On Stygian Shores
This piece was written for a school assignment and was heavily inspired by T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land.
“Sophocles long ago Heard it on the Ægæan, and it brought Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow Of human misery;”
Après the Stygian reflection of Death Après the one vital touch from Cephissus Après the legion bellows to Echo’s breath The grieving and the cleaning Island and inlet and confabulation Of l’amour perdue by forgotten fall She who was loving is now gone We who were loving are now going With a jealous farewell
There is no person but only sea Sea and no person and the silent ship The ship sailing beyond before the waters Who stretch their tentacles to the horizon If the sea should stop we would meet and converse With no person one cannot meet or make verse Sails are torn and no person is at the wheel If there were only a destination in sight Open sea maw of invisible teeth that cannot chew Where one can neither speak nor love nor breathe There is not even beauty on the boundless sea But wet sterile water without life There is not even thought on the boundless sea But ugly constant fears badger and breed From cobwebs of dark decks
If there were people And no sea If there were sea And also people And people A crowd A city of the dead Where the bugles sound the hours, ten by ten Tick tock tick tock tick tock But there are no people
I sit on a boat Sailing, with the Elysian field before me Will I at least leave a memory? These words will be my living picture Ring around the rosey, ashes, ashes, all fall down fall down Superbia mea—my down fall Spero trovar pietà, non che perdono My true hope flies with swallow’s wings away Clotho. Lachesis. Atropos. Shalom shalom shalom