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.