Central High School - Cog N Pen Yearbook (Newark, NJ)

Page 19 text:

THE ANSWER Were ] to be drugged to sleep now With the wild wind whistling in my ear, And were | to dream— a drugged dream Full of the unloosened emotions of the wind, I should be in an echoing cave, calling, calling . And somewhere from its depths Would come an answering call —crying. crying As 1 would cry and call to the empty, pulsating air— Empty? Then why the echo, why this illusion Of a voice replying to the stifled question within me Loosened by a wild wind's madness? Га call again, Who is there? and “Who is there?” comes the ghostly voice . . O wild wind whistling and empty cave re-echoing With your plaintive, eerie nothingness, In the shadows of your mystery, in the brooding cadences of your voice, Sing me a melody of this vague mystery Which is yours and mine and the world's—? “And the world's? comes the ghostly chant, phantom musician Of a wild wind's madness. You are cruel, cold cave, you are harsh, wild wind Yet you haunt me . Your symphony finds my heartstrings for a violin And you play upon it with tender, drawing finger, Play, and each note, each tiny sigh played on this violin Which is my heart Draws it onward, upward, to the calm of the stars, But even to find Beauty in the eddies of a whirlpool, swiftly swirling, Rhythmically whirling in its seeping awfulness— You are cruel, echoing cave, but I love you Cruel, but I-love-you, pleads the voice, I know, I know, sweet cave,—1 know, I know, wild wind, For I have plucked a rose, a heart-red rose, And my nostrils expanded with its fragrance, I have torn this rose, this heart-bled rose And my eyes dilated with its dying. O, sweet cave, re-echoing, you are full with my full- ness, Y ou are empty with my emptiness, Y our mystery is I and I am your voice, Singing, calling, crying its ecstacy, As you, sweet cave, echo its cadences, And you, wild wind, croon me a lullaby As you whistle through the grasses, as you serenade An empty cave, re-echoing, filling, gladly burdened With laughter, young laughter, sweet laughter trium- phant! — Emma Turak. ODE TO THE GEOMETRY TEACHERS OF CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL I sit and think and painfully ponder, And then anon I start to wonder Why oh why it was meant to be ‘That Geometry is not for me. Angles, vertex, circles, all Surely plot for my downfall. I sit and puzzle as 1 write Elusive problems into the night. I've had each teacher in the school, All have agreed that I'm a fool When it comes to learning ad-verbatim ‘The rules of theorems (how I hate 'em). Occasionally I get a flash Of brilliance, but it doesn’t last; And then I see with sideward look A cipher put down in the book. Willingly would I forego, All the pleasures that I know, If only they would set me free, . From that plagued Geometry. But I will have to suffer thru it, Or by the gods. some day I'll rue it. But, oh—how plainly do I see Geometry is not for me! —Fritzie Reich.