Boy - Skin (Acoustic Version)

Yes, this video was
Uploaded on Jan 5, 2012

Video directed by Benedikt Schnermann/VISUALS: www.benedikt-schnermann.com

But don't you just love how we decked out the basement of the Zen and Tao Acoustic Cafe for this great great duo?  Rather proud of myself on that! Yesiree!

 

Overheard at the Counter: Typology (by MR)

Typology

MR

 

Fingerclacks against keyboard, stoccatic taptap

ing,like
dancing firecrackers against
pavement on 4thofJuly,

it is so sporadic how these fingers move

or (should I say?), get in the mood.

As they move against the type

setting the words in place, not so carefully
as one would hope, you know, but imagining, yes
these fingers imagine how
the laptop would have like to
have typed in the said calligraphic, or the
fluid Cyrillic, or the meandering
scribbles of tired scribes, offering Gallic
poems about cats, in the margins
of their exquisitely renderd Biblical
texts.

These fingers wonder if type created the

work, rather than the work merely presented
by type.   These fingers wonder would the
world be changed, irrevocably, if they could pound
this keyboard with some future typeset, perhaps
not letters, but in little smileys and pics,
emoticons, emos, instos, picpicpics, some little
mashed up goofface that has
eaten the last letter

of the last word

ever typed.

 

Poem (c) 2013 MR

Photo property of its owner (whatever brilliant mind that is) - photo entitled "Steampunk Laptop"

Overheard at Booth 2: Marriage as a Social Contract

The pastor was talking today about marriage and how Biblically marriage is supposed to be between a man and a woman, and how it is a symbol of the full qualities of God, and you know I can get into that and I think he's right and all that, but I was sitting there thinking still well, how many marriages are really all about reflecting God?

What do you mean?

Well, how many marriages do you know that are all that happy?   How many actually stay together?

Used to be a lot more.  Not so many these days.   Divorce and stuff, you know.

Yeah.  Right.   And you're always hearing all the time, she don't like him, he can't stand her, I mean good God everybody at my work is always dissing their husbands or the guys, when they talk about their wives, it's always making some crack about how they nag, man it just seems to me that this marriage stuff that the pastor was talking about, well, I don't really see who's got something that "reflects the qualities of God"

Maybe what we think of marriage really is just something made in this world.  Not really a marriage like that Bible wants to talk about.

Yeah, like you know you're technically married as soon as you sign the license at the City Hall.   All this preacher stuff is just like putting a bow around the present.  It's not the present, it's just a bow.   Try to make it all nice and pretty.

So you're thinking most marriages are just what they call 'civil unions'

Heck, I don't think even most of those are even 'civil' - they all seem pretty full of nastiness most of the time to me!

Heh!  Civil - like in Civil War.

Don't you know it!

Overheard at Table 3: Richard Brautigan

At the California Institute of Technology

At the California Institute of Technology

By Richard Brautigan 1935–1984 Richard Brautigan

I don’t care how God-damn smart

these guys are: I’m bored.

It’s been raining like hell all day long

and there’s nothing to do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Verble says: Now don't let anybody ever tell you any different, THIS man was the voice of my generation.   It was not Dylan, it was not Hendrix, it was not Leary or Abbey Hoffman or MLK or anybody else, it was Brautigan . . . full of humour and snark and sadness lurking behind the pleasurable insanity of his prose.   He was the madcap laughs, he was the stuffed pelican on the shelf, that remains in a man's house through several wives, he was the shady hat character selling mangoes out of a wooden cart on the side of the road at the base of a mountain where it's been raining all day and then the mudslide comes and just misses the cart but takes out the highway and he's still standing there saying, "now how cool is that?"

 

and it was so sad that he killed himself when the 80's began.   Maybe he saw the future: maybe he saw Reagan, maybe he say Cyndi Lauper, I don't know.   But something scared the hell out of him, and he took himself out before he could be taken, and that was sad, but somehow it let me know that the psychedelic era was truly over.   Maybe he did that to let us all know.

 

 

 

 

Sometimes you just need to see something beautiful

I can just hear the beautifully dulcet tones . . .

Overheard at Booth 4: An MR poem

Vastly Unknown

 

I would not call you the flower of the mountains

or the desert rose, or the child of the grassland valley
that rolls like a carpet of the sun between volcanoes.

I would call you the dandelion seed that drifts along

currents, or the seagull that dips occasionally to the ocean,
or the particle of light that crosses seven minutes of
emptiness to find my eye, and my eye alone,

I would call you the vastly unknown.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Verble: Reads to me like you're channeling your inner Pablo Neruda.

 

MR: Thanks.   Myself I wuz thinkin more like I wuz channelin Gram Parsons via Chris Hillman of the Byrds-era.

 

Verble: Now that you mention it . . .

 

 

 

 

Overread at the Counter: Verble Reads His Poem

It's not often I write poetry, mostly I prefer to read it, but this one just came to me today . . . here toes:

Verble Searches the Internet

 

I am not

interesting in

meeting other

singles in my area

or seeing who

searched for me

or in losing weight

or in earning

$1700 a week from
home

or in seeing

how these people

bought a house

in Martha’s Vineyard

by creating their own

online start-up, I

only got on here

to look up

the lyrics to a

song I have half-

forgotten from

1972.

 

Overheard at Table 4: Jericho Brown "Another Elegy"

Another Elegy

by Jericho Brown

 

To believe in God is to love
What none can see. Let a lover go,

Let him walk out with the good
Spoons or die

Without a signature, and so much
Remains for scrubbing, for a polish

Cleaner than devotion. Tonight,
God is one spot, and you,

You must be one blind nun. You
Wipe, you rub, but love won't move.

 

(c) 2013 by Jericho Brown.   brought over from The Academy of American Poets "Poem-of-the-Day"

Overheard at Table 3: Dorothy Parker "The Passionate Freudian to His Love"

The Passionate Freudian to His Love
by Dorothy Parker
Only name the day, and we'll fly away In the face of old traditions, To a sheltered spot, by the world forgot, Where we'll park our inhibitions. Come and gaze in eyes where the lovelight lies As it psychoanalyzes, And when once you glean what your fantasies mean Life will hold no more surprises. When you've told your love what you're thinking of Things will be much more informal; Through a sunlit land we'll go hand-in-hand, Drifting gently back to normal. While the pale moon gleams, we will dream sweet dreams, And I'll win your admiration, For it's only fair to admit I'm there With a mean interpretation. In the sunrise glow we will whisper low Of the scenes our dreams have painted, And when you're advised what they symbolized We'll begin to feel acquainted. So we'll gaily float in a slumber boat Where subconscious waves dash wildly; In the stars' soft light, we will say good-night— And “good-night!” will put it mildly. Our desires shall be from repressions free— As it's only right to treat them. To your ego's whims I will sing sweet hymns, And ad libido repeat them. With your hand in mine, idly we'll recline Amid bowers of neuroses, While the sun seeks rest in the great red west We will sit and match psychoses. So come dwell a while on that distant isle In the brilliant tropic weather; Where a Freud in need is a Freud indeed, We'll always be Jung together.

Overheard at Table Two: George Harrison "Electronic Sound"

Oh, man you have got to hear this album I just found on YouTube - proving once again that even when you think you know everything about a band, they can still surprise you!   This was like, in 1969, and totally blows my mind . . . George Harrison put out an electronica album!

Yeah, right.

No seriously, take a listen.   Here, look . . . .

 

 

 

 

 

Says in the comments he ripped the guy off.

 

Well, you gotta give genius it's due!  It's still incredible!

 

I dunno, sounds like jibberjabber to me.

 

You say jibberjabber, I say brilliance.  Potayto potahto!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overheard at Booth 5: American Culture

"Please excuse me if I can't get this off my mind, but I just gotta tellya:

"We live in a society in which the biggest hit shows include: a high-school chemistry teacher turned meth dealer, a gun-running drug running biker gang, a single mom who sells marijuana for a living, a family in which every single member is addicted to a different drug, a high school teacher who sleeps with everything with a double X chromosome, and yet we as Christians successfully took off the air a show about a Muslim family trying to integrate into American culture.  

"It just blows my mind."

Overread at the Counter: MR's "A Triad"

MR reels back a little in the stool and says, "Thissun's a one what waz done awhile back, summat like 2008 or somewheres about.   real story too.   Not mine, tho'  - but real."

A Triad

1. Hotel Pillows

The electric got cut off yesterday afternoon,

and it was still 96 degrees after the sun went down,
so we packed up the kids and stayed at a hotel,

stole some of the pillows when we left the next morning.

 

2. Procedure Wednesday Morning

Had a procedure the next morning,

called my work to tell them that
it was done at 11, but I wouldn’t be coming in til one –

had some friends in the car and we were gonna

drive around, do some errands,

My work said it’d be leave without pay,

that’s alright.

 

3. Workman’s Comp Blues

The Judge wouldn’t sign off on my husband’s workman’ comp check

until he goes down to the Capital to see some doctor,
but he can’t drive ‘cuz an hour and a half of drivin’ hurts his back,

my work doesn’t really want me to take another day off,

guess I’ll just have to call in sick that day.

MR says "I got this one in a little collection  called 'The Subtle Difference Between Contingent and Contiguous' - just sent it off to a competition - the whole thing.  Maybe if I get an honorable mention I kin score a free frappé around here!"

Overread at the Counter: Charles Bukowski "Back to the Machine Gun"

back to the machine gun

I awaken about noon and go out to get the mail
in my old torn bathrobe.
I'm hung over
hair down in my eyes
barefoot
gingerly walking on the small sharp rocks
in my path
still afraid of pain behind my four-day beard.

the young housewife next door shakes a rug
out of her window and sees me:
"hello, Hank!"

god damn! it's almost like being shot in the ass
with a .22

"hello," I say
gathering up my Visa card bill, my Pennysaver coupons,
a Dept. of Water and Power past-due notice,
a letter from the mortgage people
plus a demand from the Weed Abatement Department
giving me 30 days to clean up my act.

I mince back again over the small sharp rocks
thinking, maybe I'd better write something tonight,
they all seem
to be closing in.

there's only one way to handle those motherfuckers.

the night harness races will have to wait.

Charles Bukowski

Renaissance Musicians play "La Volta"

Verble says, "I love it when Renaissance players happen by the Cafe" 

Niall Carter says, "I love seeing a woman who can beat a drum AND play a flute at the same time!"

Verble says, "Oy!  Don't be crass!"

Niall says, "Oy!  Don't be hypocritical!  You know you were thinkin' it!"

Overheard at Booth 3: Adrienne Rich "Translations"

Adrienne Rich
Translations
December 25, 1972

You show me the poems of some woman
my age, or younger
translated from your language

Certain words occur: enemy, oven, sorrow
enough to let me know
she's a woman of my time

obsessed

with Love, our subject:
we've trained it like ivy to our walls
baked it like bread in our ovens
worn it like lead on our ankles
watched it through binoculars as if
it were a helicopter
bringing food to our famine
or the satellite
of a hostile power

I begin to see that woman
doing things: stirring rice
ironing a skirt
typing a manuscript till dawn

trying to make a call
from a phonebooth

The phone rings endlessly
in a man's bedroom
she hears him telling someone else
Never mind. She'll get tired.
 hears him telling her story to her sister

who becomes her enemy
and will in her own way
light her own way to sorrow

ignorant of the fact this way of grief
is shared, unnecessary
and political

Overheard at Table 5: Song of the Day

Song of the day for April 3rd, 2013 is
Wilco
"Dream of the Mountain Bed"

and the poem for the song of the day is



Last night the thunder awoke me to let me know
that you were still upstairs, watching tv, with
so much more than the rain and the space between us.

Overheard at Table 4: WS Merwin "When You Go Away"

When You Go Away

When you go away the wind clicks around to the north
The painters work all day but at sundown the paint falls
Showing the black walls
The clock goes back to striking the same hour
That has no place in the years

And at night wrapped in the bed of ashes
In one breath I wake
It is the time when the beards of the dead get their growth
I remember that I am falling
That I am the reason
And that my words are the garment of what I shall never be
Like the tucked sleeve of a one-armed boy

William Stanley Merwin

Overheard at Booth 1: Galway Kinnell "After Making Love We Hear Footsteps"

After Making Love We Hear Footsteps
Galway Kinnell

For I can snore like a bullhorn 
or play loud music
or sit up talking with any reasonably sober Irishman 
and Fergus will only sink deeper
into his dreamless sleep, which goes by all in one flash, 
but let there be that heavy breathing
or a stifled come-cry anywhere in the house 
and he will wrench himself awake 
and make for it on the run—as now, we lie together, 
after making love, quiet, touching along the length of our bodies, 
familiar touch of the long-married, 
and he appears—in his baseball pajamas, it happens, 
the neck opening so small he has to screw them on—
and flops down between us and hugs us and snuggles himself to sleep, 
his face gleaming with satisfaction at being this very child.

In the half darkness we look at each other 
and smile
and touch arms across this little, startlingly muscled body—
this one whom habit of memory propels to the ground of his making, 
sleeper only the mortal sounds can sing awake, 
this blessing love gives again into our arms.

Overheard at Table 3: Cyprus

"Facinating what's been happening in Cyprus these past two weeks.  Such a tiny island, becoming the focal point for so much of the ire of all the larger nations that are using it as a pawn in their own frightening war."

Overread at the Counter: TS Eliot "The Waste Land"

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965). The Waste Land. 1922.

The Waste Land

I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering	5
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,	10
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,	15
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,	20
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,	25
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.	30
Frisch weht der Wind
Der Heimat zu,
Mein Irisch Kind,
Wo weilest du?
“You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;	35
They called me the hyacinth girl.”
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,	40
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Öd’ und leer das Meer.
Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,	45
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations.	50
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.	55
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.
Unreal City,	60
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.	65
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying “Stetson!
You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!	70
That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!	75
You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!”
II. A GAME OF CHESS The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Glowed on the marble, where the glass
Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
From which a golden Cupidon peeped out	80
(Another hid his eyes behind his wing)
Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra
Reflecting light upon the table as
The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,
From satin cases poured in rich profusion;	85
In vials of ivory and coloured glass
Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,
Unguent, powdered, or liquid—troubled, confused
And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air
That freshened from the window, these ascended	90
In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,
Flung their smoke into the laquearia,
Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.
Huge sea-wood fed with copper
Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone,	95
In which sad light a carvèd dolphin swam.
Above the antique mantel was displayed
As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene
The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale	100
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
“Jug Jug” to dirty ears.
And other withered stumps of time
Were told upon the walls; staring forms	105
Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.
Footsteps shuffled on the stair,
Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
Spread out in fiery points
Glowed into words, then would be savagely still.	110
“My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak.
What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
I never know what you are thinking. Think.”
I think we are in rats’ alley	115
Where the dead men lost their bones.
“What is that noise?”
The wind under the door.
“What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?”
Nothing again nothing.	120
“Do
You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
Nothing?”
I remember
Those are pearls that were his eyes.	125
“Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?”
But
O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—
It’s so elegant
So intelligent	130
“What shall I do now? What shall I do?
I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
With my hair down, so. What shall we do to-morrow?
What shall we ever do?”
The hot water at ten.	135
And if it rains, a closed car at four.
And we shall play a game of chess,
Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.
When Lil’s husband got demobbed, I said,
I didn’t mince my words, I said to her myself,	140
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Now Albert’s coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
He’ll want to know what you done with that money he gave you
To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there.
You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,	145
He said, I swear, I can’t bear to look at you.
And no more can’t I, I said, and think of poor Albert,
He’s been in the army four years, he wants a good time,
And if you don’t give it him, there’s others will, I said.
Oh is there, she said. Something o’ that, I said.	150
Then I’ll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
If you don’t like it you can get on with it, I said,
Others can pick and choose if you can’t.
But if Albert makes off, it won’t be for lack of telling.	155
You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.
(And her only thirty-one.)
I can’t help it, she said, pulling a long face,
It’s them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.
(She’s had five already, and nearly died of young George.)	160
The chemist said it would be alright, but I’ve never been the same.
You are a proper fool, I said.
Well, if Albert won’t leave you alone, there it is, I said,
What you get married for if you don’t want children?
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME	165
Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,
And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot—
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight.	170
Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.
Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.
III. THE FIRE SERMON The river’s tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf
Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind
Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.	175
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.
The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.
And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors;	180
Departed, have left no addresses.
By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept…
Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,
Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.
But at my back in a cold blast I hear	185
The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.
A rat crept softly through the vegetation
Dragging its slimy belly on the bank
While I was fishing in the dull canal
On a winter evening round behind the gashouse.	190
Musing upon the king my brother’s wreck
And on the king my father’s death before him.
White bodies naked on the low damp ground
And bones cast in a little low dry garret,
Rattled by the rat’s foot only, year to year.	195
But at my back from time to time I hear
The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring
Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.
O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter
And on her daughter	200
They wash their feet in soda water
Et, O ces voix d’enfants, chantant dans la coupole!
Twit twit twit
Jug jug jug jug jug jug
So rudely forc’d.	205
Tereu
Unreal City
Under the brown fog of a winter noon
Mr Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant
Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants	210
C. i. f. London: documents at sight,
Asked me in demotic French
To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel
Followed by a week-end at the Metropole.
At the violet hour, when the eyes and back	215
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives	220
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
The typist home at tea-time, clears her breakfast, lights
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
Out of the window perilously spread
Her drying combinations touched by the sun’s last rays,	225
On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest—
I too awaited the expected guest.	230
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
A small house-agent’s clerk, with one bold stare,
One of the low on whom assurance sits
As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.
The time is now propitious, as he guesses,	235
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
Endeavours to engage her in caresses
Which still are unreproved, if undesired.
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
Exploring hands encounter no defence;	240
His vanity requires no response,
And makes a welcome of indifference.
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
Enacted on this same divan or bed;
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall	245
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
Bestows one final patronizing kiss,
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit…
She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
Hardly aware of her departed lover;	250
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
“Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.”
When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,	255
And puts a record on the gramophone.
“This music crept by me upon the waters”
And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.
O City City, I can sometimes hear
Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street,	260
The pleasant whining of a mandoline
And a clatter and a chatter from within
Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls
Of Magnus Martyr hold
Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.	265
The river sweats
Oil and tar
The barges drift
With the turning tide
Red sails	270
Wide
To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.
The barges wash
Drifting logs
Down Greenwich reach	275
Past the Isle of Dogs.
Weialala leia
Wallala leialala
Elizabeth and Leicester
Beating oars	280
The stern was formed
A gilded shell
Red and gold
The brisk swell
Rippled both shores	285
South-west wind
Carried down stream
The peal of bells
White towers
Weialala leia	290
Wallala leialala
“Trams and dusty trees.
Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew
Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees
Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.“	295
“My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart
Under my feet. After the event
He wept. He promised ‘a new start.’
I made no comment. What should I resent?”
“On Margate Sands.	300
I can connect
Nothing with nothing.
The broken finger-nails of dirty hands.
My people humble people who expect
Nothing.”	305
la la
To Carthage then I came
Burning burning burning burning
O Lord Thou pluckest me out
O Lord Thou pluckest	310
burning
IV. DEATH BY WATER Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep seas swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea	315
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,	320
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.
V. WHAT THE THUNDER SAID After the torch-light red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying	325
Prison and place and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience	330
Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water
If there were water we should stop and drink	335
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
If there were only water amongst the rock
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit	340
There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain
There is not even solitude in the mountains
But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
From doors of mud-cracked houses If there were water	345
And no rock
If there were rock
And also water
And water
A spring	350
A pool among the rock
If there were the sound of water only
Not the cicada
And dry grass singing
But sound of water over a rock	355
Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees
Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop
But there is no water
Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together	360
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
—But who is that on the other side of you?	365
What is that sound high in the air
Murmur of maternal lamentation
Who are those hooded hordes swarming
Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth
Ringed by the flat horizon only	370
What is the city over the mountains
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
Falling towers
Jerusalem Athens Alexandria
Vienna London	375
Unreal
A woman drew her long black hair out tight
And fiddled whisper music on those strings
And bats with baby faces in the violet light
Whistled, and beat their wings	380
And crawled head downward down a blackened wall
And upside down in air were towers
Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.
In this decayed hole among the mountains	385
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
There is the empty chapel, only the wind’s home.
It has no windows, and the door swings,
Dry bones can harm no one.	390
Only a cock stood on the roof-tree
Co co rico co co rico
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
Bringing rain
Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves	395
Waited for rain, while the black clouds
Gathered far distant, over Himavant.
The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
Then spoke the thunder
DA	400
Datta: what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment’s surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed	405
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms
DA	410
Dayadhvam: I have heard the key
Turn in the door once and turn once only
We think of the key, each in his prison
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
Only at nightfall, aetherial rumours	415
Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
DA
Damyata: The boat responded
Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar
The sea was calm, your heart would have responded	420
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
To controlling hands
I sat upon the shore
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
Shall I at least set my lands in order?	425
London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down
Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina
Quando fiam ceu chelidon—O swallow swallow
Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie
These fragments I have shored against my ruins	430
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
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