A man said to the universe:
“Sir, I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe,
“The fact has not created in me
“A sense of obligation.”

Stephen Crane

Be good, be good, be always good,
And now & then be clever,
But don’t you ever be too good,
Nor ever be too clever;
For such as be too awful good
They awful lonely are,
And such as often clever be
Get cut & stung & trodden on by persons of lesser mental capacity, for this kind do by a law of their construction regard exhibitions of superior intellectuality as an offensive impertinence leveled at their lack of this high gift, & are prompt to resent such-like exhibitions in the manner above indicated — & are they justifiable? alas, alas they

(It is not best to go on; I think the line is already longer than it ought to be for real true poetry.)

Mark Twain

Beyond the last treeline on the horizon

beyond the coconut palms and eucalyptus

out in the moon-zone puckered by bombs

the dead earth where no one ventures,

the boys found it, foolish boys

riding buffaloes in craterlands

where at night bombs thump and ghosts howl.

A green patch on the raw earth.

In that dead place the weeds had formed a man

where someone died and fertilized the earth, with flesh

and blood, with tears, with longing for loved ones.

No scrap remained; not even a buckle

survived the monsoons, just a green creature,

a viny man, supine, with posies for eyes,

butterflies for buttons, a lily for a tongue.

Now when huddled asleep together

the farmers hear a rustly footfall

as the leaf-man rises and stumbles to them.

John Balaban - Locusts at the Edge of Summer