Grooks of Piet Hein

Problems worthy

of attack

prove their worth

by hitting back.

Put up in a place

where it's easy to see

the cryptic admonishment

T.T.T.

When you feel how depressingly

slowly you climb,

it's well to remember that

Things Take Time.

The road to wisdom? - Well, it's plain

and simple to express:

Err

and err

and err again

but less

and less

and less.

The way to grow grand

is not: to demand.

In life's every field

you are what you yield.

There is

one art,

no more,

no less:

to do

all things

with art-

lessness.

THE MIRACLE OF SPRING

We glibly talk

of nature's laws

but do things have

a natural cause?

Black earth turned into

yellow crocus

in undiluted

hocus-pocus.

TWO WORDS

Two words express

My love galore:

Nevertheless,

Alwaysthemore

A PSYCHOLOGICAL TIP

Whenever you're called on to make up your mind,

and you're hampered by not having any,

the best way to solve the dilemma, you'll find,

is simply by spinning a penny.

No - not so that chance shall decide the affair

while you're passively standing there moping;

but the moment the penny is up in the air,

you suddenly know what you're hoping

A WORD TO THE WISE

Let the world pass in its time-ridden race;

never get caught in its snare.

Remember, the only acceptable case

for being in any particular place

is having no business there.

LIVING IS -

Living is

a thing you do

now or never -

which do you?

THE ETERNAL TWINS

Taking fun

as simply fun

and earnestness

in earnest

shows how thoroughly

thou none

of the two

discernest.

CONSOLATION GROOK

Losing one glove

is certainly painful,

but nothing

compared to the pain,

of losing one,

throwing away the other,

and finding

the first one again.

OMNISCIENCE
 
Knowing what
thou knowest not
is in a sense
omniscience.
 
 
SIMPLY ASSISTING GOD
 
I am a humble artist
moulding my earthly clod,
adding my labour to nature's,
simply assisting God.
 
Not that my effort is needed;
yet somehow, I understand,
my maker has willed it that I too should have
unmoulded clay in my hand.
 
 
HINT AND SUGGESTION
Admonitory grook addressed to youth.
 
The human spirit sublimates
the impulses it thwarts;
a healthy sex life mitigates
the lust for other sports.
 
 


MANKIND
 
Men, said the Devil,
are good to their brothers:
they don’t want to mend
their own ways, but each other's.
 
 
NAIVE --
 
Naive you are
if you believe
life favours those
who aren't naive.
 
 
THE MIRACLE OF SPRING
 
We glibly talk
 of nature's laws
but do thing have
 a natural cause?
 
Black earth turned into
 yellow crocus
is undiluted
 hocus-pocus.
 
 
DREAM INTERPRETATION
Simplified.
 
Everything's either
concave or -vex,
so whatever you dream
will be something with sex.
 
 
PRAYER
to the sun above the clouds.
 
Sun that givest all things birth,
shine on everything on earth!
 
If that's too much to demand,
shine at least on this our land.
 
If even that's too much for thee,
shine at any rate on me.
 
 
CIRCUMSCRIPTURE
 
As Pastor X steps out of bed
 he slips a neat disguise on:
that halo round his priestly head
 is really his horizon.
 
 
SOCIAL MECHANISM
 
When people always
try to take
the very smallest
piece of cake
how can it also
always be
that that's the one
that's left for me?
 
 
A TOAST
 
The soul may be a mere pretence,
the mind makes very little sense.
So let us value the appeal
of that which we can taste and feel.
 
 
ON PROBLEMS
 
Our choicest plans
 have fallen through,
our airiest castles
 tumbled over,
because of lines
 we neatly drew
and later neatly
 stumbled over.
 
 
AN ETHICAL GROOK
 
I see
 and I hear
 and I speak no evil;
I carry
 no malice
 within my breast;
yet quite without
 wishing
 a man to the Devil
one may be
 permitted
 to hope for the best.
 
 
LILAC TIME
 
The lilacs are flowering, sweet and sublime,
 with a perfume that goes to the head;
and lovers meander in prose and rhyme,
trying to say --
 for the thousandth time --
 wha's easier done than said.
 
 
THE DOUBLE-DOOR EFFECT
 
Double doors are justified
because they're comfortably wide.
Therefore you only half undo'em;
and therefore nothing can get through 'em.
 
 
FORETASTE WITH AFTERTASTE
 
Corinna's scanty evening dress
reveals her charms to an excess
which makes a fellow lust for less.
 
 
MAJORITY RULE
 
His party was the Brotherhood of Brothers,
and there were more of them than of the others.
That is, they constituted that minority
which formed the greater part of the majority.
Within the party, he was of the faction
that was supported by the greater fraction.
And in each group, within each group, he sought
the group that could command the most support.
The final group had finally elected
a triumvirate whom they all respected.
Now, of these three, two had final word,
because the two could overrule the third.
One of these two was relatively weak,
so one alone stood at the final peak.
He was: THE GREATER NUMBER of the pair
which formed the most part of the three that were
elected by the most of those whose boast
it was to represent the most of the most
of most of most of the entire state --
or of the most of it at any rate.
He never gave himself a moment's slumber
but sought the welfare of the greater number.
And all people, everywhere they went,
knew to their cost exactly what it meant
to be dictated to by the majority.
But that meant nothing, -- they were the minority.
 
 
EXPERTS
 
Experts have
their expert fun
ex cathedra
telling one
just how nothing
can be done.
 
 


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.
 
 
ROAD SENSE
 
God save us, now they're murdering
 another winding road,
and another lovely countryside
 will take another load
of pantechnicon and car and motorbike.
 They're busy making biger roads,
 and better roads and more,
so that people can discover
 even faster than before
 that everything is everywhere alike.
 
 
OUR GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT
 
We must expect posterity
to view with some asperity
 the marvels and the wonders
 we're passing on to it;
but it should change its attitude
to one of heartfelt gratitude
 when thinking of the blunders
 we didn't quite commit.
 
 
THE TRUE DEFENCE
 
The only defence
that is more than pretence
 is to act on the fact
that there is no defence.
 
 
PAST PLUPERFECT
 
The past, -- well, it's just like
 our Great-Aunt Laura,
who cannot or will not perceive
that though she is welcome,
 and though we adore her,
yet now it is time to leave.
 
 


MY FAITH IN DOCTORS
 
My faith in doctors
 is immense.
Just one thing spoils it;
 their pretence
of authorised
 omniscience.
 
 
DEFENCE WANTED
 
In International
 Consequences
the players must reckon
 to reap what they've sown.
We have a defence
 against other defences,
but what's to defend us
 against our own?
 
 
GETTING DOWN TO FUNDAMENTALS
 
It will steadily shrink,
our earthly abode,
until antiode stands
upon antipode.
 
Then, soles together,
the planet gone,
we'll know the ground
that we rest upon.
 
 
GROOK TO STIMULATE GRATITUDE
in sour rationalists.
 
As things so
 very often are
intelligence
 won't get you far.
 
So be glad
 you've got more sense
than you've got
 intelligence.
 
 
MISSING LINK
 
Man's a kind
of Missing Link,
fondly thinking
he can think.

THAT IS THE QUESTION
Hamlet Anno Domini.
 
Co-existence
or no existence.
 
 
BRIDGE OR TUNNEL?
Channel project.
 
A tunnel would be possible,
 a bridge would also do,
but wouldn't it be better to
 amalgamate the two?
 
Let bridge and tunnel undulate
 in waves from shore to shore,
keeping green the memories
 of those who went before.
 
 
LOSING FACE
 
The noble art of losing face
may one day save the human race
 and turn into eternal merit
what weaker minds would call disgrace.

A WORD TO THE WISE
 
Let the world pass in its time-ridden race;
 never get caught in its snare.
Remember, the only acceptable case
for being in any particular place
 is having no business there.
 
 
MEETING THE EYE
 
You'll probably find
 that it suits your book
to be a bit cleverer
 than you look.
Observe that the easiest
 method by far
is to look a bit stupider
 than you are.
 
 
IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN
 
A poet should be of the
 old-fahioned meaningless brand:
obscure, esoteric, symbolic, --
 the critics demand it;
so if there's a poem of mine
  that you do understand
I'll gladly explain what it means
 till you don't understand it.
  
  
THE CASE FOR OBSCURITY
On Thoughts and Words I.
 
If no thought
your mind does visit,
make your speech
not too explicit.
 
 
LEST FOOLS SHOULD FAIL
 
True wisdom knows
it must comprise
some nonsense
as a compromise,
lest fools shouls fail
to find it wise.
 
 
GROOK ON LONG-WINDED AUTHORS
 
Long-winded writers I abhor,
 and glib, prolific chatters;
give me the ones who tear and gaw
 their hair and pens to tatters:
who find heir writing such a chore
 they only write what matters.
 
 


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.
 
 


AN ODE TO MODESTY
 
Talking of successful rackets
modesty deserves a mention.
Exclamation marks in brackets
never fail to draw attention.
 
 
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.
 
 


I'D LIKE --
 
I'd like to know 
what this whole show 
is about 
before it's out.
 
 


A MAXIM FOR VIKINGS
 
Here is a fact
 that should help you fight
 a bit longer:
Things that don't act-
 ually kill you outright
 make you stronger.
 
 
MAKING SENSE
 
Life makes senses
and who could doubt it,
if we have
no doubt about it.
 
 
A MOMENT'S THOUGHT
 
As eternity
is reckoned
there's a lifetime
in a second.
 
 


LIVING IS --
 
Living is
 a thing you do
now or never --
 which do you?
 
 
(for Expo 67)
 
We travel where ever mankind reigns
and find good men in all the worlds domains
and recognize them as a kind of Danes.
 
 


TAUGHT
 
 We are taught to live,
 we are
 taught to feel.
We are taught to conform and conceal. 
 
 We are taught so well
 what we
 ought to feel
that we cannot feel what we feel.
 
 


THE LITTLE MERMAID'S LITTLE SISTER 
 
The Little Mermaid's Little Sister
was also partly girl and cod
though in a way which those who kissed her
 found odd. 
 
...but which, well worth to mention,
though at first sight absurd,
I, with my fond intention,
 preferred.
 
 


THE TYRANNY OF THINGS
 
I am trying to rule
 over ten thousand things
which I thought
 belonged to me.
All of a sudden
 a doubt take wings:
Do they...
 or could it be..? 
 
A hardhanded hunch
 in my mind's ear rings
from whence
 such suspicions may stem:
that if you posses
 more than just eight things
then y o u
 are possessed by t h e m
 
 


MOTIVATION OF TOASTS FOR A STEADFAST CHARACTER 
 
Your steadfast character appeals
 to frequent toasts, methinks:
you never eat except at meals
 -nor drink 'twixt drinks.
 
 


LOOK AND THOU SHALT FIND
Foes
 
see no worth behind it.
Those
that are looking
for nothing - will find it.
 
 
WHAT ARE YOU?
 
The way to grow grand
  is not: to demand
In life's every field
  you are what you yield.
 
 
THE EGOCENTRICS
 
People are self-centered
to a nauseous degree.
They will keep on about themselves
while I'm explaining me.
 
 
THRIFT 
Nobody can be lucky all the time;
 
don't think you've been abandoned in your prime,
but rather that you're saving up your ration.
 
 
CAPACITY 
A contribution to the psychology of disappointment 
 
Some people live
 in a dream of what'll
allow them to
 live their dream:
they solemnly hold out
 a half-pint bottle
and ask for
 a pint of cream.
 
 
THAT WEARY FEELING 
 
Do you know that weary feeling
 when your mind is strangely strangled
and your head is like a ball of wool
 that's very, very tangled;
and the tempo of your thinking
 must be lenient and mild,
as though you were explaining
 to a very little child.
 
 
ONE'S OWN WEATHER 
 
You're squandering
 spleen on your brothers,
and wasting
 good self-pity too,
if you think
 that there's sun on the others
whenever it's raining on you. 
 
 


TWO PASSIVISTS
Eradicate the optimist
 
that human values will persist
 no matter what we do. 
 
Annihilate the pessimist
 whose ineffectual cry
is that the goal's already missed
 however hard we try.
 
 
THE CENTRAL POINT 
A philosophistry 
 
I am the Universe's Centre.
No subtle sceptics can confound me;
for how can other viewpoints enter,
when all the rest is all around me?
 
 
MOUSE AND MAN
A relativistic grook on co-existence 
 
A human being sharing with a mouse.
Each thinks himself the master of the house.
In fact, of course, each occupier's place is
the other's insulating interspaces.
 
 
THREE FACTS ABOUT TRAFFIC 
 
Three facts, quite easy,
 should be known to all
  would-be arrivers
   who set out on wheels: 
 
that roads are greasy,
 safety margins small,
  and fellow drivers
   fellow imbeciles.
 
 
VITA BREVIS 
 
A lifetime
is more
than
sufficiently long
for people to get what there is of it
wrong.
 
 
ETERNITY AND THE CLOCK
A homage to finity 
 
Eternity's one of those mental blocks-
 the concept is inconceivable.
The clock concedes it in ticks and tocks,
 belittled, belaboured, believable. 
 
Each passing moment is seized and chewed
 with argument incontestable.
Premasticated, like baby food,
 eternity is digestible.
 
 
ASTRO-GYMNASTICS
Do-it-yourself grook 
 
Go on a starlit night,
 stand on your head,
leave your feet dangling
 outwards into space,
and let the starry
 firmament you tread
be, for the moment,
 your elected base. 
 
Feel Earth's colossal weight
 of ice and granite,
of molten magma,
 water, iron, and lead;
and briefly hold
 this strangely solid planet
balanced upon
 your strangely solid head.
 
 
TWIN MYSTERY 
 
To many people artists seem
 undisciplined and lawless.
Such laziness, with such great gifts,
 seems little short of crime.
One mystery is how they make
 the things they make so flawless;
another, what they're doing with
 their energy and time.
 
 
DRAWING NEAR
To Saul Steinberg 
 
You draw
the near things
 nearer
by making
clear things
 queerer.
 
 
THOUGHTS AND THINGS 
 
I concentrate on
 the concentric rings
produced by my pen
 in the ink.
The thing that distinguishes
 thoughts from things
is that thoughts are harder
 to think.
 
 
LAST THINGS FIRST 
 
Solutions to problems
 are easy to find:
the problem's a great
 contribution.
What's truly an art
 is to wring from your mind
a problem to fit
 a solution.
 
 
ON BEING ONESELF
Good resolution grook 
 
If virtue
can't be mine alone
at least my faults
can be my own.
 
 
UNPLUMBED DEPTHS
Grook on philo-sophistical and other -isms 
 
Philo-sophisticism
 with hypnotic
effect affects
 the boobies that abound:
being so bottomlessly
 idiotic
that even they
 can see it profound.
 
 
ORIGINALITY 
 
Original thought
 is a straightforward process.
It's easy enough
 when you know what to do.
You simply combine
 in appropriate doses
the blatantly false
 and the patently true.
 
 
WISDOM IS - 
 
Wisdom is
the booby prize
given when you've been
unwise.
 
 
THE OPPOSITE VIEW 
 
For many system shoppers it's
 a good-for-nothing system
that classifies as opposites
 stupidity and wisdom. 
 
because by logic-choppers it's
 accepted with avidity:
stupidity's true opposite's
 the opposite stupidity.
 
 
WANTING TO BE ABLE TO 
 
'Impossibilities' are good
 not to attach that label to;
since, correctly understood,
if we wanted to, we would
 be able to be able to.
 
 
WHO IS LEARNED?
A definition 
 
One who, consuming midnight oil
in studies diligent and slow,
teaches himself, with painful toil,
the things that other people know.
 
 
EVERYBODY'S WORTH KNOWING 
 
It's some sort of comfort
 to get the gist
of certain impertinents
 I could list -
so that you know what you
 haven't missed.
 
 
GROOK ABOUT FAITH, HOPE, ETC. 
 
She gave me hope
she gave me love,
 with bounty unalloyed.
But what she had of faith,
alas,
 she gave to Freud.
 
 
THE CIVILIZED ART 
 
Two types that had far better
 leave to their betters
the civilized art
 of exchanging letters
are those who disdain
 to make any response,
and those who infallibly
 answer at once.
 
 
PRESCRIPTION 
 
A bit
of virtue
will never
hurt you.
 
 
THE FIRST PRINCIPLE OF GASTRONOMY 
 
There's a rule for proper doses
in the dinner-eaters lore:
one should stop the filling process
while one still has room for more. 
 
And if someone at the table
had reminded me before -
Hallelujah! I'd be able
to absorb a little more.
 
 
HANDSOME IS -
Portrait-grook 
 
He's gallantry personified;
 in fact
his brochures ought to read:
SATISFACTION GUARANTEED -
or your virginity returned
 intact.
 
 
IDLE FELLOW
Portrait-grook 
 
Professsor Blooby doesn't see the fun
in what his fellow-man call relaxation.
He isn't ignorant of how it's done,
but lacks the necessary application.
 
 
A DIPLOMATIC COMPROMISE 
 
A fellow I know
can get mountains to move
and all opposition
appeases:
he preaches what God
cannot help but approve,
and does
what the Devil he pleases.
 
 
NOVELTY 
 
For me there is something ineffably new
 in every new moment's arising;
and even the things I habitually do
 have qualities new and surprising. 
 
There's nothing that happens that happened before
 in exactly that way in its life.
When you're playing the piano, it's rather a bore;
 but it's nice when you're kissing your wife.
 
 
REMEDIES' REMEDIES 
 
Pills are useful
against ills
and against
too many pills.
 
 
WE DO OUR BEST
Or do we? 
 
Modern man
has the skill;
he can do
what he will.
But alas -
being man
he will do
what he can. 
 
 
CHEAP EATERY 
 
Whenever I'm scared by the state of my purse
 I dine at the 'Gold-Digger's Claim',
where the food is so out of comparison worse
 you forget that the price is the same. 
 
 
SIMILARITY
Commutative Law 
 
No cow's like a horse,
and no horse like a cow.
That's one similarity
 anyhow. 
 
 
THE PARADOX OF LIFE
Philosophical grook. 
 
A bit beyond perception's reach
I sometimes believe I see
that Life is two locked boxes, each
containing the other's key. 
 
 
BUDGETING: THE FIRST LAW 
 
If you want to know
where your money went,
you must spend it quickly
before it's spent. 
 
 
ON AN ASHTRAY 
 
When your thirst
and hunger cease,
may your ashes
rest in peace. 
 
 
OH BOTHER!
 
What with one thing
 and another
 people bother. 
 
With a third thing
 and a fourth it
 isn't worth it. 
 
 
TIME 
 
Does time exist?
I gravely doubt it.
But gosh, what should we do
without it? 
 
 
CANDLE WISDOM 
 
If you knew
what you will know
when your candle
has burnt low,
it would greatly
ease your plight
while your candle
still burns bright.
 
 


WHAT LOVE IS LIKE
 
Love is like
a pineapple,
sweet and
undefinable.
 
 


MEMENTO VIVERE
 
Love while you've got
 love to give.
Live while you've got
 life to live.
 
 


TIMING TOAST
Grook on how to char for yourself
 
There's an art of knowing when.
Never try to guess.
Toast until it smokes and then
twenty seconds less.
 
 


THOUGHTS ON A STATION PLATFORM
 
It ought to be plain
how little you gain
by getting excited
and vexed.
 
You'll always be late
for the previous train,
and always in time
for the next
 
 


ABREAST
 
He who aims
to keep abreast
is for ever
second best.
 
 


THE FINAL STEP
 
If they made diving boards
six inches shorter -
think how much sooner
you'd be in the water.
 
 


WHAT PEOPLE MAY THINK
 
Some people cower
and wince and shrink,
owing to fear of
what people may think.
There is one answer
to worries like these:
people may think
what the devil they please.
 
 


GOOD ADVICE
 
Shun advice
at any price -
that's what I call
good advice
 
 
(on Denmark)
 
Denmark seen from a foreign land
looks but like a grain of sand.
Denmark as we Danes conceive it
is so big you won’t believe it.
 
 


THOSE WHO KNOW
 
Those who always
know what’s best
are
a universal pest.
 
 


SATURATION
 
The heavens are draining,
it’s raining and raining,
and everything couldn’t be wetter,
and things are so bad
that we ought to be glad:
because now they can only get better.
 
 
(?)
 
Those who have no wisedom yet count their wealth by what they get. 
you who have the grace to live: count your wealth by what you give!
 
 
ABOUT DENMARK
 
Why not let us compromise
about Denmark's proper size,
which will truly please us all,
since it's bigger than it's small.
 
 
NOTHING IS INDESPENSABLE
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.
 
 
TIME AND ETERNITY
 
Where the woods and ploughlands
of tradition and modernity
run into the never-ending 
deserts of eternity,
there I have my daily task
while time smoothly passes,
spooning the eternal sands 
into hour-glass.
 
 
INVESTMENT POLICY
 
Anxieties yield
at a negative rate,
increasing in smallness
the longer they wait.
 
 
A WORD OF ENCOURAGEMENT
 
Stomach-ache can be a curse;
heart-ache may be even worse;
so thank Heaven on your knees
if you've got but one of these.
 
 
THE WISDOM OF THE SPHERES
 
How instructive
is a star!
It can teach us
from afar
just how small
each other are.
 
 
IT ISN'T ENOUGH
 
One paramount truth
our society smothers
in petty concern
with position and pelf:
It isn't enough
to exasperate others;
you've got to remember
to gladden yourself.
 
 
SMALL THINGS AND GREAT
 
He that lets
the small things bind him
leaves the great
undone behind him.
 
 
BRAVE
 
To be brave is to behave
bravely when your heart is faint.
So you can be really brave 
only when you really ain't.
 
 
THE STATE
 
Nature, our father and mother,
gave us all we have got.
The state, our elder brother,
swipes the lot.
 
 
PRESENCE OF MIND
 
You'll conquer the present
suspiciously fast
if you smell of the future --
and stink of the past.
 
 
MAKING AN EFFORT
 
Our so-called limitations, believe,
apply to faculties we don't apply.
We don't discover what we can't achieve
until we make an effort not to try.
 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL POINT
 
Power corrupts, where
as sound opposition
builds up our free
democratic tradition.
One thing would make a 
democracy flower:
having a strong opposition --
in power.
 
 
RHYME AND REASON
 
There was an old woman
who lived in a shoe.
She had so many children.
She didn't know what to do.
But try as she would 
she could never detect
which was the cause
and which the effect.
 
 
WIDE ROAD
 
To make a name for learning 
when other roads are barred,
take something very easy
and make it very hard.
 
 
THE ONLY SOLUTION
 
We shall have to evolve
problem-solvers galore--
since each problem they solve
creates ten problems more.
 
 
REFLECTION ON SIZE
 
Small people often overrate
the charm of being tall;
which is, that you appreciate
the charm of being small.
 
 
A REPROOF
Grook in answer to a long explanitory letter
 
In view of your manner
of spending your days
I hope you may learn,
before ending them,
that the effort you spend
on defending your ways
could be better spent on 
amending them.
 
 
STONE IN SHOE
 
If a nasty jagged stone
gets into your shoe,
thank the Lord it came alone --
what if it were two?
 
 
THE UNATTAINABLE IDEAL
 
We ought to live
each day as though
it were our last day 
here below.
 
But if I did, alas,
I know
it would have killed me
long ago.
 
 
A TIP
to members of the literary profession
 
Those who can write
have a lot to learn
from those bright enough 
not to.
 
 
THE ULTIMATE WISDOM
 
Philosophers
must ultimately find
their true perfection
in knowing all
the follies of mankind
-- by introspection.