Folks,

Dux, C51 and I are always dreaming up great ideas on paper that for some reason never quite seem to come to fruition in reality. Like the time we wanted fresh milk with our tea at the Hall. We tried to sell a rusty war surplus milking machine to Farmer Drubbins and take his only cow as the down payment.....

Every now and again it has been our custom for either Dux or myself to post a few popular verses. It seems to be my turn tonight. Here then is some food for thought from Eliot. I think it may be a favorite of Dux's as well. He mentioned that the last carnal encounter he had with Olga caused him more than a little suffering and that as she was having her wicked way with him the final lines of The Hollow Men came to his tortured mind. "This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but with a whimper."

As with our milking machine scheme, getting things done can be so hard. Dreaming up what might be done is, in contrast, easy. T S Eliot put it thus: “Between the idea/And the reality/Between the motion/And the act/Falls the shadow.”

THE HOLLOW MEN
T.S. Eliot

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpieces filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rat's feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar.

Shape without form, shade without color,
Paralyzed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us - if at all - not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer-

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom.

III

This is the dead land
This is the cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdom.
In the last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

For thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but with a whimper.