Emulation Project Sources

Tired - Langston Hughes 

I am so tired of waiting.
Aren't you,
For the world to become good
And beautiful and kind?
Let us take a knife
And cut the world in two --
And see what worms are eating
At the rind. 

Time and Materials - Robert Hass

1.

To make layers,
As if they were a steadiness of days:

It snowed; I did errands at a desk:
A white flurry out the window thickening; my tongue
Tasted of the glue on envelopes.

On this day sunlight on red brick, bare trees,
Nothing stirring in the icy air.

On this day a blur of color moving at the gym
Where the heat from bodies
Meets the watery, cold surface of the glass.

Made love, made curry, talked on the phone
To friends, the one whose brother died
Was crying and thinking alternately,
Like someone falling down and getting up
And running and falling and getting up.

2.

The object of this poem is not to annihila

To not annih

The object of this poem is to report a theft,
     In progress, of everything

That is not these words
     And their disposition on the page.

The object o     f this poem is to report a theft,
     In progre       ss of everything that exists
That is not th         ese words
     And their d         isposition on the page.

The object   of    his poe   is t     epor    a theft
     In    rogre    f ever     hing   at     xists
Th     is no   ese   w rds
     And their disp sit on o   the pag

3.

To score, to scar, to smear, to streak,
To smudge, to blur, to gouge, to scrape.

"Action painting," i.e.,
The painter gets to behave like time.

4.

The typo would be "painting."

(To abrade.)

5.

Or to render time and stand outside
The horizontal rush of it, for a moment
To have the sensation of standing outside
The greenish rush of it.

6.

Some vertical gesture then, the way that anger
Or desire can rip a life apart,

Some wound of color.

We Are Many - Pablo Neruda 

Of the many men who I am, who we are,

I can’t find a single one;

they disappear among my clothes,

they’ve left for another city. 

When everything seems to be set

to show me off as intelligent,

the fool I always keep hidden

takes over all that I say. 

At other times, I’m asleep

among distinguished people,

and when I look for my brave self,

a coward unknown to me

rushes to cover my skeleton

with a thousand fine excuses.

When a decent house catches fire,

instead of the fireman I summon,

an arsonist bursts on the scene,

and that’s me. What can I do?

What can I do to distinguish myself?

How can I pull myself together? 

All the books I read

are full of dazzling heroes,

always sure of themselves.

I die with envy of them;

and in films full of wind and bullets,

I goggle at the cowboys,

I even admire the horses. 

But when I call for a hero,

out comes my lazy old self;

so I never know who I am,

nor how many I am or will be. 

 I’d love to be able to touch a bell

and summon the real me,

because if I really need myself,

I mustn’t disappear. 

While I’m writing, I’m far away;

and when I come back, I’ve gone.

I would like to know if others

go through the same things that I do,

have as many selves as I have,

and see themselves similarly;

and when I’ve exhausted this problem,

I’m going to study so hard

that when I explain myself,

I’ll be talking geography.