Driven Wisdom

Poems

Fool me once, shame on you.

Fool me twice, shame on me.

Pass not this stone in sorrow, but in pride,

and strive to live as nobly, as they died.

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.

Two roads diverged in a wood,

And I took the one less travelled by,

And that has made all the difference.

If you said you were cold, I would wrap my arms around you.

If you said you were thirsty, I would give you the ocean blue.

I would give you anything. The moon, the stars, the sunset too.

Loved you yesterday,

Love you still,

Always have,

Always will.

Engine, engine number nine,

Rolling on Chicago line,

If she's polished wont she shine,

Engine, engine number nine.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

They may not mean to, but they do.

They fill you with the faults they had.

And add some extra, just for you.

Death has this much to be said for it:

You don’t have to get out of bed for it.

Wherever you happen to be

They bring it to you, free.

They hang the man and flog the woman,

That steal the goose from off the common,

But let the greater villain loose,

That steals the common from the goose.

So many things I had thought forgotten

Return to my mind with stranger pain:

Like letters that arrive addressed to someone

Who left the house so many years ago.

Though much is taken, much abides; and though

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Peace is a lie, there is only passion.

Through passion, I gain strength.

Through strength, I gain power.

Through power, I gain victory.

Through victory, my chains are broken.

The Force shall free me.

Grief fills the room up of my absent child,

Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,

Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,

Remembers me of all his gracious parts,

Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;

Then, have I reason to be fond of grief?

Winds in the east,

Mist coming in,

Like something is brewing,

About to begin,

Can't put me finger,

On what lies in store,

But I feel what's to happen,

All happened before.

If you want to shrink something,

you must first allow it to expand.

If you want to get rid of something,

you must first allow it to flourish.

If you want to take something,

you must first allow it to be given.

This is called the subtle perception

of the way things are.

The soft overcomes the hard.

The slow overcomes the fast.

Let your workings remain a mystery.

Just show people the results.

I'm a Little Tea Pot

I'm a little tea pot

Short and stout

Here is my handle

Here is my spout

When you see the tea cup

Hear me shout

Tip me over

Poor me out!

The Palace

When I was a King and a Mason, a master proven and skilled,

I cleared me ground for a Palace, such as a King should build.

I decreed and cut down to my levels, and presently, under the silt,

I came on the wreck of a Palace such as a King had built.

There was no worth in the fashion; there was no wit in the plan;

Hither and thither, aimless, the ruined footings ran.

Masonry, brute, mishandled; but carven on every stone:

"After me cometh a Builder. Tell him I, too, have known."

Swift to my use in my trenches, where my well-planned groundworks grew,

I tumbled his quoins and ashlars, and cut and reset them anew.

Lime I milled of his marbles; burned it, slacked it and spread;

Taking and leaving at pleasure the gifts of the humble dead.

Yet I despised not nor gloried; yet as we wrenched them apart,

I read in the razed foundations the heart of that builder’s heart.

As though he had risen and pleaded, so did I understand,

The form of the dream he had followed in the face of the thing he had planned.

When I was King and a Mason, in the open noon of my pride,

They sent me a Word from the Darkness; they whispered and called me aside.

They said, "The end is forbidden." They said, "Thy use is fulfilled.

"Thy Palace shall stand as that other’s, the spoil of a King who shall build."

I called my men from my trenches, my quarries, my wharves and my sheers.

All I had wrought I abandoned to the faith of the faithless years.

Only I cut on the timber; only I carved on the stone:

"After me cometh a Builder. Tell him I, too, have known."

Liberty

On my school notebooks

On my desk and on the trees

On the sands of snow

I write your name

On the pages I have read

On all the white pages

Stone, blood, paper or ash

I write your name

On the images of gold

On the weapons of the warriors

On the crown of the king

I write your name

On the jungle and the desert

On the nest and on the brier

On the echo of my childhood

I write your name

On all my scarves of blue

On the moist sunlit swamps

On the living lake of moonlight

I write your name

On the fields, on the horizon

On the birds’ wings

And on the mill of shadows

I write your name

On each whiff of daybreak

On the sea, on the boats

On the demented mountaintop

I write your name

On the froth of the cloud

On the sweat of the storm

On the dense rain and the flat

I write your name

On the flickering figures

On the bells of colors

On the natural truth

I write your name

On the high paths

On the deployed routes

On the crowd-thronged square

I write your name

On the lamp which is lit

On the lamp which isn’t

On my reunited thoughts

I write your name

On a fruit cut in two

Of my mirror and my chamber

On my bed, an empty shell

I write your name

On my dog, greathearted and greedy

On his pricked-up ears

On his blundering paws

I write your name

On the latch of my door

On those familiar objects

On the torrents of a good fire

I write your name

On the harmony of the flesh

On the faces of my friends

On each outstretched hand

I write your name

On the window of surprises

On a pair of expectant lips

In a state far deeper than silence

I write your name

On my crumbled hiding-places

On my sunken lighthouses

On my walls and my ennui

I write your name

On abstraction without desire

On naked solitude

On the marches of death

I write your name

And for the want of a word

I renew my life

For I was born to know you

To name you

Liberty.