White bodies naked on the low damp ground
And bones cast in a little low dry garret,
Rattled by the rat’s foot only, year to year. 
But at my back from time to time I hear
The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring
Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.

Life is archaeology
Layer by layer
We are formed
Palace to market to dump
Trash becoming treasure
One faith traded for the next
Death unfolding into life
Today dying into tomorrow

A rat crept softly through the vegetation
Dragging its slimy belly on the bank
While I was fishing in the dull canal
On a winter evening round behind the gashouse.
Musing upon the king my brother’s wreck
And on the king my father’s death before him.

The lamp said
Four o'clock
The wind said
Stay in bed
But the wind was waning
At sundown it was a constant gale
The lights flickered and finally failed
Now gusts give way to quiet
Lazy rain dripping at the window
The little lamp spreads a ring on page seventeen:
     The lamp sputtered
     The lamp muttered in the dark
     The lamp hummed:
     Regard the moon
And the gospel begins:
"Your eye is the lamp of your body"

And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors;
Departed, have left no addresses.
By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept…
Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,
Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.
But at my back in a cold blast I hear
The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?

There is waste, much waste
There is anger, much anger
And death's rattle shakes
With earthquake, fire, and flood
But there is also
Beauty, so very beautiful.
Wonder, so very wonderful
and a symphony with song from the whirlwind

III. THE FIRE SERMON

The river’s tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf
Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind
Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.
The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.

Two of those Nymphs, mean-while, two Garlands bound,
Of freshest Flowers, which in that Mead they found,
The which presenting all in trim Array,
Their snowy Foreheads therewithal they crown'd,
Whilst one did sing this Lay,
Prepar'd against that Day,
Against that Bridal-day, which was not long:
Sweet Thames run softly till I end my Song.

Ye gentle Birds, the World's fair Ornament,
And Heaven's Glory, whom this happy Hour
Doth lead unto your Lovers blissful Bower,
Joy may you have, and gentle Hearts Content
Of your Love's Complement:
And let fair Venus, that is Queen of Love,
With her Heart-quelling Son upon you smile;
Whose Smile they say, hath Vertue to remove
All Love's Dislike, and Friendship's faulty Guile
For ever to assoil.
Let endless Peace your stedfast Hearts accord,
And blessed Plenty wait upon your Bord;
And let your Bed with Pleasures chaste abound,
That fruitful Issue may to you afford,
Which may your foes confound,
And make your Joys redound
Upon your Bridal-day, which is not long:
Sweet Thames run softly, till I end my Song.

E. Spenser

HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,
And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot—
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight.
Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.
Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.

Knowing when to leave
Can be the heroic choice
Knowing when your role is finished
Your value-added done
Not to abandon,
Nor deny what's still to come
But at the right time, to go
without complaint or show

HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
If you don’t like it you can get on with it, I said,
Others can pick and choose if you can’t.
But if Albert makes off, it won’t be for lack of telling.
You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.
(And her only thirty-one.)
I can’t help it, she said, pulling a long face,
It’s them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.
(She’s had five already, and nearly died of young George.)
The chemist said it would be alright, but I’ve never been the same.
You are a proper fool, I said.
Well, if Albert won’t leave you alone, there it is, I said,
What you get married for if you don’t want children?

Saying nothing,
Can be heroic too
From a void much may come
Doing nothing
Can be heroic
Creating space for others
Not stony silence
Nor cautious avoidance
But peaceful stillness blooming

When Lil’s husband got demobbed, I said,
I didn’t mince my words, I said to her myself,
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Now Albert’s coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
He’ll want to know what you done with that money he gave you
To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there.
You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,
He said, I swear, I can’t bear to look at you.
And no more can’t I, I said, and think of poor Albert,
He’s been in the army four years, he wants a good time,
And if you don’t give it him, there’s others will, I said.
Oh is there, she said. Something o’ that, I said.
Then I’ll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.

Appearance counts
80 percent of success is showing up
10 percent is how you look and what you say
Appearing at the right time
Saying something worthwhile
Actually doing something constructive
         That's practically heroic.

“What shall I do now? What shall I do?
 I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
With my hair down, so. What shall we do to-morrow?
What shall we ever do?”
                                      The hot water at ten.
And if it rains, a closed car at four.
And we shall play a game of chess,
Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.

What shall I do now? What shall I do?
I shall stay where I am, write and read and think
Stroke my cat or bury him
Consider catastrophic consequences
                                       At noon I'll take some sun.
And after lunch, gather some timber,
And build a trellis,
Walking the meadow and watching the sun fall behind the mountains.

“What is that noise?”
              The wind under the door.
“What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?”
               Nothing again nothing.
                                       “Do
You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
Nothing?”
     I remember
           Those are pearls that were his eyes.
“Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?”
                                                          But
O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—
It’s so elegant
So intelligent

Ariel singing to Ferdinand:

"Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
 Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell."

Comedy or tragedy
are our errors
Much depends on how a scene is played
Pride is seldom (never?) noble
Either foolish or fatal
Always falling
for a laugh or lesson

“My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak.
What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
I never know what you are thinking. Think.”

I think we are in rats’ alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.

We hunger and thirst for relationship
Conversation, companionship
We hope to know, even more to be known

Struggling to escape the banal, angry, and sad
Too often settling for shared space and a strong drink
We want inspiration, exaltation, and dancing

And other withered stumps of time
Were told upon the walls; staring forms
Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.
Footsteps shuffled on the stair,
Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
Spread out in fiery points
Glowed into words, then would be savagely still.

There are stumps, branches and roots
Does time also have seeds?
Deboule to fouetté to grand jeté
Dense concoctions of possibility
Seeking a moist jagged wound
There to open, unfold, become

Huge sea-wood fed with copper
Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone,
In which sad light a carvèd dolphin swam.
Above the antique mantel was displayed
As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene
The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
“Jug Jug” to dirty ears.

"What bird so sings, yet does so wail?
 O, 'tis the ravish'd nightingale--
 Jug, jug, jug, jug--tereu, she cries,
 And still her woes at midnight rise."

Of Saint Joan with child, the Duke of York says,
"She and the Dauphin have been juggling:
I did imagine that would be her refuge."

"Still at his mother's neck he fondly aims,
And strives to melt her with endearing names;
Yet still the cruel mother perseveres,
Nor with concern his bitter anguish hears.
This might suffice; but Philomela too
Across his throat a shining curtlass drew.
Then both, with knives, dissect each quiv'ring part,
And carve the butcher'd limbs with cruel art;
Which, whelm'd in boiling cauldrons o'er the fire,
Or turn'd on spits, in steamy smoak aspire:
While the long entries, with their slipp'ry floor,
Run down in purple streams of clotted gore."

"Cry out aloud on Itys! memory
That foster-brother of remorse and pain
Drops poison in mine ear,—O to be free"

Φιλομήλα
Athenian princess, beautiful sister
From pain came change

"In faith, I cannot: what would you have me do?
A juggling trick,--to be secretly open."

II. A GAME OF CHESS

The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Glowed on the marble, where the glass
Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
From which a golden Cupidon peeped out
(Another hid his eyes behind his wing)
Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra
Reflecting light upon the table as
The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,
From satin cases poured in rich profusion;
In vials of ivory and coloured glass
Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,
Unguent, powdered, or liquid—troubled, confused
And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air
That freshened from the window, these ascended
In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,
Flung their smoke into the laquearia,
Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.

Outside my experience
Another gender
A different set altogether

My grandma, true, had a vanity
Where she carefully did her face
Appended a blue-tinged periwig
And with lipstick she would trace

Grandma smelled of lilac cologne
and neither candelabra
nor cupidon were anywhere in her home

Corpse Plant

There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying “Stetson!
You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
Has it begun to sprout? 
Will it bloom this year?
Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!
You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!”

Hannibal Gisco - not Lector nor Barca - retreated at Agrigentum
Surprised Scipio Asina - not Asinus - at Lipari
Was in turn surprised at Mylae, not My Lai
Returned home to Carthage to be crucified by his own men
(The sources do not tell us if he was surprised)
Is it his corpse that Stetson has planted in the garden?
Ask Hannibal's corpse, is there a corvus to the next world?
Can we cross to a quick quinqueremis making for a heavenly port?
Or are we planted in the muck and mud of our own making?

Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.

Ancient Mountain,
Under stars of a moonless night,
I walk alone up the hill, two hours from dawn
Saying, "I am glad to be dying with Topaz".
Breathing deep and exhaling long,
My eyes scan the sky far above.
At the hilltop trees open to meadow
And the house where I write these words
Is bright with light and the smell of coffee.

I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.

LEO. (July 22 - Aug. 21): Today brings confirmation that things are on the move. This isn't the time to lose your nerve. You'll be happy when you finish what you started.

Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations.
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.

Phlebas, the drowned Phoenician sailor, is ready for a sea-change. The Queen of Cups holds out the Grail to the seeker who perseveres in his quest to heal the Fisher King. We can still spin The Wheel of Fortune for a chance at a new life, while compassion and connection to others is in our grasp if we balance our lives and share our gifts. Our own destiny is still to be written on the blank card, and if we search for The Hanged Man, we can right him and accept his blessing and wisdom. (Carole Pierce)

“You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
They called me the hyacinth girl.”
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Öd’ und leer das Meer.

The wild and empty sea
is not always wild
and never empty
But seaside we often
find our hidden selves
swept upon the shore

Frisch weht der Wind
Der Heimat zu,
Mein Irisch Kind,
Wo weilest du?

Fresh the wind blows
towards home,
My Irish child,
Where are you now?

              (Wagner, Tristan und Isolde)

I am home
where memory
arrives in gusts
of sweet nostalgia and smoky regret

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

See, a king will reign in righteousness
and rulers will rule with justice.
Each one will be like a shelter from the wind
and a refuge from the storm,
like streams of water in the desert
and the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land.
Then the eyes of those who see will no longer be closed,
and the ears of those who hear will listen.
The fearful heart will know and understand,
and the stammering tongue will be fluent and clear.

Isaiah 32:1-4
'
Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity.

 Ecclesiastes 12:7-8

Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

The moments seem fragile: a coffee in Vienna,
Christmas morning in Tangier
Fragrant lavender, a bright sun, ships sliding through the straits,
Sharing steamy crisp sardines in San Francisco,
A glass of wine and a toffee-tasting cheese in New York,
Snow dancing with steam above the rotembro.
Yet these memories persist, still pulsing the senses
While more earnest days and ambitious efforts
have fallen to pieces, dusty and dead.

I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

Is then October the kindest month, raking
fallen petals of the last flowers, harvesting
pride and failure, tasting
the last plump purple fig?
Summer overheated us, causing
each tendril to over-reach, feeding
our desires with wine and honey.