Skip to main content

Something Different

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 place
Full of wasted dessert space,
Emptiness and broken images,
No hint of life, no sound
But the whisper of that voice
Showing me a fearful choice
In the shadows as they shimmer
On the ground.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Discontent of Summer

Coming over the Starnbergersee ... A co ntinuing tribute to The Waste Land, Lines 8-18 And once awake we cannot help but wonder Who we are and what we want to say. We feel the rain before we hear the thunder Whispering a thousand miles away. Our points of origin are torn asunder, Separating us from yesterday. Behind the walls and roofs, within and under Which we live, we don't know what to say. But on the open surfaces are stories, Images for everyone to see The nakedness of all our twisted glories, The disgrace of our identity. We know we ought to stand up and look forward To the tales untold of dreams to be But here we are, ashamed of being mortal, Suffering and wanting to be free.      Now is the discontent of summer,      Trying to read ourselves to sleep, Mourning the loss of where we started from, Starting to hear the distant thunder drum,      Now is the discontent of summer, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Sweetest Dream

We are such stuff... Whan that Aprill... Winter kept us warm... A poem in honor of the first seven lines of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land When we should sleep, perchance to dream of rest, We wake up in the middle of the dream, And, face to face with all our restlessness, We realize: the more we dream the less We sleep.  Yet in our deepest sleep we seem To seek the sweetest dream: forgetfulness. To let the mountain memories of yes- terday, the pushing pulling of the stream, The ocean of tomorrow's wantonness Be all forgotten: sleep without the stress Of time and place or meaningfulness, dream Beyond the test of schedule or address, Past all interpretations, dream the dream Of peace and find the stream that lets you rest.      The sweetest dreams we don't remember.      In deepest winter we sleep the best. A winter sleep is warm and long and safe inside.  The doors are shut, the blinds are drawn and we are undercover and ...
Post a Comment
Read more