Titan

Deals with my frustrations with T.S. Eliot's 'Waste land', and all his other cold, emotionless works.

(Parodies and caricatures are the most

penetrating of criticisms

�" Aldous Huxley- Point Counter Point)

 

 

You, with all your art

And neat device,

Your sense of self

And engineering skills,

Determined

With emotion set aside,

You’d leave your Titan sprawled

On our poetic hills.

 

Your Titan, sprawled

And rusted now with age,

That bleeds its rust each year

Upon the land,

To waste the lilacs, starved

Of sun and light,

And breed new crops,

Your waste, your contraband.

 

False prophet you, who fooled

A people once,

Who, godlike, thought to stifle

Us at heart,

Used as your tool cold reason

So precise,

And sordid captions

On some other’s art.

 

   You taught us how to steal

-         not plagiarize;

You taught us how to steal

Not imitate,

Damn your eyes!

 

Tiresias now walks alone in Birmingham

Takes bitter by the pint, as is his wont,

Adjusts his wrinkled tie when he is charming ‘em

And tells ‘em of the tide at Hellespont,

(The tide he’s never seen), at Hellespont.

 

   What roots are there in this,

   What branches grow

  Out of this stony rubbish?

 

The Titan glares and rusts in the sun,

The Titan glares �"

Each rusted nut and bolt I’d see undone;

Each rusted bolt.

 

(The Titan glares!)

 

Jen ne veux pas vous parler dans votre langue,

Pourquoi voulez-vous me parler dans la mienne?

 

You may not seek to turn again

You may not seek,

You may not turn, but find undone

The vanished power of the unusual brain;

The rat’s foot

On the funereal urn.

 

At the violet hour, they took us to the bridge

And showed us proudly round the gleaming brass,

Then cracked a coldy each, from out the fridge

While Phlebas patted Mrs. Porter’s a*s.

 

And every horficer wore belt and braid

And swaggered, or just stood there, looking proud

‘Til someone shivered, lookin’ at the mist

And Belladonna laughed, a little loud.

 

‘This way now, gents �" and Mrs. P.,

The mangelwurzel soup will cool

If we should but delay, you see

Now; single file and follow me,’

 

All this I knew, when I was young

All this I knew;

 

Ipso facto

Mumbo jumbo

Too wit,

Tereu.

 

The floor she sat on, like a burning bone

Gleamed in the sheen of Fisher’s Wax,

The cleaning lady had long gone home

To sort out her husband’s income-tax.

So there she sat in her plastic pearls

To drink from a vial of coloured glass,

Of coloured glass.

 

The Titan stirs, and glares with rheumy eyes

And tries to see the narrow path we trod,

Then shakes his head, unwilling to believe

That Dead is God.

 

O

What shall we do

The wind is rushing through

And I am blown

                    hither;

I am blown

                    thither;

 

          War is ein Geister?

 

Oh, if we but knew

What we do

When we delve or hew;

Within this sacred wood

What desecration

Did you do?

 

Walk in

Between the Titan and the land,

Observe the barren aspect of its line,

Perceive, along the shadow of its hand

This verse of mine.

 

Like some lit city

Majestic, floating

Surrounded by night,

The sound of revels

All care uncaring

You led this loud

   Deceiving flight.

 

You led them, unfeeling

As drunks through wet gutters,

You squandered them, stealing

From all as you went,

You taught them to turn down

The lights, close the shutters

And took from them more than

The vision you lent.

 

Son of man

You only know

A heap of broken images,

Where the sun beats

And praise dies

Turning to grimaces.

 

Jug jug,

 

There I saw one I knew

And I stopped him there, crying

‘You! �" Jackson �" who was with me

In the ditch at My Lai,

How many were shot

Did you count all the dying,

But he turned from me quickly

To re-frame his reply.

 

(Because he knows that time is always time,

For one time, and one place,

A place is not a place before that time;

Which time is yet to come �" I see

Confusion in his face).

 

HURRY UP PLEASE, IT’S TIME

 

Think. Think. Do you never think?

If you think, speak, speak to me �" speak!

 

We’re none of us the same, the boys reply;

Do you not feel, are you not moved within?

Does nothing bring about the flush of change?

 

Emotion is pernicious! Don’t cloud your mind

With feel. Think.

Perceive �"

Sensibility, sensitivity,

Don’t feel!

Blink Blink.

(The ways of God are strange!)

 

My old man said follow the van

And don’t dilly dally on the way,

Off went the van with me ‘ome packed in it,

I walked be’ind with me old c**k linnet �"

 

And when the Archduke, my mentor

Took me out to ski in a bed,

He said:

‘Whee, hang on tight Marie �" and down he went.

I breed, much of the night,

And go south in the winter.

 

Wir tanzten im Wintergarten im Regen �"

Durch den Berlinen Nachten, mein Liebchen,

Durch den Berlinen Nachten.

Kannst du dich daran errinern…?

 

-         and all the conversations sound the same.

 

Under the brown moon of a winter smog

Mr. Homogenes, the urgent surgeon,

Adjusted his spectacles

And sat on the bog.

 

At the violet hour

Of the purple passages

The typist returns

With a pack full of packages,

De-frosts the fricassee

And separates the sausages,

But longs to be ravished

By a small bunch of radishes.

 

I’ve heard it all before, I’ve heard

The long, the short, the tall of it,

I’ve heard the ho hum,

And the fee fi fo fum of it,

In the mornings

And through the long-drawn afternoons �"

I shall wear my trousers rolled in macaroons.

 

And so it goes on

And on

And on, and on;

And so it beams its wisdom

Down the years,

The inimitable dichotomy

Of the uttermost monotony.

 

Gratias tibi maximus Catullas

Agit pessimus omnium poeta.

 

          I think!

          Blink Blink.

 

Call it not vain; they do not err

Who say, that when the poet dies

Mute nature mourns her worshipper �"

(She may be mute �" but nature lies!)

 

‘A quick one round the ballroom with you dear,’

(He’d grovel if he thought that it would please),

‘Oh, ain’t it fun, I’m glad I came this year…’

‘Step quickly now �" (and let me glimpse yer knees).’

 

‘It’s like a palace, ain’t it �" you’re from Leeds?’

(I never liked that ‘ole) �" ‘Well I’m from Brum.

Yes, I’m in brushes �" ‘lectric ones and leads,

A working trip I’m on -’ (Let’s feel yer bum).

 

‘It’s so sophisticated, ain’t it now?

Would you be in a cabin on yer own?

Oh, dearie me, that’s ‘andy’ �" that ole cow!

Still, even Mrs. P’s been seen to roam.

 

She smoothes her skirt with automatic hand

And fixes her hair with a tortoiseshell comb

Then leads him to her cabin, on demand �"

And lets him have his way

While she fiddles with the telephone.

 

     Row row row the boat

     Gently out to sea

     Merrily merrily merrily merrily….

 

The First Class are letting go tonight, Captain,

The First Class are kicking up their heels;

They won’t forget tonight, I’ll lay you odds

         Mein Kapitan

They won’t forget tonight.

 

They’ll mark this night

Along the lonely years,

When they were cool

And didn’t stop to blink,

When all was intellect and reason;

Drink your beers,

Drink up, I feel the cold

 

-         Don’t feel, just think!

 

When woman stoops to take her brolly

In the rain,

And wanders down

The Kaiser Wilhelmstrasse,

She’s careful not to glance

The way she came,

Fur den angezogenen Korper in dem grasse.

 

She paints her face, and saunters

Like a w***e

Which lights der kerzen Leuchter

At Frau Meiers,

Whose very moral eyes will seek

Beyond her door;

The young flesh

For her aging fires.

 

(What this has begun

They’ll all carry on,

For sixty odd years

They’ll all carry on

Carry on).

 

Jug jug.

 

She lay awake

And stared at stars

Not feeling now;

He snored beside her �"

Stuck for conversation;

She stared at stars

She stared at stars

And didn’t think

She lay awake.

 

The Titan rolled, and turned to look behind.

What comes behind, what

Comes behind

What comes?

 

     What went before

     Now comes behind �"

     A new dawn breaks.

 

Jug Jug

Woo Woo

Tereu.

 

The mist was down so long, I didn’t see it.

The mist it was �" we couldn’t see

Don’t look at me!

 

A dry brain

In a dry season

Beating oars

Elizabeth and Leicester,

A rat’s feet

On dry bones

That lay too long

By Cirencester.

 

How many boats have we got, Captain

How many boats?

How many miles to home, chaplain �"

                                     Mein Herr Kapitan?

 

Between the meter and the scan

Between the poet and the man

Lies the shadow.

 

Between the iceberg and the keel

Between the intellect and feel

The depth is shallow.

 

Between the dawn and then the night

Between the left thigh and the right �"

Marshmallow!

 

A woman drew her long black hair out white,

And screamed �" ‘We never knew that we were had;

We never knew…’

 

     Don’t think, you might just feel

     Don’t think, don’t feel

     Lock anguish at your breast �"

 

‘Too late, for you will all go down with me,’

She moaned,

Caught in some feeling reverie �"

Too late

Too late

You’ll all go down with me.

 

     Te Deum.

 

The boats have gone

The boats have gone

They will desert us

Every one.

 

Shall I set my lands in ruins

All these fragments

 

     They have bored me to my bruins!

 

(Die fasten glanzen

Und rost ein bischen mehr).

 

Ile fight you for it!

 

     Bosch! Why would you care?

 

Ditto Ditto Ditto

 

Tereu

Te Deum.

 

 

David Lewis Paget

 

(with no apologies to T.S. Eliot)

 

Reviews

[Poeticpiers]

I thoroughly enjoyed the romp but It brought to mind a pet hate The Angel of the North a hideous monstrosity purporting to be art Foisted on us against our will at prodigeous cost. Thank you for my pleasure ivor