As Augustine explained, no angel, good
or bad, creates. It's God alone who makes
these things from nothing, God alone who could
foresee what path our needy lives will take
and so provide the means for us to thrive,
a way for us to follow, and an end
for which the better parts of us may strive
while baser natures surely'd have us bend
our course towards the pleasures of the flesh
in hope that something new might come of sweat,
and have us work the void for something fresh.
Ever blind, ambition cannot heed the threat,
but even angels, good or bad, must see
that they, like all created things, must be.

Says Augustine,

Neither good
angels
nor bad
can create.

Is love the basis
of morality
or must we treat
even those we love
with decency?

After many years of being myself, I have reached a number of conclusions about what it means to be human. Since I hope to enjoy the company of humans for many years to come, I will keep them to myself.

Alt. take

She tells me how she feels
in Russian. Because
neither of us speaks Russian.

I have no language to tell her
what I know. So we make
do with sticks and stones.

Hand drill. Bow drill. Fire
plow. Hold the tinder
to the flint. Patience now.

She tells me that she loves me
in Russian. Because
neither of us speaks Russian.

I have no language to tell her
what I know. So we make
love with sticks and stones.

Hand drill. Bow drill. Fire
plow. Hold the tinder
to the flint. Patience now.

Look for the shadows,
she tells me.
There are no lines.
They're just edges
where things end.

Light, There

(After Richard Dawkins)

We are moving, always,
towards the light.
A million million years
some tender surface
in us sought the touch
without weight, a little
warmth, from above.
What little motor
drove us from the shadows
and stopped upon
the glow, a moving spot
we chased a million
million years before
we grew a cavity
within which we could
find our bearings?
Now the light we sought
was not just here
or not, but here
or there, and we could
find our place
long before we saw
the image of the sun.

_____
Cf. "A Tension in the Clearing"

All right, my heart, thrice
by-passed for living well,
let's see what you can do.
I opened you up and we took
the hill easily. You were my
courage and the center of my
strength. But soft you now,
a nymph on the horizon!
Will your graft hold, with
her in your arms? Let us see.
Let us see what you can do
with this old blood of ours.

"Love poetry" is a pleonasm,
like "wisdom philosophy."
Or ought to be.

My philosophy and my poetry
are iconoclasms:
They shatter the official imagery
of Truth and Justice
with your beauty, which
breaks the hearts
and cracks the minds
of men, their knowledge and
their power gutted.

And my love of wisdom, too,
is mere surplusage
to the wisdom of your love.

This, Again

(After Henrik Nordbrandt)

Lady, when I lost you
I thought that I could love no other.
I love you so intensely now that
I have found another.

Love is movement; wisdom, stillness.
Philosophy's the love of wisdom;
              poetry, the wisdom of love.
You see the problem. And, but for lust
and wonder, we would choose.

Some paintings show you the shadows;
some paintings show you the light.
Philosophy sharpens the image
and poetry keeps it tight.

Some women just make you smile.
You know they'll make someone happy
for an hour or a lifetime, and
you can't help but wonder if that hour
or that lifetime has just begun.

Crisis

A life combines
reasons and passions,
concepts and emotions,
in the image, where
it brings composure,
in clarity or tension,
by wisdom or by love,
to each moment.

Reason is to belief
as passion, to desire—

the conditions under which
we hold things true
and pursue people justly.

Pure reason, raw passion:
a critique, a crisis. A life.

When the poet can no longer praise the
battle, cannot sing the hero's song and
when the priest no longer prays for glory
in our struggle over evil, promising
the day's disposed to our intent,

let's not look for other poets, let
us not find other priests, and let us not
seek counsel from those who know of gods
or passions more sympathetic to our cause.
Let us not find heart to strive against a void.

No, let the soldier rest. Let the generals
pause for thought before the breach. And
let the minister of war resign her small
portfolio of conflict in the world.

The surface is to the appearance,
as the doing, to the seeing,
      the deed, to the scene.
So began my disquisition.

To the eye, she was a beautiful body,
a structure of planes and masses,
      of weight and light.
I told her this, of course.

To the hand, she was a delicate soul,
a texture of passage and resistance;
      a tangle of flesh.
I tried to show her this was so.

"You're overthinking it," she said.
"There is no perfect resolution
      of desire and intention.
No angel here will intervene.

Let us put these beautiful bodies
where our mouths are.
Let us look back on this
                  like pillars of salt."

How can you see? she asked me
when I told her I couldn't draw.
Not a day since then went by
without a line. I looked at things,
their shapes and shadows, and
I put them on the page. I tried
to see her, but I couldn't draw
her likeness. And when she looked
at me, I knew that I was being seen
more clearly, as if bathed in better
light. But she didn't let me see
her drawings. And so my image of
myself was safe, as was of course
the image that she had of me.

It would be fun to date a beautiful woman.
I'm sure that's not the right attitude, but
I'd enjoy the hell out of it. I don't know
very much about them — how they work,
or even smell — but I'd have a blast
taking one out for drinks, even dinner, and
watching her deal with the ordinary things
that are placed before her. And I don't know
how these things go, or how the evening ends,
but doesn't beauty speak entirely for itself,
especially at night? Like I say, I know
I'd be doing it all wrong. And I know she'd
need to get home and on with her life, but
it would be fun to date a beautiful woman.