Simorgh Press

Another reading of The Waste Land, Lines 43-59 Fame catches a cold.  Fortune clears her throat. She tells whatever can be told From stories Waite & Rider wrote. Wisdom deals the cards.  She plays a wicked game. The deck is short, the rules are hard, The names begin to sound the same. The wheel turns.  The world walks In circles.  Thank you everyone. A fisherman up on the docks Appears with extra gear at dawn. Lady Belladonna rocks. The one-eyed merchant carries on His back a blank, an empty box, And here, my dear, your card is drawn: A sailor lost at sea.  She tells me this is me. Drowned in the place I ought to be The most alive and free. Each card she flips for me is contradictory Or worse: they're random, cryptic and Impossible to see. The wheel turns.  The world walks In circles in a purple dawn. Lady Belladonna rocks. Right here, my dear.  Your card is drawn. Live, she says, in fear that one day you will die Wi...

A reading of lines 31-42 of The Waste Land Translation restating from watching to waiting.  The wind blows fresh for home. Translation substitution from dessert to ocean.  The sea is waste and drear. Translation swapping poison with potion prince to flower boy to girl.  My Irish child where tarriest thou? Translation transition speech to silence sight to blindness darkness to light. Io non mori 'e non rimasi vivo. We translate when we can't identify. We recompose the script to comprehend. We read to see ourselves.  We correlate To see it through, if not to reason why; To do or die, if not to understand. We translate when we can't identify But if we want to live more than to wait Or when we wait to die but find we can't We read to see ourselves. We correlate. We fight against the fight, to make reply To what we do not know.  We contemplate. We translate when we can't identify. We read to see ourselves.  We correlate. (Frisch ...

Reflections of The Waste Land, lines 19-30 And still those voices are calling from far away... I have no answer in this place. I’m in the irony of space Reinventing Major Tom Every fifty years or so. I want to hide from the sun, Clutch the earth and feel it under me, The dirt from where I come To where I go. I want to run. I want to hide In the shadows of my mind Of a morning stretched before me And an evening closing in. I can’t understand the voice Calling me a child of choice, heir apparent, prince of mortals, Son of man. I want to understand But I don’t know what to say. The sun has been relentless And the garden’s far away. Planet Earth is gray And I haven’t got a clue. I don’t know what to say And I don’t know what to do Show me a hard rock world or a mote in the universe, a resting place or a tombstone to tip; Show me a shelter from the sun or a rock to roll away, well-weathered pavement or a cornerstone. I have no answer in this plac...