If hope be a Braille Lantern By Joe Swift If hope be a Braille lantern, If hope were a satin brook runs forever. Whatever. If truth be a winter scarecrow, If truth be an ivory coffin, If truth be a jaded toad hopping toward the bleeding sun In canyon of hope. Hope. Why do I talk about hope? Truth. Why do I talk about truth? Riddles. Why do I talk in riddles? Why do I talk at all? Why does my tongue not say what the pen intends? We're humans. We've faults. We're despicable. I'm the epitome of imperfection, I'm the river, which cleanses every sin, every fault, Every unflown thought, every unknown dream. I'm imperfect in ideas; I'm imperfect in speech, I'm imperfect in every area of life, If Life be a broken champagne glass, If life be a strangled twig, If life be a sleeping clown. . It is to be felt. Being right or wrong, bad or good, male or female, black or White or blank, it's all excuses. The fact remains. We are here, not Where, not how, not why, not shy. We are free. We are here, as a wise Man once put it, because we are not there, or anywhere else. We exist, We breathe, we touch, we suck, we swim, we change, and we smell this wind. This wind which blows in the veins of reason, If reason be a Bunsen moon, If reason be a thief in jail, If reason be an assassinated hope. For we burn, for we turn, for we learn. There is no now or then. Time is no more than an excuse to travel. We travel. Not in ships, not in trips But in this heart that beats not and this heart, This most excellent Heart will be the salvation of man, If man be a woman with no woes, If man be a woman with no clothes, If man be a woman with no eye shadow. We Are students. students of chance, for we cannot be, if we have no bridges. words, songs, visions, dreams, they are flashbacks of what we have experienced. life is nothing. everything is futile. we are arrows with no feathers. we want to be birds but even the birds are chained to the sky. the higher we rise, the louder we fall. I think Newton said that. yet, we want to fly. we hope, one day, we fly so high, gravity will be seventy years of hard labor in Eden. Therefore, let us be! let us be! We are free! we are free!