Pufrock

To a friend, on Naso's epitaph

Let us go then you and I,

To walk past Naso’s epitaph,

With a bottle of the cheapest Merlot

And time, plenty of time,

To compare and contrast our likeness

To the poet and the stars

And let’s dare the universe

For all the worth we don’t know there is

But dream of,

Lets roll it into dough

And burn it in the kiln,

Set our minds at ease

 

And if you sculpt it I’ll tear it down-

We both know destruction follows creation

But I’ll build it again in similar dimensions

And we’ll paint it with blood, like brothers,

Dance, sing, and tear it down again.

This is the land of the dead

This is the land of the ivy

All tales worth telling are written in stone

We have nothing but plastic and paper and passion.

Is it like this in light’s other kingdom

Where one day we will walk

And contemplate what is beyond that kingdom as well?

 

For her -

For you-

For me

 

Pufrock insinuates that the separation from her

Is the tragic mirroring of my own isolation from myself

 So I thought about smashing mirrors with my fists

And blotting out his words with blood-

I should be those tired hands

Swimming across qualms and calm seas,

To let the salt heal the wounds

And wake to the scars every day-

There’s plenty of time for all that,

All that and more, much more,

Time for a thousand vacillations,

For the thousands of revelations and revisions

Before I wake and brew my coffee

Mix it with sand and sugar and empty space

Today or the next.

 

The stone in the palm of my hand

The stone in the center of my heart

The ivy I pull and am forced to carry

Still there is more,

Knowledge, love, the only two complexities

Simple and soothing enough to bathe our skin in.

And bathe we shall,

Bathe I will in your comforting words

In our little hole in the world

Where we can be content

And grow old

 

It’ll never be too much for us

For death doesn’t come from

Contemplation