When TS talked of Hollow Men
Did he mean the Death of God
or the demise the soul?
Hollow men with empty eyes
whose last vision…
Yeats with his great rough beast
Slouching to God knows where…
small potatoes
compared to the feast Hitler
would bring to the table.
History has nothing to teach
One horror
piled on another
each greater than the last…
Like Steven Spielberg at the movies
Who cares about plot,
Just bring on the Shock and Awe.
Did he mean the Death of God
or the demise the soul?
Hollow men with empty eyes
whose last vision…
Yeats with his great rough beast
Slouching to God knows where…
small potatoes
compared to the feast Hitler
would bring to the table.
History has nothing to teach
One horror
piled on another
each greater than the last…
Like Steven Spielberg at the movies
Who cares about plot,
Just bring on the Shock and Awe.
3 comments:
Elegy for the Gotham Book Mart
http://tinyurl.com/2drq93
(A reception at the Gotham Book Mart on November 9, 1948 for Dame Edith and Sir Osbert Sitwell, W.H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Marianne Moore, Delmore Schwartz, Randall Jarrell, Charles Henri Ford, William Rose Benet, Stephen Spender, Marya Zaturenska, Horace Gregory, Tennessee Williams, Richard Eberhart, Gore Vidal, Jose Garcia Villa.)
W.H. Auden
(on ladder)
look at them down there—
wrestling like nameless Jacobs—
up here the Angel—
Gore Vidal
(glancing around)
here I am again—
like Theodosia Burr—
hijacked by pirates—
Dame Edith
(on her high horse)
vulgar New Yorkers—
taxicab drivers the worst—
no hymns of praise here—
Sir Osbert Sitwell
(enjoying himself thoroughly)
nobody quotes me—
as well as I quote myself—
which is ALL the time—
Marianne Moore
(prim as usual)
poor Steven Spender—
so relieved he got married—
that louche crowd of his—
Charles Henri Ford
(author of The Young and Evil)
Sitwell burned my book—
fanning the flames with her skirts—
foul fireplace aflame
Tennessee Williams
(wishing he had a drink)
where’s my sunglasses—
I’m feeling like Blanche Dubois—
do I trust strangers?
Marya Zaturenska
(needing love)
silence fills the room—
silent as women waiting—
waiting for the spring—
Delmore Schwartz
(pencil-thin moustache)
beauty is skin-deep—
but ugly goes to the bone—
just ask poets’ wives—
Randall Jarrell
(a great writer)
we’re all great writers—
but we’re much less important—
than we think we are
Stephen Spender
(reminiscing)
berlin such great fun—
wish Christopher were here—
gotham city seethes—
William Rose Benet
(silence silence silence)
blue oblivion—
dimly lit in a corner—
smiled & smiled at me
Horace Gregory
(scholarly)
youth laid low by war—
all those teenage Hyacinths—
Apollo’s boyfriends—
Richard Eberhart
(depressed)
Averill gone gone—
Van Wettering goodbye too—
adios baby
Jose Garcia Villa
(looking dead)
words I used to speak—
they no longer speak thru me—
even words flee me—
Elizabeth Bishop
(Marianne’s protégé)
it doesn’t matter—
(Write it!) lovers say goodbye—
I lost Key West too—
Caught the NYT story. Interesting crowd. What would the randomizer make of it?
"It's a bit like interviewing me at my own funeral,' said Mr. Brown, who has a penchant for quoting Mark Twain."
"It just all seems rushed and about the dollar, rather than knowing what you're bidding on or what you even have,' said Brandon Kennedy, a former employee who had hoped to take home a marble table."
"Upstairs, Phil Ahrens, who worked in the store for 33 years, sat at his desk and posed while a married couple who met at the store 10 years ago snapped his picture."
"On the fifth floor, an elderly dealer from Ireland saw near the top of a pile a box that was rumored to include books from the James Joyce Literary Society, which convened quarterly at Gotham for about 60 years. He could not reach it."
"The poets!' said Mr. Hearn, the longtime patron. 'Did any of them come out and support him?'
Gretchen Adkins, a friend of Mr. Hearn's, responded, 'A lot of them are dead."
And from the New York Post:
"The undignified last chapter for the institution - beloved by the likes of Edward Gorey, J.D. Salinger and Jackie Kennedy Onassis - came about because the owner was forced to pay overdue rent."
Wise Men Fish Here.....
"On the fifth floor, an elderly dealer from Ireland saw near the top of a pile a box that was rumored to include books from the James Joyce Literary Society, which convened quarterly at Gotham for about 60 years. He could not reach it."
Isn't that just like Joyce...elusive even in death.
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