Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press

Twelve o'clock.

Along the reaches of the street

Held in a lunar synthesis,

Whispering lunar incantations

Dissolve the floors of memory

And all its clear relations,

Its divisions and precisions,

Every street lamp that I pass

Beats like a fatalistic drum,

And through the spaces of the dark

Midnight shakes the memory

As a madman shakes a dead geranium.

Half-past one,

The street lamp sputtered,

The street lamp muttered,

The street lamp said, 'Regard that woman

Who hesitates towards you in the light of the door

Which opens on her like a grin.

You see the border of her dress

Is torn and stained with sand,

And you see the corner of her eye

Twists like a crooked pin.'

The memory throws up high and dry

A crowd of twisted things;

A twisted branch upon the beach

Eaten smooth, and polished

As if the world gave up

The secret of its skeleton,

Stiff and white.

A broken spring in a factory yard,

Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left

Hard and curled and ready to snap.

Half-past two,

The street lamp said,

'Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter,

Slips out its tongue

And devours a morsel of rancid butter.'

So the hand of a child, automatic,

Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the quay.

I could see nothing behind that child's eye.

I have seen eyes in the street

Trying to peer through lighted shutters,

And a crab one afternoon in a pool,

An old crab with barnacles on his back,

Gripped the end of a stick which I held him.

Half-past three,

The lamp sputtered,

The lamp muttered in the dark.

The lamp hummed:

'Regard the moon,

La lune ne garde aucune rancune,

She winks a feeble eye,

She smiles into corners.

She smoothes the hair of the grass.

The moon has lost her memory.

A washed-out smallpox cracks her face,

Her hand twists a paper rose,

That smells of dust and old Cologne,

She is alone

With all the old nocturnal smells

That cross and cross across her brain.'

The reminiscence comes

Of sunless dry geraniums

And dust in crevices,

Smells of chestnuts in the streets,

And female smells in shuttered rooms,

And cigarettes in corridors

And cocktail smells in bars.

The lamp said,

'Four o'clock,

Here is the number on the door.

Memory!

You have the key,

The little lamp spreads a ring on the stair,

Mount.

The bed is open; the tooth-brush hangs on the wall,

Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life.'

The last twist of the knife.

T. S. Eliot, "Rhapsody on a Windy Night" from Collected Poems: 1909-1962.  Copyright © 2020 by T. S. Eliot.  Reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber, Ltd..

Source: Collected Poems: 1909-1962  (Faber and Faber, Ltd., 2020)

Hao Yang reads Act IV from 'Uncle Vanya' by Anton Chekhov. Reading begins at around the 4 minute mark.

i am running into a new year

—Lucille Clifton, Good Woman: Poems and A Memoir 1969-1980

https://www.alyve.org/english/docs/9.1/Rilke-Letters_to_a_Young_Poet.pdf

"We have no reason to mistrust our world, for it is not against us. Has it terrors, they are our terrors; has it abysses, those abysses belong to us; are dangers at hand, we must try to love them."

Hao Yang reads 'Howl' by Allen Ginsberg.

Text: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49303/howl

Jovan discusses 'The Gallery' by Andrew Marvell.

Text: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48326/the-gallery

Cover Artwork: Madonna, Edvard Munch

Hao Yang discusses horror in literature, with particular focus on the psychological horror that grew increasingly popular from the 20th century onwards. He then reads 'Howl' by Allen Ginsberg (yes, the entire thing) and talks about a few lines in greater detail.

Text: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49303/howl

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips' red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damasked, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.