Poetry by Harry the Human
Dear Harry the Human Readers,
People who try to comprehend Harry the Human’s poetry are aided by whatever meagre knowledge of his life they can find. I got a helpful glimpse of things when I peered 28 years into the future through a “time fault” and saw Harry’s friends Anthony Roberts, Rebecca Silversmith and Gregory (http://www.gregorysarmyoftheyoung.com/) trying to run the world. They fell afoul of “politics" from another dimension then underwent severe mental stress from the bombardment of their psyches by telepathic waves from secret government agencies that had developed telepathy as a weapon. Harry, in the years leading up to this melee, had been working towards a rational humanity, disseminating valuable intel concerning the global war people were being talked into, revealing that the manipulators' goal was for people to think the war was their idea (for more: http://harrythehuman.harrythehumanpoliticalthoughtsfrombeyondthepale.com/). The perpetrators picked up Harry on their radar and took telepathic counter-measures, causing him, briefly, to believe that North Korea was in fact a secret lab for a small group of technocrats and billionaires plotting World War III. The goals of this mind warp, Harry says, was to shame him and his friends by publicly associating them with a crackpot idea (after which none of their non-crackpot ideas got a hearing) as well as to, as much as possible, destroy his soul with sensations of failure and futility. For a while the latter worked pretty well on Harry, who became delusional in South Korea and needed assistance from his crew (see the blog). Harry is back on his feet now, thanks largely to the balm of poetry writing. He’s on an airplane at this moment, heading to a destination which it would be wise not to reveal. Harry hopes to have something interesting to report soon. Meanwhile, below is a selection of Harry’s poetry over the years. Note: Harry believes that poetry was not always a separate "art," but for much of human history was part of day-to-day human communication. Harry would like to see a re-instatement of poetry into our regular speech.
Best, D.L.
Poetry by Harry the Human
Ask the slime
Part I. The problem
In the mirror it is trapped-
the solitary soul not easily unwrapped,
its universal juice reluctant to be sapped,
contaminated, begging you to tap
some poetry to prove that it's not full of crap.
Part II. The crime!
I thought it best, as if you need but rhyme
to indicate the truth, to tell about the time
humanity emerged out of the slime
and saw the upward path it thought to climb
and found too late its orphaned soul- the crime!
Part III. What now?
Whom to punish? Who deserves the dreadful blame?
Do we need a gun? At whom to aim?
Or rather ask the slime, our single seed,
What did we leave in you? What do we need?
Nematode
Oh brillig was the slithy tove,
All mum with crap that he had sold
So on he went, as we are told
A goal in mind, a windy road
A nematode, but I digress
Our subject still a wilderness,
Wherein such souls as look askance
At superficial happenstance,
To waddle in the cosmic dance
And ask the question, should the chance
Present itself, or even not-
For questions ask their own true selves
Forgiving answers to themselves.
And truth be told I need more rhymes
Not once not twice but three more times!
When last I looked…
Said the captain to first mate,
"It must be something that I ate,
for when I look across the sea
and think of what it all could be-
I feel that with my senses sate
I’ve found the will to recreate
that empty canvas I did see
when last I looked across the sea."
What did Jacob say to God?
Tell me about the last vision,
After the last
Reductio ad absurdum
Before the animal sleep sets in
When the eye
Expanding beyond light
Sees its own context-
just for a moment- but
I want to see it now!
So that
I don’t need death
to be alive.
One sin too many
One sin too many
tipped the scales,
mortality, not life
prevails.
For Eve, you know
just couldn't wait,
the female hunger
hard to sate.
The serpent eyed her
thinking how
he'd transfer all his weakness now:
The weakness of not wanting much
the weakness of
his cold dark touch.
Take this, he hissed,
God won't be pissed;
the obedient creature is
seldom missed.
Eve was not sure
and for a while
thought this is naughty,
not my style.
But then she thought
our life is hard in
this infernally pleasant
garden;
God must know
that stories need
a conflict
for the mind to heed.
Thus did the serpent
choose most fit
she who knew
before she bit
The fleshy fruit
raised to her jaw,
the story is our god's,
she saw.
And Adam
more prone to be led
saw the truth of what she said.
Swallowing hard
he looked about
in mortal fear
he turned to shout:
"Oh no! We're in
the story line,
we'll have to be interesting,
not devine!"
Creation's ratings, now assured-
though we'd rather not have any-
We wonder, should we have demurred
Before one sin too many?
Snaffles last visit
Sitting in the vet's waiting room,
I read Bark magazine. Should we call
the New Yorker magazine Speak?
And it seems the domestic dog originated
in the Middle East, not Asia,
but Williams Syndrome, bringing the curse of
Extreme Friendliness Disorder
is traceable, can be seen in dog genes.
Bark does not deal, I think, in irony,
in sadness.
Domestication a syndrome
Civilization a disorder
Friendliness a...Oh God no-
My tail is wagging!
Ukraine
I.
My grandfather left you after you cut his father down
What do you want now,
why have you come around?
II.
He came to New York then Bismarck and sold liquor.
The Sioux and Germans came to buy in World War II
but World War II was quicker.
My dad quit the town- the city slicker!
And then I came, I saw, I begged to differ,
Los Angeles!
III.
What a haven from Ukraine you’ve been,
You let everybody float, we think we win!
Oh Ukraine, they even let us sin!
There's a Bard in my Yard
What if, though all we teach our young
be naught but dreams we teach ourselves,
we in the throes of later-aged ambition
to be more upon the stage
than aged babes,
suckling, passive, small accounted in the public eye,
Or domestic ciphers
sweeping dust to dust
and daily circling mile on mile
in quiet contemplation
hidden watched the generations flow,
while all around the greatest triumphs
from the greatest minds
did cause calamitous clash
and magnificent ornament of the soul?
But children too,
Uprooted on life’s playground,
who face the rousing slap
and challenge of the intellect’s
swampy doubt,
think not of quiet corners
but of noisy triumph on the field.
Demanding that we set aside
The limits of our scope
And take them on a joyous ride
Of certitude and hope.
Poem on demand
I told my writing group
I average one poem per year
because of inspiration
or lack of it
Or lack of perspiration?
Doesn't a poem need to be written
Right here? Right now?
Of course it does-
It always does
when the heart asks
“Where is my universe?
Does it come after this one?”
A poem will know
how to riddle us.