Things I Like Preserve me, gods, from useless noise, Denote it as you will. And show me not the pap They view, Nor force on me Their mental swill. Give me, gods, the power to think Those thoughts that stretch the mind, And feed me with the mental food On which the ancient sages dined. Guide me away from the easy roads Paved with platitudes of the flock. I prefer the shadows and the tufts To thought purveyed in summary block. I like rocks that shine in the grass And flowers in barren places. I like mountains and desert sand, And moles on women's faces. I like things that swerve to the left Or tilt a bit awry. I like things that don't abide, And things that veer away. I like things that itch the mind And make a tired brain throb, Things that gleam with an inner right, And mirror the "mind of God." I have no love of uniforms Nor anything made in a mold. I much prefer a flicker of thought To King Tut's mask of gold. I like things that stir the brain, Prefer the converse and outré, The human mind that avoids the tried, And incessantly ponders the new. I much prefer a naïf's "why" To a pedant's pontifical pose, And value the errant's quest Far beyond the botanist's rose. I eschew the ordinary clay Except when it affects the mind, Preferring the mud-wrought crude To plastics of any kind. I deny the worth of any rite Embraced without directest thought; And spurn automatic responses Or beliefs not dearly bought. And I eschew the clanging crowds Which thrust themselves on my ears, Those mindless hordes of human dowds, Whose clamor gibbers across the years. Preserve me, gods, from waste of mind, Spent in pointless, dimming toil; Rather, let me seek until I find My Xanadu of intellectual roil. Let me nurse my sputtering mind In soul-building quest of the "odd," For only in search of sinister kind Can men approach the face of god.