In praise of Prufrock

(poems go here) Power poetry.com As a boy- and by this I mean a sprout, There was a great many trips taken to the south. My mother enjoyed her literature -as if possessed So naturally in the bosom of knowledge we were caressed. During these journeys, there is but one memory I am fond- Where poetry and myself began our great bond. No I dare say you shall not find me lurking in coffee shops Nor on halogen streets, Shouting verse to the rhythm of the bongo sharp chops Instead, there was a fever found, In the droning, croning voice of Elliot's sound. The tape was old, and the accent seem forced I still remember thinking, “my, this voice comes off hoarse” But words and meaning struck us with waves My brother and I finally stopped the car trip bickering, grew calm and gazed. “My how that man can write!” mother would exclaim, As if to reignite prufrock’s dying flame As if boys -huddled like cattle- could spread a good word But as a child there seemed no time To write these clever little rhymes. Even if I escaped my chores And schools finally accepted they were a bore Let me run feral, with all the time in the world Who was I to write? I knew nothing of love or death –Christ I had never been in a fight! So instead we followed Elliot to the letter Let ourselves grow old, searched for inspiration in our fetters. Though I must admit, there were many times I almost quit Where life would come to find me And I found myself up to my knees in shit. When the will to run till my lungs would burn- became too strong And even talking to the walls proved futile before too long. Thoughts tend to race, and frustration is man’s common curse Yet after all was to be said and done, my mind comes back to elliots old verse “In a minute there is time/ For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.” To many this line means naught at all, to many this is just a mans excuse not to stand nor to fall Rather this was my pens call. You may take away the buildings and the people With a single malicious thought, In turn portray the sword as rather feeble. So during my own ‘muttering retreats’ There was verse wrought, similes sewn in yards and miles not feet. And finally in the ides of my youth, Which we will presume brings about man’s deepest truth. Where thoughts are bare and burning, smoldering bubbling burping like raw iron Where the only words that play in the minds of the suburbanite Were words of Yeats, Shelly, Homer and Byron. At long last restless boyhood was soothed. Love had found me, and left with a swiftness. Death had brushed my shoulder, coy and cool and amused. Honor had given me only a ‘tedious argument’ And disgust with its readiness to augment. Each offered a novel approach to an elder ideal And psalm to rattle off how it could make man feel. Yes, it was life that raised me –but Elliot was my virgil On high, again and again, led me to sense and gargle. Spit the poison from my mouth that was frustration And remind me that lifes only weakness, is weakness in hesitation