Four Snortets, A Parody With Fondness For Thomas Stearns Eliot
'Now we come to discover that the moments of agony...are likewise permanent with such permanence as time has...Or even a very good dinner, but the sudden illumination-We had the experience but missed the meaning.' - from 'The Dry Salvages' by T.S. Eliot
1
Burnt Snortin'
Mister, or Sir, rather, Thomas Sterns Eliot left his evening door,
late middle age, having lived into the postmodern 'new' millennium,
having again reiterated his propounded new diet whereupon
wandering on a deserted shore near mumbling twilight one might
meet a most inarticulate soft peach or unutterable yet edible Christ,
or a close match, a little kidding, upon which we may, if we dare,
reiterative quartet playing plaintive though palliatively, dine four
squarely in Piccadilly sempiternal before getting sodden after
sundown, preferably on Friday, which is a good time to do it, to eat
and drink again, remembering that it is end of the week, out of the tube
finally unethered, trousers unrolled at last, the mission to get plastered,
doing lines in the stalls, toilet seat become an altar of dissolution.
But, despite numbness of lips and tongue, of nasal passages,
do not hope that trousers shall roll up again till Monday, and do
not call it fixity. And do not call it fistula for that is to come but not
quite yet.
And who cares? or let us forget. Teach us, O Mannered One,
to care and not to care having lost muscle plasticity which a
good pair of dark socks can cover what was once pliant and
supple, now a gruesome obscenity. Have I overstated?
Shall I overstate again? Shall I? No? not now? how all things
crumble, even a souffle caves from expectation and thus we
wait with dope, we wait without hope for hope would be hope
for another line, and yet another, and we are reduced to shouting
repeatedly shouting, Muther f*cker! Muther f*cker, overwrought,
in the stall, temperatures and ovens not withstanding.
So listen, I said to myself stalling for time for the coke to take
effect, wondering why the hell I mentioned a souffle, to kick
in wait without prematurely crashing, for the night, O Friday,
is still young though I am not so young,
I grow old
I grow old
I unfold a
hundred pound
note roll it
tightly tightly
greedy for
lines and
more time
more time
for laughter
remembered
in the bloody
garden now
grown with
weeds
BOLLOCKS
2
Wasted Coker
so I said to my soul, yes yes yes wait without eating the dish eaten
last week which gave me the infernal trots, now giving me something
else to think about, f*ck that old Edenic garden, wait without faith that
the waiter will return the dish sent back merely because one can,
because one (note how I go to the third person but f*ck that) , ONE
ONE ONE is really angry at the boss and one is in the stalls not for
coke but for yet another freshly chewed double anus demanding attention.
And all things are stalled for in the stall all is bloody and ONE,
erhebung with motion too too much, squatting, endlessly squatting
wiping squatting wiping ad infinitum of bum unto bumbling attempts
so I said in the stall,
wait, wait dumbly, tongue lagging,
for the dope to kick in, forget the late
arrival at office, f*ck Mondays! the usual scene,
one can recover here by porcelain cool
white o white as
the lines are white
which, too, porcelain, is waiting to be cleaned,
and all things shall be cleaned, but only after
midnight for I shall have left by then having forsaken
all hope and the sink where I have discreetly washed
my skivvies in order to go home again, return
uncomfortable, without support, to throw them in the
turning dryer to dry again for I do not hope to return
again until next week to probably reenact the same
scene again, (bringing another pair of skivvies with
just in case) , the patient server, harassed, must add
and re-add my check again and again because I am
still
very
VERY
pissed at the boss, at the chittering fetuses mocking, always
mocking, in the shrubbery near the well-used apothecary and
I shall go home foregoing mulberries, for I am too blitzed, having
forgotten the rejected dish, the wish for justice, for mum's steak
and kidney pie, and I have remembered all too late. Alas.
So let us go home then, which is a kind of personal Golgotha,
for which the rent is beyond my means but let us go and
make our supper remembering to take the gonorrhea pill.
No, let us purchase our meal though on a budget, and forget
even all this trivia. Let us forget all that, too, looking in,
deja vu, the bathroom mirror from the stall
(have I left or do I remain?)
Recall then that I can leave the comb unhandled
until Monday morning. It shall not cruelly beckon
again from the toilet, or it can be justifiably ignored,
to comb what is left of what is left to fall, or grow,
but that's a laugh. Come Monday, and only then,
we must find the diminishing part again, searching
ever searching,
scalp and England
all one, or soon shall
be One
scanty scanty
scanty
3
The Drying Assuages
And all is vanity amongst these my ruins.
And Sweeney, whoever he may be,
tidies up neurotically, gin on his breath
for he is bored unto death but awaits
daily the post for possible liberty
which he once took with a wealthy
widow who mistook him for someone
else. The scar forever reminds of
dumb lusts, and dumber luck, for loot,
never dreaming she was a black belt.
His teeth, now wooden, remind him to
be mindful of the good against all wants,
and so he sits, wise, chaste, chiseled
in the ruins reading Beckett, but that is
another story written in the stars Centauric
qua qua qua
sisk boom ba
'tween Fuquaad
& Apothecary
near the corner
time forgot
but o not I
when the clot
broke and people
screamed no
help at all as I
stood pale,
pale, paler still
leaning upon
a tailor's wall
he, too, no
help at all
threatening
to call the cops
It closes me in
again to recall
qua qua Fuquaad
amongst the forgotten roses
where one is hungover in the supposes
he began with, that he can never finish
like this, pissed, which goes on,
which goes on, 'I can't go on.
But I must because I am losing hair and so'
dot dot dot into eternity
and so we must wear a hat but let us not go then,
you and I, patiently into all that now for come the
proper time
now then here then,
remembering the chaffing bloody garters
we will pack our Preparations H, grateful always,
no longer walking funnily sideways in the garden,
in the wandering streets, the half retreating steps,
without itch or burn, the tissue roll turned slowly
with pleasure not to double, or even triple, ply.
We cleanse what cannot be seen but only reckoned
with, and sniffed, pull at our chains and buckles,
then pick our pace doubly up for we are late yet
again for work for one because we think too too
much and get caught up in cadences but
never mind for reality is
the boss will chew us out another one thus the suppositories
forgetting the time but not the talcum, trailing little
clouds, each hurried step a flurried reminder of
divinity glimpsed, if sought at all
4
Little Skidmarks
O the stall, stall, stall, we all go into the stall
Nevermind, just follow the trail of yesterday's shoe,
talcum and dust mingle taciturn
undoing intention to haste
powdery traces unhidden guidance
the prayed for thunderstorm never come to wash
tell-tale treads reveal some rash is spread,
scaling crud of gory glory and more stains to wash
but what of shame? Do we not hope to turn it to other
than no more to blame? Thus we gait without soap,
panicked, for what is to come, to scrub, to un-stain,
but soon, the boss is pacing. But what is to be gained
in running knowing already what waits ahead?
Another annus. Another anus.
Nothing more.
Hidden children in the mulberries
chittering, heard but unseen.
Note to self:
Must take Thorazine before bedtime.
Goddamn wankers! !
But let us leave them for another dosage,
for another week's prelude sans qualudes,
the sullen departure to work again combing
the faces in the crowd pitching, another aphasia
I prefer to call an 'occluded interlude', yet
another distracted fit caught in a sun ray upon
seeing that the poorly stitched seam hastily done
between the shower and the tepid tea,
between the sorting through the dirty laundry,
the deepening ennui for something to wear,
o do not hope to wear it again and again evergreen
(whatever, BTW, 'ennui' is, but it is fun to say and
in this aesthetic some other language needs to be
gratuitously writ to make the poetic voice more valid
if Americans attempt to art, 'writ' is a good word, too,
let me then write it repeatedly: writ writ writ, to wit)
begins yet again, o Ariadne, obsessive compulsive
to the end,
Thorazine Thorazine Thorazine
must must must remember to wit!
...to unravel that which is still, to look on the
bright side, yet another beginning, the public,
pathetic, peripatetic tugging of shirts and blouses
over the widening rip in the thinning trouser's seat,
pant legs remembering to be gay scrolling ever upward.
And yet we still call these knobs 'ankles', forgoing gaity.
Nothing to be read here, now, in Merry Old,
but old age, varicose. the blank stare dreaming
comatose, of repressed rage, still pissed at the boss,
shamed of ankles, the chittering twats in mulberry bush
near home, following, following
No wonder these
little snots at me laugh.
Them I'll clobber
here then now then
Shall we turn the page again?
Shall we? Shall we turn over yet
another leaf? Shall we repeat it all
again forgetting the unraveling stitch?
The itch and the burn?
The Itch and the burn returning,
for one bought the store brand and not the original.
Now it hurts to sit or stand. Shall I say it again,
under fetid breath, dentures stained?
Yes. Yes!
Sit or stand.
Sit or stand!
Now goddamn it,
bloody move on!
I shall say it again because I can.
But later. But let us remember
indulgently
now then, here then
hidden laughter behind
hands pointing at loose stitches,
boxers gray.
Forgot to do laundry.
Another note to self.
Another task.
Do the wash.
Most important.
Still, it is a good Friday so, sighing,
at last forgetting all Mondays past
and to come
not withstanding, for it hurts either
way to sit or stand, the late pay check,
piss poor pittance, mind, is cashed
probably on bloody Monday but
never mind. Let us presently pour
our penurious libations
Chianti Chianti
Chianti.
poem by Warren Falcon
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