Helping T.S. Eliot Write Better

434 moves ago,

after the slow perfection

of chess, I helped him landscape

The Waste Land to begin

when I was born,

in February.

At the mere mention

of fishing I exaggerate, outfitting

Tiresius, his hired prophet,

as a fishing guide.

Poor Tiresius, nervous as a door.

Tiresius flees the unreal city

after he sees the shadow

of a rat eating

a pigeon

under an ancient viaduct.

He sails to Singapore, where poets live.

But in coffee there is hope: Prufrock

at Ernst, hearing voices

in the hardware, remodels his garage

into a shop and buys a dog. Poor Prufrock,

his neighbors call him Jim.

Sunset stains the sky like a man bleeding to death.

Poor me, I think I see what comes to own us.