Classic Poem

You who demanded of God the law
To be man by with most profit,
And were man by with the profit that you asked,
Who consumed your God, your law, your world,
In rotary science of diuturnal meals:
What now? Since of you lies only
This dead God at my feet of woman
Which accompanied him, or you,
To this death and satiation,
Should your self-stained lips still move,
Muttering, " More law, I starve" —

Then I must feed you, if you live,
Nor that old pap you died of,
The thin milk of time which was yourself
Mothered by yourself, O mortal Godhead.
Rise up then, here's a feeding for you
That will answer: a nourishment
Not spirited from flesh —
The very words " Rise up", and again
As you do not, from being dead, but would.

Rise up then, and again, " Rise up" —
Until you stand. And this obedience,
This having eaten, will last you
As many meals your mind can make of it.
I give you food this time, not you:
This time on time of not-self.
I do command you, since you ask it
And were dead of yourself so dead
Did I not, nor wish to lie so dead,
However the thing may be done.

Yes, the thing may be done,
But difficult the medicine, with bitter in —
Or you would not believe it strong
To get you up from mind with flesh down.
Which came of eating sweet.
Well, there are two sweets.
And here's mine tasting different
Until the other is forgotten.
Was it then so sweet, too sweet?
That man-sugared law, prayer fed to prayer?
Was it then sweet-impossible, my Poor?

Well, here's possible, since you ask it
And there's no withholding possible,
The food that's food to hunger
If hunger takes no prouder name.
Rise up, God Famine, and be man:
Here's food, that matches hunger,
Here's what-to-know, that matches mind.
Mind matching mind, desire matching hunger —
This is but flesh to flesh providing
Large empty image of itself.
This had no need of woman, nor did she give
More than unwilling mystery forth,
Invisible vines with fruit of yours upon,
When your eyes, like further bellies foraging,
Went hoping marvels to enrich
The haggard table of your soul.

To make no mistake, write Poison on me,
To tell the bottle which
And notify your sick distrust of sweet.
Have you an appetite for death now?
Never, never need that lack,
Self-cheated Ghost, with memory where your head
And shame where once your heart —
You own credulity's Fool.
And the bones, the sceptic corpse
That you stood up from doom-dumb stone?
They grind the death of vanity,
Begun in starkest long-ago,
And have not death to think of now:
Let them to earth again like roots torn up
With flower along, that never dreamed of vase.