Schrecklichkeit
The broken-eyed, the silken soft
In the bright despair of the lonely streets
Looking for distraction
Looking for destruction
Violated and made hopeless by the heartless ones
The death merchants
The rulers of the world
=====
I wrote these poems before 1975. Someone asked to see them, and I saw no reason he should suffer alone. I think they are better than the verse of McGonagle, but I would not argue the point with anyone.
"Asdfjkl;" Twas dawn on the isle of Blefuscu And the flatigs emerged from their holes All unskewed were the tilags which mimbled At night in their big salad bowls And the sun awoke all the blustrugs As they slumbered on top of the palms For they looked just like chartreuse hearthrugs As they composed irregible psalms When out of the sun came a zoomar As big as a great Eggaltoon And his wings were unwertedly purple Like the unvarnished face of the moon So the flatigs and blustrugs and zoomar Engaged in a battle royale But the zoomar was by far the stronger And his maw was the fate of them all Twas noon on the isle of Blefuscu And the flatigs were all dead and gone But the tilags in their big salad bowls Were at peace and still mimbled on ===== The Behinder The sun, like a benediction, shines on the hills and trees By day, the land is pleasant.... At night, high on Yandro, stalks the thing that man never sees It always gets him from behind.... In truth, the Behinder is kind: Men are much better off to die without seeing it. (1963) ===== Dead House I really knew at once the house was dead Two stories, tilted, sagging, beyond repair; It was quite young, and prematurely derelict. Alone in the sunlit woods, I went in anyway. Nothing could have ever really happened there. How sad that a house should die without ever being haunted. (1963) ===== Brite Star, high and distant beyond thought Star, white above the sea Why should the gleaming of that far-off sun Afflict my heart? What has this light to do with my salvation? Can it be that my capacity to sin Is inherent in my feeling towards this star? Oh invisible chains, if you are not there Whence comes my choice? (1963) ===== A thing not good or evil But rather, made of both Is man, who longs for heaven But creates hell on earth The stars like eyes accusing He pretends he doesn't see And makes strange gods to justify His failure to be free (1964) ===== A mood I was in one night Beyond the veil of this sad Earth Beyond the sea of stars There lies the land of my true birth So time-lost and space-far The land where dark stars ever shine Where princes rise and kings decline Where dragons roam and maidens pine And all is fair What can I do, what do I care For this sad, dirty, drab, and dreary place? Where ugly logic is the tool of empty mind And only pale reflections of the glory shine In some briefly seen and quickly vanished face I would go where magic wonder reigns Where vast dark forces surge And ever danger rings And ever courage sings Where there is none to pity and there is all to gain In that bright world beyond the end of time Some say the place is not. They lie! How could so many dream of what is not? We have been there and remember We can never quite forget We are haunted by a dream that will not die (1964) ===== Lonely, often have I wished For one to share my life with me But I have wished to live in the hills And I have wished to fly like a bird Some things, it seems Weren't meant to be ===== Hear Come The Judge The milling and whispering in the courtroom stopped as the clerk cried "All rise! The People's Court is now in session, Judge Ashworth T. Bonefart presiding." The judge entered, attired in the traditional tattered yellow robe and mask of white cambric. When the court had settled itself, the judge said, in a hollow voice "Call the first case." "The People versus Bork, also called `The Alien'", cried the clerk. "Ready for the People!" cried the lantern-jawed, steely- eyed prosecutor. "Ready for the Alien" mumbled the seedy Public Defender. "Of what is this Bork accused?" asked the judge, in bored formal tones. The Prosecutor stated loudly that "the Alien" was accused, under People's Law I, of being significantly. will- fully, and malignantly different form the established People's Norm. After the Public Defender had been given a moment to mutter "Not Guilty", the procecutoor started a long parade of witnnesses, who typically stared about the witlessly, and after pointing at the defendant and stating "He ain't like us....", were allowed to stand down. After 113 of these had shambled before the court, the Prosecutor waved his hand and said confidently, "We rest our case." The judge turned to the Public Defender and told him to call his first witness, "if he had one". This judicial witticism provoked mirth in some parts of the courtroom. But in the back rows, where some of the spectators were dressed a little more colorfully, a low chant was heard - "Heah cum de judge - heah cum de judge - heah cum de judge..." The judge started visibly, but pretending not to notice, murmured "Proceed". "Your Honor" whined the Public Defender, "the defendant insists on taking the stand in his own defense..." "Swear him in, then" laughed the judge. Bork took the stand, and the clerk came before him with the Book. "Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?" muttered the clerk in a monotone. "I will tell it like it is" replied Bork, in his strange high voice. "We will accept that as an affirmation," said the judge "get on with it." The Public Defender asked Bork if he was indeed different from the People's Norm, within the meaning of the statute, and Bork repled that he was not. "Your witness" sighed the Public Defender as he slumped into his seat. "Is it not a fact" roared the Prosecutor, "that you are, by your own choice, fatter, thinner, taller, shorter, lighter, darker, and hungrier than the People's Norm?" Bork replied "May your ears be safe from swallows" "The witness will answer sensibly!" shouted the judge. "Well?" said the Prosecutor ominously. "May you mind be safe from thoughts..." Bork replied. The Prosecutor protested "Your Honor....". The chanting in the back of the courtroom rose again "Heah cum de Judge - heah cum de Judge - heah cum de Judge" The judge banged his gavel until it broke. "The witness will answer or be held in contempt!" he screeched. Bork replied "May you never see the singer for the song." The chanting grew louder "Head cum de Judge - heah cum de Judge - heah cum de Judge" The judge shrieked in helpless fury "I am the judge - order in the court - arrest those men - order in the court - I AM the judge" His mask fell off, revealing his fat red face. And then THE JUDGE came, plucked off the yellow robe of the man upon the bench, broke him in half, and ate him - with the prosecutor for dessert. ===== French, British, Germans, and Spics Drive their cars very fast just for kicks But in Hollywood fashion The accent's on passion In a film subtly titled "Grand Prix" ===== The wide wide world is calling And I'm not loath to go Though danger waits, and weariness of heart For many roads are calling And the star of ecstasy Is given for a symbol and a sign (1965) ===== The hot cruel blue, the cold sad red of hell Where only squirming randomness abides Outside each one, from the outside, And inside too. Black are the souls of all the sons of earth Yet there is within each one a rosy golden spark That sometimes seeks to light a different fire (1965) ===== O Elbereth Gilthoniel Swift shining rain of jewels bright Like falling stars from heaven's host We gather still upon the height To gaze beyond the woven trees Into the west, and sing to thee Fanuilos, beyond the sea Snow-white, beyond the sundering sea (1966 - a translation of Tolkien's Hymn to Elbereth) ===== Eternal and Universal Fandom of Sentient Beings The cats asleep in the shrubbery Darkish the day and I sadly going out to nowhere much Saw the three cats asleep in the azalea bushes The grey on the crippled one, and the other a ways off And knew that all magic was not dead But only hiding from man's "reality" Wild cats could not so have slept in untamed bushes And I was glad to know it, and went off to nowhere much Quite happily, which is the main thing. (1966) ===== The world in silent splendor lies And still across the dreaming skies Before the wind, the fallout flies To twist the genes of all the future ages. (1966) ===== In hope of further knowledge we wander Far from the truth and close to the end What is there for man but all wonder to ponder To reach for himself is to reach for the wind (1966) ===== Silmaril A high and lonely beauty calling To the soul, like Lucifer to the eye When the Son of the Morning Long before dawning Gleams like some forgotten jewel of the gods (1966) =====