I DIE, SO DIES THE WORLD
Poor world that does not know its doom, the day I die.Two hundred million pass within my hour of passing,I take this continent with me into the grave.They are most brave, all-innocent, and do not knowThat if I sink then they are next to go.So in the hour of death the Good Times cheerWhile I, mad egotist, ring in their Bad New Year.The lands beyond my land are vast and bright,Yet I with one sure hand put out their light.I snuff Alaska, doubt Sun King's France, slit Britain's throat,Promote old Mother Russia out of mind with one fell blink,Shove China off a marble quarry brink,Knock far Australia down and place its stone,Kick Japan in my stride. Greece? quickly flown.I'll make it fly and fall, as will green Eire,Turned in my sweating dream, I'll Spain despair,Shoot Goya's children dead, rack Sweden's sons,Crack flowers and farms and towns with sunset guns.When my heart stops, the great Ra drowns in sleep,I bury all the stars in Cosmic Deep.So, listen, world, be warned, know honest dread.When I grow sick, that day your blood is dead.Behave yourself, I'll stick and let you live.But misbehave, I'll take what now I give.That is the end and all. Your flags are furled…If I am shot and dropped? So ends your world.
DOING IS BEING
Doing is being.To have done's not enough;To stuff yourself with doing-that's the game.To name yourself each hour by what's done,To tabulate your time at sunset's gunAnd find yourself in actsYou could not know before the factsYou wooed from secret self, which much needs wooing,So doing brings it out,Kills doubt by simply jumping, rushing, runningForth to beThe now-discovered me.To not do is to die,Or lie about and lie about the thingsYou just might do some day.Away with that!Tomorrow empty staysIf no man plays it into beingWith his motioned way of seeing.Let your body lead your mindBlood the guide dog to the blind;So then practice and rehearseTo find heart-soul's universe,Knowing that by moving/seeingProves for all time: Doing's being!
WE HAVE OUR ARTS So WE WON'T DIE OF TRUTH
Know only Real? Fall dead.So Nietzsche said.We have our Arts so we won't die of Truth.The World is too much with us.The Flood stays on beyond the Forty Days.The sheep that graze in yonder fields are wolves.The clock that ticks inside your head is truly TimeAnd in the night will bury you.The children warm in bed at dawn will leaveAnd take your heart and go to worlds you do not know.All this being soWe need our Arts to teach us how to breatheAnd beat our blood; accept the Devil's neighborhood,And age and dark and cars that run us down,And clown with Death's-head in himOr skull that wears Fool's crownAnd jingles blood-rust bells and rattles groansTo earthquake-settle attic bones late nights.All this, this, this, all this-too much!It cracks the heart!And so? Find Art.Seize brush. Take stance. Do fancy footwork. Dance.Run race. Try poem. Write play.Milton does more than drunk God canTo justify Man's way toward Man.And maundered Melville takes as taskTo find the mask beneath the mask.And homily by Emily D. shows dust-bin Man's anomaly.And Shakespeare poisons up Death's dartAnd of gravedigging hones an art.And Poe divining tides of bloodBuilds Ark of bone to sail the flood.Death, then, is painful wisdom tooth;With Art as forceps, pull that Truth,And plumb the abyss where it wasHid deep in dark and Time and Cause.Though Monarch Worm devours our heart,With Yorick's mouth cry, "Thanks!" to Art.
The essays in this collection originally appeared in the following publications, to whose editors and publishers thanks are due.
"The Joy of Writing," Zen amp; the Art of Writing, Capra Chapbook Thirteen, Capra Press, 1973.
"Run Fast, Stand Still, or The Thing at the top of the Stairs, or New Ghosts from Old Minds," How to Write Tales of Horror, Fantasy amp;fScience Fiction, edited by J.A. Williamson, Writers Digest Books, 1986.
"How to Keep and Feed a Muse," The Writer, July 1961.
"Drunk, and in Charge of a Bicycle," An introduction to The Collected Stories of Ray Bradbury, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1980.
"Investing Dimes: Fahrenheit 451," An introduction to Fahrenheit 451, Limited Editions Club, 1982.
"Just This Side of Byzantium: Dandelion Wine," An introduction to Dandelion Wine, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1974.
"The Long Road to Mars," An introduction to The Martian Chronicles:
The Fortieth Anniversary Edition, Doubleday, 1990.
"On the Shoulders of Giants…" Originally published as the Preface to Other Worlds: Fantasy and Science Fiction Since 1939, edited by John J. Teunissen, University of Manitoba Press, 1980. Reprinted in Special Issue of MOSAIC, XIII/3-4 (Spring-Summer, 1980).
"The Secret Mind," The Writer, November, 1965.
"Shooting Haiku in a Barrel," Film Comment (November-December, 1982).
"Zen in the Art of Writing," Zen amp; the Art of Writing, Capra Chapbook Thirteen, Capra Press, 1973.