If I had to create a poem to describe these final days of Pluto in Sagittarius; with Chiron, Neptune and the lunar North Node conjunct in the middle of Aquarius; Uranus and Saturn at opposition; and the personal planets all cozied up in Libra, including Mercury getting ready to do its fall retrograde, this would be it.
You'll probaby think I'm nuts, but I find reading this poem a joyful experience. It has been such a long road (and as another early 20th century poet said, we have miles to go before we sleep), and in this poem I find some sort of validation and comfort.
P. S. If you don't understand the "astrologese", don't worry about it ... just read the poem ;). There'll be time enough to talk about the cosmos later.
- The Hollow Men
- Mistah Kurtz—he dead.
A penny for the Old Guy
- I
- We are the hollow men
- We are the stuffed men
- Leaning together
- Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
- Our dried voices, when
- We whisper together
- Are quiet and meaningless
- As wind in dry grass
- Or rats’ feet over broken glass
- In our dry cellar
- We are the stuffed men
- Shape without form, shade without colour,
- Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
- Those who have crossed
- With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
- Remember us—if at all—not as lost
- Violent souls, but only
- As the hollow men
- The stuffed men.
- With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
- II
- Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
- In death’s dream kingdom
- These do not appear:
- There, the eyes are
- Sunlight on a broken column
- There, is a tree swinging
- And voices are
- In the wind’s singing
- More distant and more solemn
- Than a fading star.
- In death’s dream kingdom
- Let me be no nearer
- In death’s dream kingdom
- Let me also wear
- Such deliberate disguises
- Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
- In a field
- Behaving as the wind behaves
- No nearer—
- In death’s dream kingdom
- Not that final meeting
- In the twilight kingdom
- III
- This is the dead land
- This is cactus land
- Here the stone images
- Are raised, here they receive
- The supplication of a dead man’s hand
- Under the twinkle of a fading star.
- This is cactus land
- Is it like this
- In death’s other kingdom
- Waking alone
- At the hour when we are
- Trembling with tenderness
- Lips that would kiss
- Form prayers to broken stone.
- In death’s other kingdom
- IV
- The eyes are not here
- There are no eyes here
- In this valley of dying stars
- In this hollow valley
- This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
- There are no eyes here
- In this last of meeting places
- We grope together
- And avoid speech
- Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
- We grope together
- Sightless, unless
- The eyes reappear
- As the perpetual star
- Multifoliate rose
- Of death’s twilight kingdom
- The hope only
- Of empty men.
- The eyes reappear
- V
- Here we go round the prickly pear
- Prickly pear prickly pear
- Here we go round the prickly pear
- At five o’clock in the morning.
- Prickly pear prickly pear
- Between the idea
- And the reality
- Between the motion
- And the act
- Falls the Shadow
- For Thine is the Kingdom
- And the reality
- Between the conception
- And the creation
- Between the emotion
- And the response
- Falls the Shadow
- Life is very long
- And the creation
- Between the desire
- And the spasm
- Between the potency
- And the existence
- Between the essence
- And the descent
- Falls the Shadow
- For Thine is the Kingdom
- And the spasm
- For Thine is
- Life is
- For Thine is the
- Life is
- This is the way the world ends
- This is the way the world ends
- This is the way the world ends
- Not with a bang but a whimper.
- This is the way the world ends
-- T. S. Eliot
Kitty - thank you so much for your kind comments and adding me to your contact list.
Mental health problems, like all the trials and tribulations of life, are only made easier by the compassion and love of others ... I am here for you and I hope you will be here for me too.
Bippy Bear
Posted by: Buckshot | Thursday, September 25, 2008 at 06:09 AM