Daye 92 / Tempest Drive, Muireadhaigh, The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock, Ellie G.

would've happily spent much of the day
locked indoors
avoiding the bitter cold
which is blowing into ae
from across the urals
[in-joke for harin]
we'd wrapped ourselves up for the journey
which took two hours longer than normal
due to the amount of snow on the roads
when we arrived at tempest drive
brion had turned up the heating a notch
closed all of the windows
and drew the curtains and blinds
aurora had flushed away all of her drink and druhgs
announcing she would be 'clean' forevermore
and hitch
in an attempt to get us to empty the songs
of all plot
descriptions
scenes
and characters
read us some samuel beckett
('...did he not seem rather
to have issued from the ramparts
after a good dinner
to take his dog and himself for a walk
like so many citizens
dreaming and farting
when the weather is fine?..')

then i read a few pages from
a beefheart biog
y'know the bit where the captain
locks his band in the house on ensenada drive
for weeks on end
while feeding 'em naught but a cup of soya beans once a day
while they learn how to play
his songs
the way he wants 'em played

recorded remixed edited
some words & music & songs & noises & speech
for the next one
which was begun 16th december
several titles recorded so far:
shock o'kontacte
another galaxy
couvade II
can't doo right
unheimlich / north is strange
can't be certain can i?
mello
a mouse is not a votel
astronaute 16680 / spiral galaxy
phosphorus light night III
muireadhaigh
the psykick sea

wonder which of 'em will make it through...

***

i'm muireadhaigh
i can't deny
mind centres itself
in this large round head
allows me to look out
onto the soft january universe
which folds itself in against the eye
shall we go
you and i?

the light falls across you
and in your eyes i see myself
(i can't deny)
reflecting back at me
a dreamer dreaming in a half-sleep
for one phantom minute
in the cold january
of a long ghostly winter
(i can't deny)
i am haunted by some things
memories
mysteries
the light and the darkness
my past and
the future which blinds me with it's bright magnesium flash

***

'let us go then, you and i,
when the evening is spread out against the sky
like a patient etherized 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 dare?’ 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,
and 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 toward 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 drown.'
~ T.S. Eliot

****

(sings)
happy birthday to you
happy birthday to you
happy birthday dear ellie g.
happy birthday to you
xxx