April 25th - The Love Song of K. Wesley Eveleth

If I believed my answer
were being given to someone
who could ever return to the world,
this flame would be still.
But since no one has ever returned
alive from this depth,
if what I hear is true,
I will answer you
without fear of infamy.

You and I
Shall walk along empty streets,
And I shall let you in
On my secret,
But this will be my
Last revelation.
TS Eliot was a sinister man: He wrote
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
with my torment in mind.
He knew that in those fledgling years of
Stumbling poetic discovery,
I would see nothing
But a tired, balding, thinning man,
Walking along the beach
Ivory trousers rolled,
Muttering about some abstraction,
Ragged claws, or peaches, or somesuch thing.

All this talk of Michelangelo,
Lazarus, coffee spoons,
Foggish cats in soot-stained alleys!
My foolish, empty head
(Downed with auburn hair!)
Could not comprehend the ever-present question,
Rolling with the universe into a ball
That leads unto my secrets.

But he knew it would settle and assault
Renew and overhaul
Approach me in my dreams, holding out its
Overwhelming Question on a silver platter.
It could be no great matter.

But it strikes me in my core,
Sprawls me on a sticking pin:
What am I?
By what yardstick shall my life be measured? Coffee spoons? Works of art?
Have I really made a start on
Anything I wanted in my dreams?
The gravity of all he wrote nearly
Broke my heart and
Crushed my lungs.
I wept and fasted,
Wept and prayed,
And saw far before me that Eternal Footman,
Wearing his long grin and that same snicker.

The women will come and they will yearn,
Thinking of Mr. Thomas Stearns.

Though I am only twenty-one
I feel as though my days are done;
And Despair, ye mighty!
For we all must die.
But much of life remains for me,
Much of time,
Time to murder and create the poet
That I long to someday be.
My life
I hope
will be counted by all my creations,
And the mermaids will sing to me,
And I will unravel that Overwhelming Question,
Tame it with a dismissive hand
And linger in the sea.