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Date Posted: 20:57:38 09/29/04 Wed
Author: just a fan
Author Host/IP: 69.149.107.225
Subject: What you don't mean won't hurt you.
In reply to: tse 's message, "what i meant" on 20:28:31 09/29/04 Wed


High school English Baltimore in the 1950's the sound of that poem has stayed with me all these years
thanks for bringing it back to mind, Lately I been thinking about F Scott Fitzgerald and Sylvia Somebody
Her annotated copy of the novel
I been reading a collection of essays one is titled
The Hollow Men
The black hole in The Great Gatsby
I am tone deaf I think, I can't carry a tune, and poetry is hard for me
but sometimes I can still hear it
like a train ride for my soul

>' That is not what I meant at all.
>
>That is not it at all. '
>
>
>
>
>>S'io credessi che mia risposta fosse
>>
>>a persona che mai tomasse al mundo,
>>
>>questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
>>
>>Ma per cio che giammai di questo fondo
>>
>>non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero,
>>
>>senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.
>>
>>--[Epigraph]
>>
>>LET us go then, you and I,
>>
>>When the evening is spread out against the sky
>>
>>Like a patient etherised upon a table;
>>
>>Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
>>
>>The muttering retreats
>>
>>Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
>>
>>And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
>>
>>Streets that follow like a tedious argument
>>
>>Of insidious intent
>>
>>To lead you to an overwhelming question...
>>
>>Oh, do not ask, ' What is it? '
>>
>>Let us go and make our visit.
>>
>> 
>>
>>In the room the women come and go
>>
>>Talking of Michelangelo.
>>
>> 
>>
>>   The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the
>>window-panes,
>>
>>The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the
>>window-panes,
>>
>>Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
>>
>>Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
>>
>>Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from
>>chimneys,
>>
>>Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
>>
>>And seeing that it was a soft October night,
>>
>>Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
>>
>> 
>>
>>And indeed there will be time
>>
>>For the yellow smoke that slides along the street
>>
>>Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
>>
>>There will be time, there will be time
>>
>>To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
>>
>>There will be time to murder and create,
>>
>>And time for all the works and days of hands
>>
>>That lift and drop a question on your plate;
>>
>>Time for you and time for me,
>>
>>And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
>>
>>And for a hundred visions and revisions,
>>
>>Before the taking of a toast and tea.
>>
>> 
>>
>>   In the room the women come and go
>>
>>Talking of Michelangelo.
>>
>> 
>>
>>   And indeed there will be time
>>
>>To wonder, ' Do I care? ' and, ' Do I dare? '
>>
>>Time to turn back and descend the stair,
>>
>>With a bald spot in the middle of my hair--
>>
>>(They will say: ' How his hair is growing
>>thin! ')
>>
>>My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the
>>chin,
>>
>>My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple
>>pin--
>>
>>(They will say: ' But how his arms and legs are thin!
>>')
>>
>>Do I dare
>>
>>Disturb the universe?
>>
>>In a minute there is time
>>
>>For decisions and revisions which a minute will
>>reverse.
>>
>> 
>>
>>For I have known them all already, known them all--
>>
>>Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
>>
>>I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
>>
>>I know the voices dying with a dying fall
>>
>>Beneath the music from a farther room.
>>
>>So how should I presume?
>>
>> 
>>
>>And I have known the eyes already, known them all--
>>
>>The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
>>
>>And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
>>
>>When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
>>
>>Then how should I begin
>>
>>To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
>>
>>And how should I presume?
>>
>> 
>>
>>And I have known the arms already, known them all--
>>
>>Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
>>
>>(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
>>
>>Is it perfume from a dress
>>
>>That makes me so digress?
>>
>>Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
>>
>>And should I then presume?
>>
>>And how should I begin?
>>
>> 
>>
>>             *        *       *     *       *
>>
>> 
>>
>>Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow
>>streets
>>
>>And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
>>
>>Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of
>>windows?...
>>
>> 
>>
>>I should have been a pair of ragged claws
>>
>>Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
>>
>> 
>>
>>                     *       *       *       *      
>*
>>
>> 
>>
>>And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
>>
>>Smoothed by long fingers,
>>
>>Asleep...tired...or it malingers,
>>
>>Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
>>
>>Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
>>
>>Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
>>
>>But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
>>
>>Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald)
>>brought in upon a platter,
>>
>>I am no prophet--and here's no great matter;
>>
>>I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
>>
>>I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and
>>snicker,
>>
>>And in short, I was afraid.
>>
>> 
>>
>>And would it have been worth it, after all,
>>
>>After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
>>
>>Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
>>
>>Would it have been worth while,
>>
>>To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
>>
>>To have squeezed the universe into a ball
>>
>>To roll it towards some overwhelming question,
>>
>>To say: ' I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
>>
>>Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you
>>all'--
>>
>>If one, settling a pillow by her head,
>>
>>Should say: ' That is not what I meant at all.
>>
>>That is not it at all. '
>>
>> 
>>
>>And would it have been worth it, after all,
>>
>>Would it have been worth while,
>>
>>After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled
>>streets,
>>
>>After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts
>>that trail along
>>
>>the floor---
>>
>>And this, and so much more?--
>>
>>It is impossible to say just what I mean!
>>
>>But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns
>>on a screen;
>>
>>Would it have been worth while
>>
>>If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
>>
>>And turning toward the window, should say,
>>
>>' That is not it at all,
>>
>>That is not what I meant at all. '
>>
>> 
>>
>>                               *       *       *      
>>*       *
>>
>> 
>>
>>   No!  I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
>>
>>Am an attendant lord, one that will do
>>
>>To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
>>
>>Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
>>
>>Deferential, glad to be of use,
>>
>>Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
>>
>>Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
>>
>>At times, indeed, almost ridiculous--
>>
>>Almost, at times, the Fool.
>>
>> 
>>
>>   I grow old...I grow old...
>>
>>I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
>>
>> 
>>
>>   Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a
>>peach?
>>
>>I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the
>>beach.
>>
>>I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
>>
>> 
>>
>>I do not think that they will sing to me.
>>
>> 
>>
>>I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
>>
>>Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
>>
>>When the wind blows the water white and black.
>>
>> 
>>
>>We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
>>
>>By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
>>
>>Till human voices wake us, and we

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