A Letter to Alfred Prufrock

I read your words and scanned them all too much,
Yet still could not put words to words you spoke.
But felt the meaning deep within my blood,
A flowing stream of nothing
But yellow smoke.

You list your life in objects,
Subjects – things concrete
To represent the absolute ethereal.
How else to go about it than how you did? –
How else to say what can’t be said?

If we can’t put our trust in human life,
At least we put our trust in objects base and vile.

Your ocean far, but still
At least respite.
To answer, perhaps, a life to live or kill?
The more you see, the more it darkens light.

I’d rather be, tricked by the Godless love,
Than self-imposed blindness – none to blame.
And wish I did, your questions answers give,
But none sufficed and so in twilight live.

In every morning, just as you talked
Of sunsets and the dooryards –
I waited.
Wait for what? Can you tell me?
Guide me? But all you said was this:
“You wait for nothing.”

And I am drawn back in
My quiet morning.
And continue still to wait for
Nothing.
Content yet not content;
Are you content?
Yes.

Sweet, sweet. I think I’ll take your invitation.
To question, tire, wear down to the bones;
Give up the luckless never-ending found –
And satisfy yourself in being drowned.