"Bread and Wine" - poem by Paul Goodman

An empty container that cannot be filled is nothing at all.
Smash you! be nothing!
Now hope is no longer hollow,
but shards are a lasting reproach of violence.
Ow! no longer am I disappointed;
whatever is broken has a bright outline.
I love you immortal contents of the empty
container that could not be filled I smashed.
In the raw light of my no longer disappointment
I am immortal drunken with the contents
of that empty container that could not be filled
I smashed, whose shards are lying on the ground.
Say! who is this tipsy fellow who is dancing for joy
as though he were in love and had what he wished for?
He has drunken the immortal contents
of an empty container that could not be filled
but he smashed it on a rock
and the shards are lying on the ground.
He keeps repeating how he broke the jug.
I too feed daily on the non-being of paradise
of which a month ago I gave up hope,
the days pass unresentfully away,
I have put on weight,
people remark that I look young.
-Alas! where is Adam? where is my
Adam who used to waken to surprise?
Adam my red one made
of the red soil of Appalachia?-
I was distraught with longing for paradise
convinced it was unattainable for me,
I came to my senses at 142
West 23rd Street in New York.
-Woe is me! where is Adam, fearless?
where is Adam namer of the beasts?--
Such is my bread and wine; also, creator and spirit,
let me make a song like Yuan Ming
on his lute that had, for poverty, no strings.

-Paul Goodman, in the BLACK MOUNTAIN REVIEW, 1955