Charles Bukowski – Curtain

the final curtain on one of the longest running
musicals ever, some people claim to have
seen it over one hundred times.
I saw it on the tv news, that final curtain:
flowers, cheers, tears, a thunderous
accolade.
I have not seen this particular musical
but I know if I had that I wouldn't have
been able to bear it, it would have
sickened me.
trust me on this, the world and its
peoples and its artful entertainment has
done very little for me, only to me.
still, let them enjoy one another, it will
keep them from my door
and for this, my own thunderous
accolade.

Charlotte Mew – A Quoi Bon Dire

Seventeen years ago you said

Something that sounded like Good-bye;

And everybody thinks that you are dead,

But I.

So I, as I grow stiff and cold

To this and that say Good-bye too;

And everybody sees that I am old

But you.

And one fine morning in a sunny lane

Some boy and girl will meet and kiss and swear

That nobody can love their way again

While over there

You will have smiled, I shall have tossed your hair.

Thomas Stearns Eliot – The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

S'io credesse chc mia risposta fosse

A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,

Questa Gamma staria senza piu scosse.

Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo

Non torno viva 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 doors of silent seas.

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!

Smoothed by long fingers,

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

Stretched on 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 toward 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.

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge – Unwelcome

We were young, we were merry, we were very very wise,

And the door stood open at our feast,

When there passed us a woman with the West in her eyes,

And a man with his back to the East.

O, still grew the hearts that were beating so fast,

The loudest voice was still.

The jest died away on our lips as thy passed,

And the rays of July struck chill.

The cups of red wine turned pale on the board,

The white bread black as soot.

The hound forgot the hand of her lord,

She fell down at his foot.

Low let me lie, where the dead dog lies,

Ere I sit me down again at a feast,

When there passes a woman with the West in her eyes,

And a man with his back to the East.

George Gordon Byron – Epistle to Augusta

My sister! my sweet sister! if a name

Dearer and purer were, it should be thine.

Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim

No tears, but tenderness to answer mine:

Go where I will, to me thou art the same

A lov'd regret which I would not resign.

There yet are two things in my destiny—

A world to roam through, and a home with thee.

The first were nothing—had I still the last,

It were the haven of my happiness;

But other claims and other ties thou hast,

And mine is not the wish to make them less.

A strange doom is thy father's son's, and past

Recalling, as it lies beyond redress;

Revers'd for him our grandsire's fate of yore—

He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore.

If my inheritance of storms hath been

In other elements, and on the rocks

Of perils, overlook'd or unforeseen,

I have sustain'd my share of worldly shocks,

The fault was mine; nor do I seek to screen

My errors with defensive paradox;

I have been cunning in mine overthrow,

The careful pilot of my proper woe.

Mine were my faults, and mine be their reward.

My whole life was a contest, since the day

That gave me being, gave me that which marr'd

The gift—a fate, or will, that walk'd astray;

And I at times have found the struggle hard,

And thought of shaking off my bonds of clay:

But now I fain would for a time survive,

If but to see what next can well arrive.

Kingdoms and empires in my little day

I have outliv'd, and yet I am not old;

And when I look on this, the petty spray

Of my own years of trouble, which have roll'd

Like a wild bay of breakers, melts away:

Something—I know not what—does still uphold

A spirit of slight patience; not in vain,

Even for its own sake, do we purchase pain.

Perhaps the workings of defiance stir

Within me—or perhaps a cold despair,

Brought on when ills habitually recur,

Perhaps a kinder clime, or purer air

(For even to this may change of soul refer,

And with light armour we may learn to bear),

Have taught me a strange quiet, which was not

The chief companion of a calmer lot.

I feel almost at times as I have felt

In happy childhood; trees, and flowers, and brooks,

Which do remember me of where I dwelt

Ere my young mind was sacrific'd to books,

Come as of yore upon me, and can melt

My heart with recognition of their looks;

And even at moments I could think I see

Some living thing to love—but none like thee.

Here are the Alpine landscapes which create

A fund for contemplation; to admire

Is a brief feeling of a trivial date;

But something worthier do such scenes inspire:

Here to be lonely is not desolate,

For much I view which I could most desire,

And, above all, a lake I can behold

Lovelier, not dearer, than our own of old.

Oh that thou wert but with me!—but I grow

The fool of my own wishes, and forget

The solitude which I have vaunted so

Has lost its praise in this but one regret;

There may be others which I less may show;

I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet

I feel an ebb in my philosophy,

And the tide rising in my alter'd eye.

I did remind thee of our own dear Lake,

By the old Hall which may be mine no more.

Leman's is fair; but think not I forsake

The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore:

Sad havoc Time must with my memory make

Ere that or thou can fade these eyes before;

Though, like all things which I have lov'd, they are

Resign'd for ever, or divided far.

The world is all before me; I but ask

Of Nature that with which she will comply—

It is but in her summer's sun to bask,

To mingle with the quiet of her sky,

To see her gentle face without a mask,

And never gaze on it with apathy.

She was my early friend, and now shall be

My sister—till I look again on thee.

I can reduce all feelings but this one;

And that I would not; for at length I see

Such scenes as those wherein my life begun,

The earliest—even the only paths for me—

Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun,

I had been better than I now can be;

The passions which have torn me would have slept;

I had not suffer'd, and thou hadst not wept.

With false Ambition what had I to do?

Little with Love, and least of all with Fame;

And yet they came unsought, and with me grew,

And made me all which they can make—a name,

Yet this was not the end I did pursue;

Surely I once beheld a nobler aim.

But all is over—I am one the more

To baffled millions which have gone before.

And for the future, this world's future may

From me demand but little of my care;

I have outliv'd myself by many a day,

Having surviv'd so many things that were;

My years have been no slumber, but the prey

Of ceaseless vigils; for I had the share

Of life which might have fill'd a century,

Before its fourth in time had pass'd me by.

And for the remnant which may be to come

I am content; and for the past I feel

Not thankless, for within the crowded sum

Of struggles, happiness at times would steal,

And for the present, I would not benumb

My feelings further. Nor shall I conceal

That with all this I still can look around,

And worship Nature with a thought profound.

For thee, my own sweet sister, in thy heart

I know myself secure, as thou in mine;

We were and are—I am, even as thou art—

Beings who ne'er each other can resign;

It is the same, together or apart,

From life's commencement to its slow decline

We are entwin'd—let death come slow or fast,

The tie which bound the first endures the last!