of delight Return their thankfulness. For Mercy Pity Peace and Love, Is God our Father dear: And Mercy Pity Peace and Love, Is Man his child and care. For Mercy has a human heart Pity, a human face: And Love, […]...
32. How soft a Caterpillar steps How soft a Caterpillar steps I fond one on my Hand From such a velvet world it comes Such plushes at command Its soundless travels just arrest My slow terrestrial eye Intent upon its own career What use has it for me...
33. Psalm 12 The saint’s safety and hope in evil times. Lord, if thou dost not soon appear, Virtue and truth will fly away; A faithful man amongst us here Will scarce be found, if thou delay. The whole discourse, when neighbors meet, Is filled with trifles loose and vain; Their lips are flattery and deceit, And their […]...
34. Feast I drank at every vine. The last was like the first. I came upon no wine So wonderful as thirst. I gnawed at every root. I ate of every plant. I came upon no fruit So wonderful as want. Feed the grape and bean To the vintner and monger: I will lie down lean With […]...
35. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
36. If It Is True What the Prophets Write If it is true, what the Prophets write, That the heathen gods are all stocks and stones, Shall we, for the sake of being polite, Feed them with the juice of our marrow-bones? And if Bezaleel and Aholiab drew What the finger of God pointed to their view, Shall we suffer the Roman and Grecian […]...
37. The Fish The first fish I ever caught Would not lie down Quiet in the pail But flailed and sucked At the burning Amazement of the air And died In the slow pouring off Of rainbows. Later I opened his body and separated The flesh from the bones And ate him. Now the sea Is in me: […]...
38. The Sugar-Plum Tree Have you ever heard of the Sugar-Plum Tree? ‘T is a marvel of great renown! It blooms on the shore of the Lollipop sea In the garden of Shut-Eye Town; The fruit that it bears is so wondrously sweet (As those who have tasted it say) That good little children have only to eat Of […]...
39. Safety-Clutch Once I seen a human ruin In a elevator-well. And his members was bestrewin’ All the place where he had fell. And I says, apostrophisin’ That uncommon woful wreck: “Your position’s so surprisin’ That I tremble for your neck!” Then that ruin, smilin’ sadly And impressive, up and spoke: “Well, I wouldn’t tremble badly, For […]...
40. Amor Vincit Omnia Love is no more. It died as the mind dies: the pure desire Relinquishing the blissful form it wore, The ample joy and clarity expire. Regret is vain. Then do not grieve for what you would efface, The sudden failure of the past, the pain Of its unwilling change, and the disgrace. Leave innocence, And […]...