So Piet Hein is a brilliant, if somewhat obscure, Danish poet/philospher/amateur civic engineer - and his grooks, or short poems, have an addictive rhythm and a blink-inducing difference of perspective.

I'm stashing a few more of his poems here - I keep needing them, and his anthologies are on my book shelves several states away - and also trying out "selective expandable posting" (think a livejournal cut) courtesy of Hackophere - specifically, this post.



WHAT LOVE IS LIKE

Love is like
a pineapple,
sweet and
undefinable.


THE WISDOM OF THE SPHERES

How instructive
is a star!
It can teach us
from afar
just how small
each other are.


NOTHING IS INDESPENSABLE
A Grook to warn the universe against megalomania

The universe may
be as great as they say.
But it wouldn't be missed
if it didn't exist.


THE CURE FOR EXHAUSTION

Sometimes, exhausted
with toil and endeavour,
I wish I could sleep
for ever and ever;
but then this reflection
my longing allays:
I shall be doing it
one of these days.


OUT OF TIME
A holiday thought.

My old clock used to tell the time
and subdivide diurnity;
but now it's lost both hands and chime
and only tells eternity.


ATOMYRIADES

Nature, it seems, is the popular name
for milliards and milliards and milliards
of particles playing their infinite game
of billiards and billiards and billiards.


ON PROBLEMS

Our choicest plans
have fallen through,
our airiest castles
tumbled over,
because of lines
we neatly drew
and later neatly
stumbled over.


The Road to Wisdom

The road to wisdom?-
Well, it’s plain and simple to express:
Err
and err
and err again
but less
and less
and less.


Problems

Problems worthy
of attack
prove their worth
by hitting back.
Read More......

Can I Still Call It a Commonplace Book...

... if everything in it is slightly weird?

For starters, here's Piet Hein:

THE EGOCENTRICS

People are self-centered
to a nauseous degree.
They will keep on about themselves
while I'm explaining me. Read More......