A Variation Upon T.S. Eliot's "Sweeney among the NIghtingales"

 

Our Sweeney nurses his Falstaff,

Joining his hail-and-well-met fellows in mirth

This man of hearty life and laugh,

His fingernails rife with the stuff of earth and labor.

Outside, the moon’s reflection

Upon the sluggish and slatternly Canisteo

Is a portentous dot-and-dash thing,

Its light here-and-gone

As incongruous evening thunderheads,

Great wavy pompadours rolling off the big lake out west,

Growl sullenly as they move through;

Sweeney pays them no mind, as he has other fish to fry,

Regarding a frowzy pair from the sisterhood of round heels,

One of whom, catching his glance,

Crosses the room, mounting his lap and mussing his hair,

Purring ‘Jus wanna see how your lap feels, Hon.

At which she falls on the floor

(But softly, in the manner of an old campaigner)

Thereafter taking a moment to pull her skirt up just so

To adjust a stocking (black, with a run or two on display)

As her compatriot stands nearby,

Making calculations and considerations,

And with a barely noticeable nod to her comrade in arms,

The pair head to the bar

While Sweeney, grinning the grin

Of a toreador expectant of victory and its spoils

Rises to join them and, just as suddenly, pauses,

Perhaps in sudden recollection of the old poker saw

That if you look about the table

And can’t figure out who the mark is, it must be you,

Or perhaps it was the ringing of the bells on the hour

From Our Lady of the Valley

(Normally inaudible inside the tavern,

But the wind had made an odd swing to the southeast,

Allowing the chimes to occasionally outshine the jukebox)

Or perhaps something else intangible, inscrutable,

But in any case Sweeney bids his congregants

A hasty farewell as he saunters to the doorway,

Exiting into the humid, fecund evening,

And as he negotiates the sidewalk homeward,

He notes the odd evening singing of birds,

Their songs, even though he is part and parcel

Of this small city and its streets to his marrow,

Unfamiliar to the point of bafflement.

 

Reviews

[Ken Simm.]

In a sense I am not surprised that you have had so many views but no, as yet, comments. This is unashamedly difficult. The title suggests a connection with Eliot but it is only glancing and serves to increase the surrealism and richness of this story poem. What your poem does is bring Americana into the realm of Eliot and use its tropes and connections to show an intelligent and it must be admitted complex write in lots of wonderful colour. Surreal,(if that is the right word) intelligent, complex and wonderful use of words. Giving the reader lots to ponder as he follows its labarynthine depths and sexy story.
It is also as hot as hell and atmospheric to the nth degree.

[W.k.kortas]

Eliot, in his version, was very much talking about Man writ large, and I'm not sure to the piece's benefit (though in full disclosure I must admit that I am no one's idea of an Eliot scholar) whereas I was more concerned with the man in question. I should also note that Canisteo River is not the poor man's Thames or Medway as much as it is the truly wretched homeless person's version of the same.