Lines for Mr. T.S. Eliot

File:T.S. Eliot, 1923.JPG

“Here he drank pastis with the mayors of the Basses-Alpes, and even found time to lecture on Edgar Allan Poe, although his new false teeth made it difficult for him to speak French.”

How pleasant to know Mr. Eliot!
With his Nobel Prize and ironical eyes
How pleasant to know Mr. Eliot!

He exhibits a mystical, mischievous dread
And he smokes French tobacco and lies in his bed
As he waits for the world to fall in on his head
(Taking comfort in knowing his poetry’s read);
And everyone says what has always been said
That it’s lovely to know Mr. Eliot!

If he drinks rather much and his teeth are quite new
If he finds it, you know, rather painful to chew
If he speaks somewhat slower than he used to do
It is only because he’s deliberate!
And if he seems chilly, it’s maybe because he’s been celibate —
But they say for all that, it’s still terribly, terribly,
awfully, horribly, pleasant to know Mr. Eliot!

 

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Apologia for Slipping Off the Wobbly Pivot of Language While Attempting to Capture Something Vaguely yet Acutely Felt

Charles Wright bird

Q: What do you see as the future of poetry?
A: Oblivion.

Ever since I first noticed “my blood
setting out on its long journey beyond the skin”
I have been pondering that line.
I wrote it, sure, but

What the hell does it mean, you know?
Must be part of the dark speech of silence,
I guess.
But it’s here, and so are we.

So I keep rephrasing the question
Endlessly,
Hoping the answer might somehow change,
Becoming accessible.

Or at least that, you know,
It might make sense
One day.

 

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