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The Empty Glass

by Louise Gluck

I asked for much; I received little, I received

next to nothing.

And between? A few umbrellas opened indoors.

A pair of shoes by mistake on the kitchen table.

O wrong, wrong—it was my nature. I was

hard-hearted, remote. I was

selfish, rigid to the point of tyranny.

But I was always that person, even in early childhood.

Small, dark-haired, dreaded by the other children.

I never changed. Inside the glass, the abstract

tide of fortune turned

from high to low overnight.

Was it the sea? Responding, maybe,

to celestial force? To be safe,

I prayed. I tried to be a better person.

Soon it seemed to me that what began as terror

and matured into moral narcissism

might have become in fact

actual human growth. Maybe

this is what my friends meant, taking my hand,

telling me they understood

the abuse, the incredible shit I accepted,

implying (so I once thought) I was a little sick

to give so much for so little.

Whereas they meant I was good (clasping my hand intensely)—

a good friend and person, not a creature of pathos.

I was not pathetic! I was writ large,

like a queen or a saint.

Well, it all makes for interesting conjecture.

And it occurs to me that what is crucial is to believe

in effort, to believe some good will come of simply trying,

a good completely untainted by the corrupt initiating impulse

to persuade or seduce—

What are we without this?

Whirling in the dark universe,

alone, afraid, unable to influence fate—

What do we have really?

Sad tricks with ladders and shoes,

tricks with salt, impurely motivated recurring

attempts to build character.

What do we have to appease the great forces?

And I think in the end this was the question

that destroyed Agamemnon, there on the beach,

the Greek ships at the ready, the sea

invisible beyond the serene harbor, the future

lethal, unstable: he was a fool, thinking

it could be controlled. He should have said

I have nothing, I am at your mercy.

LXIX

One need not be a chamber to be haunted,
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.

Far safer, of a midnight meeting
External ghost,
Than an interior confronting
That whiter host.

Far safer through an Abbey gallop,
The stones achase,
Than, moonless, one's own self encounter
In lonesome place.

Ourself, behind ourself concealed,
Should startle most;
Assassin, hid in our apartment,
Be horror's least.

The prudent carries a revolver,
He bolts the door,
O'erlooking a superior spectre
More near.

—Emily Dickinson

The Dusk of Horses

by James Dickey

Right under their noses, the green
Of the field is paling away
Because of something fallen from the sky.

They see this, and put down
Their long heads deeper in grass
That only just escapes reflecting them

As the dream of a millpond would.
The color green flees over the grass
Like an insect, following the red sun over

The next hill. The grass is white.
There is no cloud so dark and white at once;
There is no pool at dawn that deepens

Their faces and thirsts as this does.
Now they are feeding on solid
Cloud, and, one by one,

With nails as silent as stars among the wood
Hewed down years ago and now rotten,
The stalls are put up around them.

Now if they lean, they come
On wood on any side. Not touching it, they sleep.
No beast ever lived who understood

What happened among the sun’s fields,
Or cared why the color of grass
Fled over the hill while he stumbled,

Led by the halter to sleep
On his four taxed, worthy legs.
Each thinks he awakens where

The sun is black on the rooftop,
That the green is dancing in the next pasture,
And that the way to sleep

In a cloud, or in a risen lake,
Is to walk as though he were still
in the drained field standing, head down,

To pretend to sleep when led,
And thus to go under the ancient white
Of the meadow, as green goes

And whiteness comes up through his face
Holding stars and rotten rafters,
Quiet, fragrant, and relieved.

i will wade out
till my thighs are steeped in burning flowers
I will take the sun in my mouth
and leap into the ripe air
Alive
with closed eyes

- E. E. Cummings

A Noiseless Patient Spider

A noiseless patient spider,
I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark’d how to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,
It launched forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself.
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detatched, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them.
Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

- Walt Whitman

Pedagogue Of Young Gods

Are you afraid to have someone believe in you?
Can you commit to your ideals?
Even if you think nothing of it,
Are you willing to allow others to think the world of it,
And of you?
Pedagogue of Young Gods.

All slavery ever does is free you.
All anyone ever does is an example.
All power is just collective energy.
To abuse the privilege is to sell your soul
And that is to rent with the illusion of owning.
We are the landlords.
If you misunderstand us,
You’re dead and deserve your demise.
Your dominion is your overthrow.
The controllers are controlled.
Spread the word,
It will save you
And depends on you to be understood.
There is no school bell, only nursery.
Our heroes reward us with stars,
Ever-still, ever-moving.
We sing to ourselves in our cars.
Music is our sanctuary.
Anywhere you put it it’s ours.
Our living voice,
Our living testament.
We dream aloud,
We scream and shout.
Our courage will defeat them.
Our struggle will unite us.
Our wisdom is ourselves,
Our resources our own,
Our blood ocean,
Our skin oil.
We are mountain and waterfall,
They cannot contain us.
Their prisons will not restrain us,
Their customs will not un-name us.
We are what they know in their hearts,
You guessed it,
You knew that,
You felt it,
You tried to doubt it,
Denied it,
But you knew it,
Ain’t nobody had to tell you.
We had them from the start.
A world apart, a world within,
Ancient and luminous.
The before before and the hereafter.
We are the essence of laughter.
The comforting prayer
And the gatekeepers
And the street-sweepers.
A mountain of ports outside of a city of dreams.
A bird that prays, yet offers it’s wingspan to the wind.
Things are not as they seem.
We hover above while giving the appearance of scurrying below.
All is as it should be.
We are more than we know.
More than we hoped and dreamed,
A generation of generators,
A power source and supply.
The better we learn to live,
The better we learn to die.
Old as anything,
Old as everything,
We are participants in a ritual
Older than our collective memory,
A marriage of heart and mind,
Secular and divine.

All is as it should be.
Slavery carefully bred us.
No child of Greece or Rome can behead us.
We are ahead of our time.
Slavery was simply a state of mind.
Hip-hop reminded us of confidence.
Overcoming now is simply common sense.
You deserve the ice and the riches of Solomon.
But don’t let warped values turn you into hollow men.
Education is the only thing given that cannot be taken.
Learn to think for yourself,
Analyze the forsaken.
Pimp your fears,
Surrender to love,
Dance all night when you need to.
Play this song for a thug,
Let ‘em know ain’t no judgment.
We all hustle and grind,
Any system against us is against the divine.
But there’s no sense of glory in repenting,
And repeating,
Their mistakes.
You have a greater calling.
Answering it is all it takes.
Take a second to hear this
And go back about your day.
Know that laws don’t govern us,
We’re governed by what we say.
What we think, why we think it, how we handle.
Place no blame, point no fingers, take your aim

Shoot to kill. The Bullshit.

- Saul Williams

There’s A Certain Slant Of Light

There’s a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.

Heavenly hurt it gives us;
We can find no scar,
But internal difference
Where the meanings are.

None may teach it anything,
‘Tis the seal, despair,-
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the air.

When it comes, the landscape listens,
Shadows hold their breath;
When it goes, ‘t is like the distance
On the look of death.

—Emily Dickinson

A Noiseless Patient Spider

A noiseless patient spider,
I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark’d how to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,
It launched forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself.
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detatched, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them.
Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

- Walt Whitman