I WISH YOU WERE NOT GONE FROM THIS COLD PLACE

I WISH YOU WERE NOT GONE FROM THIS COLD PLACE

Eliot
I wish you were not gone from this cold place,
I should like to have met you face to face
and reclined with you there,
in an epiphinal embrace.

You were old when I was born,
old as Prufrock when I was born;
and in the midst of my great depression,
you found your wings,
your wings  
and your final digression.

Why

 

Why do we see clearly, all,
only one moment before we die?

I hope you watch, amused,
from your advantaged position.
Michaelangelo lives,
he lives to this day
In decrepit condition.

And the women,
the cat-fog,
the gutters cry for you--
they are but useless mimes
sprawled out in a block,
in a block or two;

For no one listened to them like you.

I hear your voice in vacant lots,
in alleyways
and sea-waves.

The muses cry themselves to sleep;
I can hear them from the water's edge--

 

they do not cry for me.

Come and visit us again,
flow through your student's eager pen.
come remind us of our fate;
remind us there is time,
there is always time
to murder and create.

I shall toast my tea to you
when all the world is unetherized and new,
and watch with wondering eyes,
with wonder and surprise,
the wonder of you.

T.S. Eliot poems referenced include: The Cooking Egg, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, and Preludes.
 

Reviews

[Epistemmy]

This isn't a review because I don't feel I'm good enough to criticise. This is some guy saying I read it, I liked it, and I'm looking foward to reading more in the future.

I liked the allusions to subjects and things he approaches in his own work - it would be easy to go overboard in this department, but I don't think you did.

Keep it up
-Ant.

[Tom G]

T.S. would be proud to tea and toast with you, Juliet and 'til you meet face to face, in the perpetual tide of infinity. Gratefully, TomG

[L.P. Hawkins]

This is good! Yes, please write more rhyming poetry--fantastic! This was a great homage to Mr. Eliot.

[Moonlight]

Juliet?

You need to rhyme more often, you did well here.

Technically, I found this brilliant really, and as a tribute - honest and true to the nature of the poet chosen for this honor.

Moonlight.

[Debra Stevens Edwards (..]

This is a beautiful piece. I love the flow until the last stanza, I stumbled over that a little. It is a
fitting tribute to a great writer. Great use of vocabulary in this piece. Wonderfully done, bravo.
Debby

[J. M. Yeary]

Juliet, this is such a beautiful piece. It envoked such sweet emotion when I read this...what a wonderful tribute to such a great writer :)

[Jeff Brown]

Great work. I love Elliot. "Four Quartets" is by far and away one of my favorite poems of all time.

The repitition of the word "you" reminded me of sylvia plath's "daddy".

"Come and visit us again,
flow through your student's eager pen.
Come remind us of our fate.
Remind us there is time,
there is always time
to murder and create.

I shall toast my tea to you
when all the world is unetherized and new,
and watch with wondering eyes,
with wonder and surprise,
the wonder of you. "

These last two stanzas are amazing. I like the use of "unetherized"--great use of allusion.

I hope you watch, amused,
from your advantaged position.
Michaelangelo lives,
he lives to this day
In decrepit condition;--this is the only stanza I felt didn't really flow as well as the rest.

Indeed there will be time.

[Stephen Schmidt]

You have just inspired me to read some of this persons work this Eliot... as i have never even heard of him...If you have any specific recommendations of his poems or books or what have you please tell me...As for this poem I find it remarkable... I really loved Stanza five...and liked the anglo saxon-esque part in the fourth stanza... Wonderful work as always...

[J. Alfred Prufrock]

hey, i have one inspired by Eliot also. its called "chamomile. seems we are both inspired by prufrock. lol this is a nice piece.= this is very clever and I see where you are trying to go with it. you are making one very common error though that is easily corrected. remember that a poem of this type needs to move in a specific direction, torward some thought or understanding you have about Eliot poem. and then tie your "quotes" from the poem to that realization, and try to do so along the lines of your own metaphor of sybolism that use to describe the understanding or insight you are trying to convey to your reader. first: decide what you want to say about the poem. just think about what this poems means to you. what realization about love or life has it given you. your answer to that question will be the main idea you are trying to get across to your reader. it needs to be a clear concise point. otherwise you will risk straying far from you goal of influencing the thoughts of your reader. the goal is to make the reader see things through your eyes and bring the closer to your understanding. once you know "what" you want them top take away from the poem. then inspiration plays a large role. you'll need some clever symbolism or a metaphor realated in some way to you understand or so aspect of the understanding you are tryuing to convey to your reader. and, if possible, one that is broad enough to carry the thread of the symbolism through the entire poem, while at the same time being applicaple (a least a little bit) to the quotes you using to illustrated the relationships. lol does that sound too complicated? i just read it and it sounds crazy, but that's the jist of it in a nutshell. without a common metaphorical thread running through a poem like this, and aimed at some specific goal, writers tend (as you seem to you above) to wander in and out of unrelated references to Eliots poem, in which case the main goals appears only to be to sqeeze in as many references as possible, and that should not be your goal. you want to "say" something about eliots work. something profound. you love Eliot, as you should. but why? what is it in his writings that moves you? why do you find him profound? answer that then try to convey your thoughts to your reader, proving it with quotes that support what you feel. then you will have a poem that will bring readers to the same profound realizations. and that is what you as a writer should aspire too. good luck . you are on the right track with this. just get goal oriented and tie some of these quotes together in a way that supports your thoughts. i enjoyed reading it. cheers. p.s. also, there are a few places in which i got the idea that you thought Eliot was old when he wrote prufrock, and actually he was only 22 or 23. not sure if you knew that. i think it was the line that talked about seeing clearly moments beffore death. maybe you were saying something else but i got the impresstion that the poem "prufrock" was a clear vision he was writing about cose to his death. not sure if that's what you were realling trying to say, but its just the impression i got. anyway, he was young when he wrote it. talk to you soon. sorry fro being windy. if you this is confusing let me knw and i will try to explain what i meant in a email or something. bye sweety

[Memnoch]

Mr Eliot would be proud of this poem! I like the style and would love to read another like this from you.
Kelley Frost