Volume 67, Issue 3

Blind and Helpless Gropes My Pen
by Theodore Kluszewski

Blind and helpless gropes my pen,
Ink-black darkness swallowing
The bright blue trail its tip had
Blazed, onward, ever-striving,
Reading life by lightning flashes,
Marking trails with bread-crumb beacons,
Telling tales of human hearts.


An Iberian Sonnet of Self-Hate
by Theodore Kluszewski

How do I despise me?  Let me count the ways.
I hate me to the fiery depths of hell
My soul will sink to.  There I will dwell
At the ends of Being where a hot whip flays.
I abhor me wildly, with a thirsty craze;
Most desperate need—to love and love to quell!
I loathe me more than meager words can tell;
I scorn me past all clever turns of phrase.
I curse me with the curdled venom stored
In my old griefs.  Then I remember why—
I hate me with a hate drawn from the hoard
Of my lost saints and hopes.  A rueful sigh,
Smiles, tears, buy truth I can but ill-afford:
I shall but love me better when I die.


A Poem of Pretensions
by Theodore Kluszewski

pro bono, quid pro quo, ipso facto, ex nihilo
postmortem, antebellum, cogito ergo sum
tabula rasa, sub rosa, versus, vice versa
(e.g., i.e.)
per se, per diem¹

1 Ibid, Idem


Theodore Kluszewski is a junior at Yeshiva College.

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