Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is against the sky
Like a patient upon a table;
Let us go, through half-deserted streets,
The muttering
Of nights in cheap hotels
And sawdust with oyster-shells:
Streets that like a tedious
intent
lead an overwhelming question ...
"What is it?"
our visit.
the women
of Michelangelo.
The yellow fog the window-panes,
The yellow smoke the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the evening,
Lingered in drains,
Let fall the soot from chimneys,
Slipped by a sudden leap,
it was a soft October night,
Curled and fell asleep.
And indeed
the yellow smoke along the street,
the window-panes;
There will be there will be
a face to meet the faces
There will be murder and
for all the hands
That drop a plate;
for you and for me,
And yet for indecisions,
for visions and revisions,
taking toast and tea.
In the room
of Michelangelo.
indeed there will be
"Do I dare?" and
turn back the stair,
a spot in my hair--
his hair
My coat, my chin,
My necktie a simple pin--
his arms are thin!
dare
the universe
In a minute
will reverse.
For I have known , known them all:
the evenings, afternoons,
I have my life with coffee spoons;
I know the fall
from a farther room.
So how should I
have known the eyes known
The eyes
sprawling on a pin,
pinned on the wall,
how should I
spit out my days
And how should I
have known the arms known them all--
white and bare
with light brown hair!
Is it a dress
That makes me digress?
Arms that lie along or wrap about
And should I ?
And how should I ?
* * * *
I have gone at dusk
And watched the smoke
Of lonely men
I should have claws
Scuttling across the floors
* * * *
the afternoon, the evening, sleeps
Smoothed by fingers,
Asleep it malingers,
Stretched here beside you
Should I, after ices,
force the moment to its crisis?
I have wept and wept and
seen my head
I am no great matter;
I have seen my greatness flicker,
And the eternal Footman snicker,
And I was afraid.
And would it have been after all,
After the tea,
Among the porcelain and me,
worth while,
To have bitten with a smile,
To have squeezed into a ball
some overwhelming question,
To say: "I am Lazarus,
Come back to tell you all,
If her head,
Should say: "That is not what I meant
at all."
And would it have been
worth while,
the sunsets the dooryards the streets,
the novels, the teacups, the skirts
and more?--
what I mean
threw patterns on a screen:
Would it worth while
If one, settling a shawl,
And turning should say:
"That is not
what I meant, at all."
* * * *
Prince Hamlet was meant to be
that will do
swell a progress, a scene or two,
no tool,
glad to be
Politic and meticulous
Full of high sentence
almost ridiculous--
Almost
I grow old
I wear my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair ? Do I dare ?
I shall upon the beach
the mermaids singing, each to each.
do not they sing to me.
them riding the waves
Combing the waves
wind blows the water
We lingered in the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
CT, 2014
Sculpted work:
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, by T.S Eliot