Tuesday, November 26, 2013

He Did Not Die


HE DID NOT DIE

(For Jack--If you love Hitler 
so much, Nick, 
then why don't you write a poem 
about him?--Sarfatti.)

"Who is closer to you, Sir"
                        a monk asked Buddha,
"He who loves you, or he who hates you?"
"He who hates me," replied the Buddha.
"Because he thinks of me more often."

Mighty King Lucifer
Who was brought low
Who died by his own hand
In a Berlin bunker
Who rose again.

By the power of hate
Is Our Satan kept alive
His deeds in state museums immortalized.
In our hearts we hold Him closer
Than any Christian holds his Lord.

By the power of our hatred
We made places on Earth
Where Satan's so sacred
No man dares display His Mark
Except in secret.

So long as there remains
Just one of us who hates him
He will live on.
His soul is immortal.
Der Führer did not die.

5 comments:

Rico Youngblood said...

jews in high places
say Germany Must Perish
three reichs and you're out!

Anonymous said...

High school physics teacher here, long time admirer of your books. Might I presume to offer the suggestion that you might take down this Hitler stuff. I know you are trying to be L. Ferlinghetti, but most people do not know that.

nick herbert said...

I acknowledge your concern and appreciate the comparison with Ferlinghetti whom I very much admire. However I believe that the task of exploring how the power of hatred creates human reality is no less important than exploring quantum physic's power to create new material realities. And I'm sure that you'll agree: the power of hatred to distort human reality did not end with Hitler.

PonderSeekDiscover said...

It's not so much hate that keeps Hitler alive as it is the bleeting sheep mentality which enables the Hitlers, Stalins, Antonin Scalias, etc. Recently, when that bloke killed those in the Navy Yard, some moron Religious Studies Professor from the Bible belt wrote an editorial in USA Today in which he was actually gloating in his argument that "no religion, not even the Dalai Lama's cherished Buddhism, provides an antidote to the human propensity towards violence." Every religion provides the antidote for the human tendency towards violence/hatred but it requires that one separate themselves from the pack; Arthur's knights each entered the forest individually, where they felt it was the darkest and most for-boding. It's the bleeting sheep mentality that keeps most folks from the Garden; they want to feel special but they don't want to go through the hardship required to BE special . . . Anyway, a psychiatrist can prescribe medication to the lunatic mob but that doesn't mean the lunatic mob need take said medicine . . .

I don't know if you're familiar with the paper by Philip Goyal and Kevin Knuth titled, Quantum Theory and Probability Theory: Their Relationship and Origin in Symmetry (http://www.mdpi.com/2073-8994/3/2/171), but, if not, consider yourself HolyDazed! (I like to assume that Miss Alice keeps Herr Naughty Nick's naughtiness in check but I could swear I recently heard a few million innocent photons screaming, "No Nick, not the damn beam splitter again!" If so it would seem even quantum physicists have a hard time keeping their violent selves in check . . . )

Anonymous said...

I just like this poem. And it feels true indeed. We mostly feed the beast we don't want as if we take the rest for granted. Nice poem Nick. I'll look at Ferlinghetti. Don't know this guy and I'm not a poem knowledgeable person anyway :)