24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
[Citations in Italics: Plays of T. S. Eliot. Boston: Faber, 1969]
I grow old … I grow old …
It seemed so important
to grow up, to be a lady;
make my own rules.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think they will sing to me.
Adulthood would bring the real magic.
It did not.
Yes, there were moments,
the joy of freedom.
Except we do not stay there,
we continue to age.
Body parts lower, or ache,
or decay or get fatter.
I grow old … I grow old …
Deciding which day will be the tricky part. Friday’s no good because you’d be opening up a can of worms you’d never be able to close.
Sunday is a no-go because it already has an abysmal reputation.
Wednesday is a terrible choice because it offers a glimmer of hope in an otherwise bleak existence and showers you in the gratification you so desperately crave.
Monday won’t work on account of the fact that it’s too predictable.
Thursday doesn’t feel right either because you just can’t ascertain the true purpose and, as such, feel powerless to stop the unrelenting forces from grounding you in realism.
Tuesday just can’t exist because no one has yet to see it leaping around in the wild. It may as well be a sasquatch or the loch ness monster.
And Saturday would be perfect but now you have the entire weekend to look forward to and isn’t that just the pits? This is why you wanted to try it in the first place.
Prufrock’s footnotes
1] The epigraph is from Dante’s Divine Comedy (Inferno, XXVII, 61-66). Count Someone-Long-long-Dead says something wise or witty about lying & Hell in Italian (I’m not really sure as I don’t speak Italian).
3] etherized = anesthetized = how readers feel by about this line
14] Michaelangelo: Italian painter, poet, and sculptor (1475-1564) not the Mutant Ninja Turtle
29] works and days = Hesiod’s Works and Days (8th-century BCE depiction of rustic life). Doesn’t add much to your understanding of the poem, just flashing my lit cred so you know I know my stuff.
42] morning coat = a formal coat with tail (not a foxtail, more like a lion’s or a cheetah’s)
52] dying fall = in Twelfth Night, Duke Orsino’s first love-sick line includes “It had a dying fall”. Eliot flashing his lit cred showing he’s read Shakespeare. He’ll do this many more times so keep those eyes ope.
60] butt-ends = the discarded, unsmoked ends of cigarettes, possibly cigars, but only rarely pipes or actual anuses.
82] exotic dancer Salome received John B’s dead head as a reward for some saucy dancing for Herod. T.S. namedropping again. (Mark 6.17-29; Matthew 14.3-11)
83] I am no prophet = More bible mic drops. Amos humble-bragging, “I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son; but I was an herdman, and a gatherer of sycomore fruit” (Amos 7.14). It ain’t not great shakes to be able to gather fruits of the Ficus sycomorus, Amos, aka, fig or the fig-mulberry (because the leaves resemble those of the mulberry); a fig species that has been cultivated since ancient time.
92] Cf. how Marvell says something sort of similar in “To his Coy Mistress” but without much relevance: “Let us roll all our strength, and all / Our sweetness, up into one ball”. You get the idea, we gotta do this stuff so you realise how clever it is.
94] Lazarus = the dead dude Jesus revived. But surely you knew that already, we’re just clutching at straws now.
101] sprinkled streets = watered down to suppressed the dust, not to help the streets grow.
105] a magic lantern = device that throws a magnified image of a picture on glass onto a white screen in a dark room.
111] Prince Hamlet = Prufrock is not the noble star of Shakespeare’s longest play but rather bit players like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Pound disliked the Hamlet paragraph, but T.S. dug his heels in & wouldn’t give it up, but as Pound believed it was “the only portion of the poem that most readers will like at first reading” he didn’t see it would do much harm (Letters of Ezra Pound 1907-1941, ed. D. D. Paige [London: Faber and Faber, 1951]: 92-93).
113] progress = fancy name for the way a royal prince travels through the English countryside, from great house to great house together with heavily-laden possession-loaded wagons, as well as sundry servants and courtiers.
117] high sentence = a phrase from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, meaning “elevated, serious and moral thoughts expressed formally.”
119] the Fool = several Shakespeare’s plays have characters called “the Fool,” but most likely referring to the king’s loyal servant and critic in King Lear.
121] the bottoms of my trousers rolled = ie, with cuffs, whacky fashion.
122-3] Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? / I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach = most commentators choose to focus on the avant-garde, potentially shocking hair-style. I however believe that the silliest rhyme in English versification cannot go unremarked upon.
NB I actually quite like TS Eliot & reread his collected works earlier this year, but I’ve had this idea about trying to write a poem only in footnotes for some time & this seemed an ideal time to test it out. Obviously a lot longer will be required to polish …
The prompt this hour is simple: write a poem about an animal. It can be from the animal’s perspective, or from your perspective.
losing track of time
the hours are slipping
and so am I
cloudy eyes
fuzzy brain
4:55am
searching for that perfect combination
of words
to arrange for you
but right now
I wipe the sleep
tired eyes
Ready to keep going
your mind can soar
across the millennia
rest in quiet cozy corners
venture to heaven
fall back to Terra firma
or fly among the stars
and unveil worlds not yet conceived
if she does not judge too harshly
let doubts stop flights of fantasy
before putting pen to paper
a fledgling storyteller
can wrest magic and mayhem
into pages and chapters
tell a story plucked from quarks
and unknown forces floating in stardust
Cataclysmic cloud of color,
of racing people rushing
through the pulse of a passing moment.
She escapes them all by
claiming stillness at the center for herself.
The faces fade, features
blurred to distorted colors, neon, pastel.
The turn of their bodies become
elongated brushstrokes,
the luminescent details of petaled flora
in a breathing oil painting.
From within her garden of cosmic fire,
she renders the strange world, safe.
Welcome you are to my life and my home.
find some comfort in my company
find our fun and misadventure
maybe sail across the sea of ecstasy
Forsake the norms of genteel reproach and gather here on my mushrooms head
of power and persuasion and an aching in my head
do not be discouraged if this love is too profound
it’s called the little death because it’s the finest show around
around and ’round I’ll love you and chase you as we play
remember dear, when your heart grows cold, there is no other way
to shower you with pestilence and cover you in love
hold you now my hat as I slapped you with my glove
tis not in anger, nor in rage that my glove does strike
but only love with my kid glove can show my present state
a whippoorwill and dervish may go spinning through your head
but we are the enlightened ones Heavens joys are in our bed
I may not be nimble as of yore but fat I have not gotten
run from me, I’ll enjoy the flee and lose myself composure
I’ll pull you down and strip my crown, doth it to you in clover
as we alight I’m sure you’ll find my hospitality is marveled
the world over, it must ring true for I’m telling you,
unless the words are garveled
your courage mustered and relish the day
for recompense becomes me, love
In my youth, there was sometimes beauty,
a grace of form unmarred by lines,
skin tight to the flesh and muscle well defined,
hair curling and furled down to a waist
a mere eighteen inches, spanned easily
by the hands of the man who became my love.
I grow old… I grow old…
In the years in between youth and age
there is the transitioning time, a form blurred
by swelling ankles, a thickened waist,
and sagging breasts, time’s no longer subtle
cruelties carving lines through my face and hands,
admired differently, desired differently.
I grow old… I grow old…
In extreme age there is another kind of beauty,
transcending the tightness of flesh
and instead defined by wisdom’s light,
glowing from within, a lamp beneath a silk thin scarf,
a lap and arms curved to shelter grandchildren
and a waist for their arms to embrace.
Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot