#I shall wear white flannel trousers and walk upon the beach

[ghostoffuturespast]

So It Goes - Chapter 41: Anarchy

[X]

The hallway exploded. Concussions rippled and wracked the air, followed a millisecond later by the shredding of glass and metal. Shock waves sent stray bits of shrapnel rocketing past to lodge in the carpet while chunks of concrete catapulted in a spray of dust and battered the walls. Screams; the bang of the starting guns. The timer started.

I'm nearing the end of this fic, and, well, no more poems after this. (At least, I don't think...) So, I did something a little special for the occasion. Maybe kinda spoilery if you're reading the fic, but if you've played the game, you already know.

Transcript below the cut if you don't want to listen to me read remixed poetry for 4:20. (ha) Not quite formatted correctly since there aren't any justification settings here and I skipped my playing around with blank space, but you get the drift:

The Sailing Rime of J. Alfred Prufrock and The Ancient Mariner's Love Song to Byzantium

I should have been a pair of ragged claws Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. To ask a question: Would you take a bullet for me? And some in dream assured were Of the Spirit that plagued us so; Nine fathom deep he had followed us From the land of mist and snow. The self-same moment I could pray, And from my neck so free The Albatross fell off, and sank Like lead into the sea. Let us go then, you and I... And would it have been worth it, after all, Would it have been worth while, After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor- And this, and so much more?- It is impossible to say just what I mean! But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: Would it have been worth while If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, And turning toward the window, should say: "That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all." No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous- Almost, at times, the Fool. That is no country for old men. The young In one another's arms, birds in the trees, -Those dying generations- at their song, The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas, Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unageing intellect. I grow old... I grow old... I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing For every tatter in its mortal dress, Nor is there singing school but studying Monuments of its own magnificence; An therefore I have sailed the seas and come To the holy city of Byzantium. Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. O sages standing in God's holy fire As in the gold mosaic of a wall, Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre, And be the singing-masters of my soul. Consume my heart away; sick with desire And fastened to a dying animal It knows not what it is; and gather me Into the artifice of eternity. I do not think that they will sing to me. Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enamelling To keep a drowsy Emperor awake; Or set upon a golden bough to sing To lords and ladies of Byzantium Of what is past, or passing, or to come. I have seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot Sailing to Byzantium by William Butler Yeats

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

These stunning, elegant, older women depicted as mermaids :: The artist is Jonas Peterson

[Ana Del Castillo]

* * * *

Lucia: "Mommy can we talk about museums and buildings?" me: "Sure" Lucia: "How come I'm not a mermaid?"

[my niece Maggie]

+

“I have seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us, and we drown.” "I grow old ... I grow old ... I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each."

― T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

[ariadne-mouse]

cannot believe it took me re-reading one of my favourite poems to realize the mercaleb fic is titled from the love song of j alfred prufrock tbh..... obsessed

Yes it is! 💙

Here's the full text of the poem for anyone who has not read it before (strongly recommend!), and the passages at the end from which I have drawn the title:

Shall I part my hair behind?   Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me. I have seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

[quickienewyork]

Shall I part my hair behind?   Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back

When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

-Prufrock by Eliot

[henryrodhamkissinger]

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

—TS Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”

IMO the best poem in the literary canon about going bald

[sailforvalinor]

I forgot to mention this when I originally watched The Lazarus Experiment, but the Doctor quoting T. S. Eliot had me absolutely screaming because, first of all, Eliot is my favorite poet, but also because I’ve never met a character that embodied the vibe of his work so well

Like, seriously, if you’re ever thinking about Tenrose and want to feel sad about it, go and read “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” you will be sobbing on the floor

[fieryphrazes]

🖼🧐

this section of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by TS Eliot:

I grow old ... I grow old ...

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind?   Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back

When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

[lockedstuck]

moving your mouth to pull out all your miracles

April 2021 - Gamzee Makara

You don’t like the way your thoughts proceed on halo, helldog, or haloperidol, or whatever Karbro calls it. After you take it, the world feels blunt, impersonal, and grayscale, like you’re a motherfucking puppet with a head full of straw. Your brother used to love a poem about that, about some guys with straw heads, but mostly about the world ending.

Kurloz liked a lot of motherfucking things before he did nine months in Rikers for cocaine distribution. Originally it was only supposed to be six months, but he got into a fight and got three months added on. When he got out, he was thoughtful and quiet, even a word of acknowledgment seemingly beyond him. You’ll be damned if that ever happens to you, if you let the system hollow you out until you can’t express the simplest serendipity.

Right now you’re sketching your friends, quick sketches with the charcoal set Dr. Levin brought you. One of Karkat having a rare smile for June, one of Sollux and Roxy talking about programming, one of Dr. V addressing the group about healthy coping mechanisms, and one of Porrim braiding Calliope’s hair. You always feel more like yourself when you’re sketching or painting. Fewer thoughts in your head to get jangle-tangled together and create nonsense. You can keep your miracles straight this way.

You’re cool. You’re easy. You’re loose. No snapped strings, heads full of straw, or blasphemies here, no motherfucking way. The ativan caravan marches through your head, sings your sharp edges to sleep. Nurse Dolores knows what’s up, she only makes you take the medications you want to take. Your cognition flies free, like birds in a breeze, a calm going on between your ears.

Roxy turns and grins at you, her face pale as the moon against her dark hoodie and darker lipstick. She has a smile all her own, a knowing smile like the two of you are in on the greatest secret in the world. You wish you knew precisely what that was about, but everyone has their own internal workings. You can’t know and fix everything about everyone all the time. That’s what you were trying to explain to Sollux last night.

He’s a good guy, but he takes too much on. Same for Karkat. They take on everyone’s issues and make them their own. Only the mirthful messiahs should be able to do so much; humans like trying that hard is a minor sacrilege. If the pair of them would just stick to themselves, maybe they wouldn’t be so sick. You’ll fold more flowers for them - paper flowers that banish repetitive, ruminating thoughts.

You like Roxy a lot, though. She dances through each emotion in its totality, riding the waves of her feelings without fear. Okay, maybe not fearlessly, but with more abandon than you would expect. When she looks at you, you feel warmth all the way to your core, the way you are when you’re about to fall asleep all curled up in your sheets.

Speaking of sleep, Dr. V says that if you keep sleeping through the night, and keep what he calls “disruptive outbursts” about the Dark Carnival to a minimum, maybe you’ll get discharged in a couple of weeks. You’re not exactly in any rush to go home. Home means having to fend for yourself, and fewer friends to keep you in good spirits. Besides, Kurloz is home, and for all that he may be your brother, he gives off bad motherfucking vibes. You wish he’d be easy, like old times, but those days are a long way off.

You remember when you used to be able to relax at home. Relax, smoke a joint, sell an eighth or two, and have dinner without having to fend off your brother’s brooding.

Karkat takes the seat next to you, and you clap him on the back. Physical contact may be discouraged here, but there’re no narcs around to encourage law and order at the moment. You think a support team got dispatched to address Feferi wandering around with no clothes on again.

“What’s up?” Karkat asks.

He nevertheless looks preoccupied and far away. That’s unfortunate.

You take another folded flower out of your pocket and hand it to him.

“There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray, love, remember; and there is pansies, that’s for thoughts,” you recall from a play you had to read in AP English a couple years ago. You can’t exactly remember what the play’s about, but stray lines here and there stick out to you like a sore thumb. Except neither of your actual thumbs are sore.

“That’s from Hamlet, isn’t it?” Karkat asks, shaking his head at you. “What’re you, the bard of 3 East?”

Now you’re not certain about that, but you’ll take it.

“Someone’s gotta be, ain’t they? I got more poetry if you want it.”

Karkat sighs. “Yeah, lay it on me, Makara. Dr. Vandayar told me I’m not getting discharged next week so I’m not feeling great at the moment.”

Poor Karbro looks like he’s full of thunderstorms. Maybe a calm vista will quiet him down. You pull a few lines of poetry free from your memory.

“I shall wear white flannel trousers and walk upon the beach... I have heard the mermaids singing each to each... I do not think that they will sing to me.”

“Go on,” Karkat says, looking all at once pensive and a little sad.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves... Combing the white hair of the waves blown back... When the wind blows the water white and black,” you recite. Now, Roxy, Calliope, and Porrim have stopped to listen to you. You go on, establishing a proper rhythm.

“We have lingered in the chambers of the sea... by sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown... ‘till human voices wake us, and we drown.” When no one says anything, you interject, “That’s the end of the fuckin’ poem, y’all.”

“It’s beautiful,” Porrim whispers. “Did you write that?”

You shake your head in the negative. “Naw, that’s some other motherfucker’s ideas outta my mouth. I wrote a couple of my own lines last night if you wanna hear ‘em, though.”

“Sure,” Calliope says, smiling and clapping her hands once.

“My muse distills my melancholy, pins it to the corkboard with a tack. She presses down upon the pigments, bleeds my blues into the boldest black.”

Even Karkat looks surprised. He narrows his eyes at you.

“If you don’t go study art or literature, or something along that line, I’ll fucking kill you.”

“Ain’t no need to resort to murder, brother,” you reply. “And while I’d like to go sit in a motherfucking college somewhere, I ain’t got shit for tuition.”

“If I have to take up a goddamn collection, I am sending your ass to college. Tout-suite.”

You guess now is not the time to inform him that you straight up flunked outta college after you kept forgetting to go to class. You sat in the grass memorizing poetry and sketching the first dandelions of March, which got in the way of your learning anything or taking your exams, or any of the shit college students are supposed to do. You didn’t mean to forget, but you’ve never been great at any routine shit.

And you’ve always had a knack for going where your thoughts take you. When you were a kid, you would leave the house and walk up and down the streets of Harlem unattended. Your grandmother used to read you the riot act for doing something so reckless and nonsensical. Later, during your hospitalizations, you learned that the way your thoughts stuttered and tangled was called schizophrenia, and doctors medicated you accordingly. They called your prophecies delusion, and you beg(ged) to differ.

The medications ground your thought process to a stuttering halt. You hated it. You hated being cut off from yourself. So you stopped taking your meds. And here you are again, with your strange thoughts and remembrances.

“Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio,” Karkat murmurs.

You grin at him. He understands more than he lets on.

June winks at you, and then walks away to the women’s side of the unit, presumably to call her father. She calls him every day at 8 am and 3 pm, like clockwork. Karkat gazes at her as she walks away, the back of her short dress fluttering behind her.

“June looks nice today,” you say to him.

 He stops staring and glances at you for a moment.

“Yeah, um, she looks nice every day,” he replies. “Not that I make it my business to notice.”

You point to the delicate paper flower he has in his hand. “Sometimes the most miraculous thing you can fuckin’ do is give another person a taste of serendipity.”

Roxy smiles her cheshire cat smile from her seat by the television.

“That’s right, Crabby. Dontcha think June deserves her very own miracle?”

Karkat reddens, looks at the flower in his hand, and takes off for the women’s side.

“Hey, Egbert!” he shouts. “I have something for you.”

By the time you see June again, she’s wearing the small red flower in her hair. Roxy gives you a satisfied little nod, then asks you if you’d like her to put your hair in braids.

“I’m not as good as Pomary with hair, but I’m alright, I guess. Your hair looks like some birds took up residence in it, dude.”

“Why, thank you,” you reply. You take a seat at her feet, after she grabs her comb, brush, hair grease, and spray bottle out of sharps.

She’s right. She’s not a thing like Pomary when it comes to braiding. You’re used to the gentle motions of Porrim’s hands as she manipulates flowers into your hair, but Roxy tugs great fistfuls of your hair into twists. It feels nice, like she’s tethering you to the present, to the here and now.

You tell her that, thank her for bringing you back, and she blushes crimson.

“Aw, I’m not tryna do all of that,” she responds. “Just tryna work through my anxiety. Dolores gave me an ativan an hour ago, and I don’t feel it yet.”

Roxy bends low, and plants a kiss on your forehead, right where your skin meets your greasepaint. Her lips are the softest thing you’ve ever felt.

She keeps braiding, manipulating your hair into cornrows. With Roxy near you, you don’t necessarily have to be a prophet or an apostate of the mirthful messiahs. You don’t have to deliver special messages to special people. You can just be Gamzee Motherfucking Makara, doing you as per usual.

[turuin]

"I grow old ... I grow old ...

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me."

[pangurlban]

Shall I part my hair behind?   Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

(excerpt: "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", by T.S. Eliot)

223

[p-isforpoetry]

"The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T. S. Eliot (read by Sir  Alec Guinness)

Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question ... Oh, do not ask, “What is it?” Let us go and make our visit. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes, Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, And seeing that it was a soft October night, Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. And indeed there will be time For the yellow smoke that slides along the street, Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; There will be time to murder and create, And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a question on your plate; Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. And indeed there will be time To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?” Time to turn back and descend the stair, With a bald spot in the middle of my hair — (They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”) My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin — (They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”) Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. For I have known them all already, known them all: Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room.               So how should I presume? And I have known the eyes already, known them all— The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, Then how should I begin To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?               And how should I presume? And I have known the arms already, known them all— Arms that are braceleted and white and bare (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!) Is it perfume from a dress That makes me so digress? Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.               And should I then presume?               And how should I begin? Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ... I should have been a pair of ragged claws Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! Smoothed by long fingers, Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers, Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me. Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter, I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, And in short, I was afraid. And would it have been worth it, after all, After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, Would it have been worth while, To have bitten off the matter with a smile, To have squeezed the universe into a ball To roll it towards some overwhelming question, To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead, Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”— If one, settling a pillow by her head               Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;               That is not it, at all.” And would it have been worth it, after all, Would it have been worth while, After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor— And this, and so much more?— It is impossible to say just what I mean! But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: Would it have been worth while If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, And turning toward the window, should say:               “That is not it at all,               That is not what I meant, at all.” No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— Almost, at times, the Fool. I grow old ... I grow old ... I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind?   Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me. I have seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

[artdaily7]

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot "If I thought that my reply would be to someone who would ever return to earth, this flame would remain without further movement; but as no one has ever returned alive from this gulf, if what I hear is true, I can answer you with no fear of infamy." [from Dante's Inferno] Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question ... Oh, do not ask, “What is it?” Let us go and make our visit. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes, Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, And seeing that it was a soft October night, Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. And indeed there will be time For the yellow smoke that slides along the street, Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; There will be time to murder and create, And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a question on your plate; Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. And indeed there will be time To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?” Time to turn back and descend the stair, With a bald spot in the middle of my hair — (They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”) My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin — (They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”) Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. For I have known them all already, known them all: Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume? And I have known the eyes already, known them all— The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, Then how should I begin To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? And how should I presume? And I have known the arms already, known them all— Arms that are braceleted and white and bare (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!) Is it perfume from a dress That makes me so digress? Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl. And should I then presume? And how should I begin? Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ... I should have been a pair of ragged claws Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! Smoothed by long fingers, Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers, Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me. Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter, I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, And in short, I was afraid. And would it have been worth it, after all, After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, Would it have been worth while, To have bitten off the matter with a smile, To have squeezed the universe into a ball To roll it towards some overwhelming question, To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead, Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”— If one, settling a pillow by her head Should say: “That is not what I meant at all; That is not it, at all.” And would it have been worth it, after all, Would it have been worth while, After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor— And this, and so much more?— It is impossible to say just what I mean! But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: Would it have been worth while If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, And turning toward the window, should say: “That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all.” No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— Almost, at times, the Fool. I grow old ... I grow old ... I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me. I have seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us, and we drown. Michelangelo 1516 Lazarus, a red chalk drawing, London British Museum

[cest-la-bee]

Is It Sacrilegious to Hate the Classics Still?

Okay, hate’s a strong word. I mean, I’m an English major after all. 

It’s just...haven’t we praised the genius of all this old literature enough yet? Isn’t it time we used their writing more as a jumping off point rather than the highest standard? Can we even say “T.S. Eliot does it best”, or “The Wanderer is the epitome of monologue” anymore? (Did anyone ever say that?) I mean some of these writings are over 400 years old.

Look at this:

Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets...

Tell me that wasn’t SO boring. Clearly on the page the word drama means something different, am I right? Oh, you were still reading? Really? Well I’ll put the rest of the monologue at the end of this post for you, but I’m certainly not going to read it.

See, I know that a classic monologue, when performed or read aloud, is powerful, witty and beautiful. I’m not immune to the charms of great classic writing, contrary to how it may seem. I get drawn to the edge of my seat just like the rest, and I know the hush that falls over we who are in the audience. BUT, that doesn’t mean The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock packs the ultimate punch for a modern audience anymore. Especially if it stays on the page.

So get with the times or move over Mr. Classic Literature, dramatic monologue has made it’s way to television and it’s doing better than ever!

(Here’s your poem you literature buffs!)

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse A persona che mai tornasse al mondo, Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma percioche giammai di questo fondo Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero, Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table;

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

The muttering retreats

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent

To lead you to an overwhelming question ...

Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”

Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,

The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,

Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,

Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,

Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,

Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,

And seeing that it was a soft October night,

Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time

For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,

Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;

There will be time, there will be time

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;

There will be time to murder and create,

And time for all the works and days of hands

That lift and drop a question on your plate;

Time for you and time for me,

And time yet for a hundred indecisions,

And for a hundred visions and revisions,

Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time

To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”

Time to turn back and descend the stair,

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —

(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)

My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,

My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —

(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)

Do I dare

Disturb the universe?

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

I know the voices dying with a dying fall

Beneath the music from a farther room.

              So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,

Then how should I begin

To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

              And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—

Arms that are braceleted and white and bare

(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)

Is it perfume from a dress

That makes me so digress?

Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.

              And should I then presume?

              And how should I begin?

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets

And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes

Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ...

I should have been a pair of ragged claws

Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!

Smoothed by long fingers,

Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,

Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,

Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?

But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,

Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,

I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter;

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,

After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,

Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,

Would it have been worth while,

To have bitten off the matter with a smile,

To have squeezed the universe into a ball

To roll it towards some overwhelming question,

To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—

If one, settling a pillow by her head

              Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;

              That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,

Would it have been worth while,

After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,

After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—

And this, and so much more?—

It is impossible to say just what I mean!

But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:

Would it have been worth while

If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,

And turning toward the window, should say:

              “That is not it at all,

              That is not what I meant, at all.”

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;

Am an attendant lord, one that will do

To swell a progress, start a scene or two,

Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,

Deferential, glad to be of use,

Politic, cautious, and meticulous;

Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;

At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—

Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old ... I grow old ...

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind?   Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back

When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

Source: Collected Poems 1909-1962 (1963)

[supersoakerfullofblood]

Here’s a very brief overview as to what poetry does and how it does it:

What poetry does better than any other medium is word association. Every use of rhetoric poems employ (repetition, alliteration/consonance/assonance, end rhymes, internal rhymes, caesura, enjambment, meter, etc. exist to connect words. Let’s look at some passages from my favorite poem, “Eurydice” by H. D.

Saffron from the fringe of the earth,

wild saffron that has bent

over the sharp edge of earth,

all the flowers that cut through the earth,

all, all the flowers are lost;

The striking part of this stanza is the repetition of “earth” at the end of (almost) every line. It gives the reader the sense that the speaker of the poem is maybe arguing, maybe melancholic, and it also builds to the last line of the stanza. The terminal word “lost” is linked to the other terminal words, ie. “earth.” The repetition gives a sense of gravity—this earth you love? this earth with all its flowers? this earth you can walk freely? For me, it’s gone. The topography of the stanza, how (almost) each line ends with “earth” until “lost,” helps create this effect.

So you have swept me back,

I who could have walked with the live souls

above the earth,

I who could have slept among the live flowers

at last;

Here, we see another mirroring in the terminal words of some lines: “live souls” and “live flowers.” This mirroring connects these images; it tells the reader these things have something in common. What do they have in common? We’ll get to that. See also the mirroring of “I who could have [verb].” It creates a sense of momentum in the stanza that’s easier to feel out if you read the full piece (link to it: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51869/eurydice-56d22fe6d049d).

A strong example of purposefully avoiding end rhyme comes in T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”:

Shall I part my hair behind?   Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

The speaker imagines all these wonderful things—delicious fruit, a beach walk, and singing mermaids, and these things rhyme with each other! But when he counts himself out of the wonderful things, he drops the rhyme. It creates a sense of gravity behind what he’s saying.

To talk about meter, which is kind of a “level two” thing when it comes to poetry, we can look first to Shakespeare. Whenever Shakespeare wrote a character the audience should root for, a character of nobility or royalty, he would write in iambic pentameter. When you speak it, the syllables are stressed, unstressed, stressed, unstressed, etc. (In notation, it’d look like this: u ‘ / u ‘ / u’ / u ‘.) It gives everything the cadence “duh DUH duh DUH duh DUH duh DUH.” Say this line out loud and listen for it!

If music be the food of love, play on

Similarly, when Shakespeare writes characters who aren’t noble, are commoners, supernatural and/or malicious, or generally characters the audience shouldn’t root for, the meter flips to trochaic pentameter: DUH duh DUH duh DUH duh DUH duh (‘ u / ‘ u / ‘ u / ‘ u). Look at the witches in Macbeth:

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and caldron bubble.

The meter of a poem affects how it’s written. If you write a sonnet in iambic pentameter, like Shakespeare, it’s going to sound more traditional, and it’s going to evoke courtly love more than other poetic forms, among other things. If your poem is trochaic, it might sound stunted, or like an incantation (this is largely due to the words English took from Old Norse). Trochaic is weird in the literal sense of the word. You can also write in free verse (when a poem makes its own meter, and/or switches between traditional meters) like in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” The effect here is to show the self-consciousness of the speaker. Just as the form of the poem breaks down and can’t decide on which meter to go with, so too does the speaker of the poem break down and can’t decide on what he wants to do in the poem. You can also write something a little more blank verse like “Eurydice” (a poem without any set verse) (DISCLAIMER: “Eurydice” is definitely free verse, in that it does construct its own meter, but it does read as blank verse every now and then. Blank verse and free verse are pretty close to each other on the “full meter vs. no meter” spectrum.) In Eurydice, the lack of a coherent form makes the piece feel like a rant. The speaker is enraged and forlorn, and we feel that as we read.

But why are we spending so much time connecting words? What gives? To answer that, let’s think about narrative prose (novels, short stories). What do they do with words? They create characters, a story, and they tell the reader something. “The boy walked to the store.” “The Orcs fought against the humans.” “The police ravaged the less fortunate.” Novels use words to describe events as they happen, and we glean deeper ideas about what it means to be human once we’ve read the narrative.

By and large, poems don’t employ narrative, or when they do, it’s secondary to what poems actually do (unless we’re talking about epics, but let’s not do that right now). They don’t do that because poems aren’t concerned with conveying information to the reader like a novel is. Poems create an atmosphere; poems create a feeling in the reader. Most poems don’t make sense if you read them literally (are there actual mermaids in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”? No!) like a novel is supposed to do. Instead, words and phrases are used and linked without concern for how they work on a literal level. Poems work on a sort of dream logic, where words are connected because they have something in common that isn’t physical. In these dream logic connections, the reader doesn’t understand what’s happening as he would in a novel, but he does feel what’s happening, even if he can’t quite put it into words.

To close, here’s another of my favorite poems, “The River-Merchant’s Wife” by Li Bai (transl. Ezra Pound). Pay special attention to how the poem connects nature with longing and absence—not about what it says about nature, longing, and absence, but about what it does to connect them. Pay attention to how one moment doesn’t flow logically from the moment before it, as they would in a novel, but how moments flow one after another to create a mood (Ex. “And you have been gone five months. / The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.”) Most importantly, ask yourself how the poem makes you feel. Reread it tomorrow and ask yourself again. Read it in a month, and see if that feeling changes.

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead

I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.

You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,

You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.

And we went on living in the village of Chōkan:

Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you.

I never laughed, being bashful.

Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.

Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,

I desired my dust to be mingled with yours

Forever and forever, and forever.

Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed

You went into far Ku-tō-en, by the river of swirling eddies,

And you have been gone five months.

The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.

By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,

Too deep to clear them away!

The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.

The paired butterflies are already yellow with August

Over the grass in the West garden;

They hurt me.

I grow older.

If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,

Please let me know beforehand,

And I will come out to meet you

As far as Chō-fū-Sa.

Further reading; where I got this stuff from, and more:

Why Poetry by Matthew Zapruder

“Art as Technique” by Viktor Schklovsky

https://www.paradise.caltech.edu/ist4/lectures/Viktor_Sklovski_Art_as_Technique.pdf

“Eurydice” by H. D.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51869/eurydice-56d22fe6d049d

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T. S. Eliot

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/44212/the-love-song-of-j-alfred-prufrock

Twelfth Night and Macbeth by Shakespeare

“The River-Merchant’s Wife” by Li Bai (transl. Ezra Pound)

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47692/the-river-merchants-wife-a-letter-56d22853677f9

SOMEONE GIVE ME TIPS ON HOW TO ACTUALLY WRITE A GOOD POEM

[uhlikzsuzsanna]

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S Eliot | read by Tom Hiddleston [12/11]

“Next, is one of the 20th century’s most noted poets, TS Eliot, born in Missouri, USA, who moved to England at the age of 25. Many of TS Eliot’s works contains historical literary reference and this is a poem that comes with an epigraph: from Dante’s Inferno, Dante wrote this first paragraph in Italian, hereby presented with an English translation:

If I but thought that my response were made to one perhaps returning to the world, this tongue of flame would cease to flicker. But since, up from these depths, no one has yet returned alive, if what I hear is true, I answer without fear of being shamed.

Dante writes about being trapped and a concern with self-image and reputation - which T.S Eliot channels as the theme of his own poem.”

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S Eliot

Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question … Oh, do not ask, “What is it?” Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes, Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, And seeing that it was a soft October night, Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time For the yellow smoke that slides along the street, Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; There will be time to murder and create, And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a question on your plate;

Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?” Time to turn back and descend the stair, With a bald spot in the middle of my hair — (They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”) My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin — (They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”) Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all: Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all— The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, Then how should I begin To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all— Arms that are braceleted and white and bare (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!) Is it perfume from a dress That makes me so digress? Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl. And should I then presume? And how should I begin?

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? …

I should have been a pair of ragged claws Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! Smoothed by long fingers, Asleep … tired … or it malingers, Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me. Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter, I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all, After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, Would it have been worth while, To have bitten off the matter with a smile, To have squeezed the universe into a ball To roll it towards some overwhelming question, To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead, Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”— If one, settling a pillow by her head Should say: “That is not what I meant at all; That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all, Would it have been worth while, After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor— And this, and so much more?— It is impossible to say just what I mean! But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: Would it have been worth while If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, And turning toward the window, should say: “That is not it at all,  That is not what I meant, at all.”

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old … I grow old I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

Source: Ximalaya FM

[secret-oktober]

[...]No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— Almost, at times, the Fool. I grow old ... I grow old ... I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind?   Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me. I have seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us, and we drown. -  The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock by T.S.Eliot

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 (of 4)