felix culpa

I was looking through some old papers, all written in 2006, and by some happy accident found two poems that I (evidently!) had written, scribbled on the back of a sheet of a rough draft for an essay I was writing. They could use some revision, of course; but for now, I copy them exactly as I found them, in all their off-the-cuff glory.

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This, you knew, maturated your being

And begged you for compromise with the world surrounding.

The world, your world, unfolds before you with

Eloquence and diligence, loveliness and sprite.

Have you enough ply to crack open this nut?

The world, sweet world, which sprints

Before you?  The mysteries of ages, the

Wonderment of minds, beyond your finitude,

Have but scratched the surface

Of the darkest corners of sights even untold.

Yet you seek, your finest achievement, and wield the

Knowledge of Being in Action, knowing, yet not,

The strength of your own mind, you wait,

You wait to dawn upon your intellect the essence,

The kernel, the radical definition of this thing.

*               *               *

The street-light makes love to the mist,

And a little kiss hurt no one ever,

Who so longed to touch your body

Couldn’t lose the misty longing of the night.

Four pieces composed your decomposèd life,

And sucked out of me potency and inertia and truth.
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Orson Welles said that while he loved making movies, he didn't like watching them.  Dare I write poems who does not (except for Eliot) read them?