Insistence

I am becoming monstrous:
It is the spiteful beast within –
Its arrogance, its humanity.

It is the spiteful beast within…
‘Nature, red in tooth and claw’ –
That feeling a beast never has,
Of being separate.

Man is an exception to the bloody order,
His exception is existence.
But does none of the rest of it exist?
It is always a mistake to use that word,
Because, as a concept, it is never true:
It is never truly applied.

When the sharp edges of an object cut the sight
Into its prospects, everything vague
Becomes clean, all that is brittle is smoothed.
But everything is always smooth.

Except when I am sick, or sleepy, or depressed,
Whence, Existence is an affection; existence
Is a perfection – meaning:
Everything is integral before the mind of God.

[These modern atheists]

To stand apart, to be, more and more, alone,
To truly exist, to be one
Against the headlong precipitate of all…

As you move into the solemn horizon
The buildings become more cruel,
Before reaching a point in the distance
Where their existence wavers,
And diminishes, and disappears.