Timothy Bovee, editor
www.daypoems.net
Click on the bonsai for the next poem.
DayPoems Forum
Click to submit poems to DayPoems, comment on DayPoems or a poem within, comment on other poetry sites, update links, or simply get in touch. DayPoems Forum.
Poetry Whirl
Google Thomas Stearns Eliot
Latest Poetry News
Indexes
Poems
Poets
Editor's poems
Poetry Places
Poetry Places
C., Nikki - Emotions Intensified
Daily Love Poetry Archives
Haiku Poets of Northern California
Humanities Text Initiative American Verse Collection
Rose, Rebecca - Rebecca's Ghost
Malachite, Angel - Attempts at Poetry
Nodes powered by
Open Directory Project at dmoz.org
DayPoems Favorites
PORT: An Online Visual Arts Journal
A Poet on a Magical Journey Home
Chronicles of a Sea Woman
Parallels Studio
Bipolar Poetry
Mantra.X
Poetry, Film and Books
Poetry Archive
Project Gutenberg, a huge collection of books as text, produced as a volunteer enterprise starting in 1990. This is the source of the first poetry placed on DayPoems.
Tina Blue's Beginner's Guide to Prosody, exactly what the title says, and well worth reading.
popomo.net, miniature, minimalist-inspired sculptures created from industrial cereamics, an art project at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon.
pink.popomo.net, More projects from Portland
oarena.net, Furby, Eliza, Mr_Friss and Miss_Friss.
Save Point 0.8.1, a Portland, Oregon, exhibit, Aug. 13-Sept. 5, 2004, at Disjecta.
D
a
y
P
o
e
m
s
*
D
a
y
P
o
e
m
s
*
D
a
y
P
o
e
m
s
*
D
a
y
P
o
e
m
s
*
D
a
y
P
o
e
m
s
*
D
a
y
P
o
e
m
s
*
D
a
y
P
o
e
m
s
Won't you help support DayPoems?
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
By Thomas Stearns Eliot
1888.9.26-1965.1.4S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo 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.
DayPoems Poem No. 2667
Comment on DayPoems?
If you are like us, you have strong feelings about poetry, and about each poem you read. Let it all out! Comment on this poem, any poem, DayPoems, other poetry places or the art of poetry at DayPoems Feedback.
Won't you help support DayPoems?
Click here to learn more about how you can keep DayPoems on the Web . . .
Copyright
The DayPoems web site, www.daypoems.net, is copyright 2001-2006 by Timothy Keith Bovee. All rights reserved.
The authors of poetry and other material appearing on DayPoems retain full rights to their work. Any requests for publication in other venues must be negotiated separately with the authors. The editor of DayPoems will gladly attempt to assist in putting interested parties in contact with the authors.
Support DayPoems.Buy your books hereLatest Chapbooks from Powells!!! |
The Online Bonsai Icon Collection
http://www.hav.com/tobic.html