There’s the old scoundrel.

I can’t tell you
I can’t tell you
How much you hurt me,
How I longed for freedom,
The terrible magic of Crete.
I got as far as Rhodes and failed.
That much I will now admit.

There were stars there. Red wine.
The sea deep and dark as life.
Kristina naked in the waves.
Philosophs rambling on a roof.
A kiss proffered and not accepted.
That is where I left things.
Halting, incomplete. A word half-said.

You know there are pages in life
That will not pleat, will not fold,
And time that will not pass away.
I made a deal with myself
To forget them but thus far have failed.
Nor can I forget you, Nikos.
I have kissed you. It won’t be undone.

//For Nikos//

Hold on, Henry,
I’ll play Minecraft in a minute.
I’m making a poem. 
No,
It’ll be good this time—
A tongue of flame.
A chalice of meaning.

I wrote 200/32 over ten years ago. What I meant then (and what I manage now) was the intractability that certain ideas have, and how, when adopted whole heartedly at a young age, never seem to go away, but rather go underground and ply their craft and make their mischief for years afterward. Back then, I was captured by the idea of the dichotomy of intellect and experience, the idea that life was either lived or thought about. The apotheosis was experience—not the natural inclination of a kid like me, who would rather hang back from all the fucking and fighting out there the big, big world. Nowadays, more often than not, I think that there is no line at all between thought and experience. My mind and ideas, such as they are, are implicated in everything I do. Ideas animate, not the least of which is the idea that animation is essential, the great Romantic bogey that chases people like me long after we have stopped believing in the essentialist myths of the likes of Alexis Zorba.

I fingered an
Old shoehorn_
Only six euros, 
Ten with the watchband.

But for a world
Of shelf space,
I can’t imagine 
Where I’d put them.

                         1993

Fair-haired Goldmund, where have your wayward paths led?
Thin-lipped Narcissus, what truths have your deliberations fed?

                         2004

Having long ago dismissed your dyads
	Father of intellect,
	Mother of creation.
I keep busy distilling fresher extremes
	Cheetah is awake,
	Porcupine is dreaming.
What is this proclivity to conceive in poles
	Wolf and lamb
	Donkey, elephant
	Fidel and infidel
That molds the world we make in thought?

It must be (would you agree?)
Not the poles we seek, but the perfection
The poles imply: The last, best thought.
The end to speculation.

                         2015

Note to self: Have you found
The last best thought?

                         2026

How about now?

                         2037

now?

                         2048

I am tired.  Now.
Think I will go to sleep.

//Hermann Hesse//