~ Tribute to T.S. Eliot ~

Eliot is one of the greats. In an attempt to pay tribute to his poem, "The Hollow Men", I've written a similar poem with a bit of a twist.

~ The Shallow Men ~

I.




We are the shallow men

We are the plastic men

Lying together

Headpiece filled with fantasy. Alas!

Our fickle voices, when

We deceive together

Are convincing but meaningless

As dot matrixes and words

Or paint pixels airbrushed over real bodies

In our secret cellar of the soul




Shape with form, color without substance,

Self-made force, motion without emotion;




Those who have witnessed

With direct minds, to pleasure's other Kingdom

Remember us -- if you do -- not as real

Caring souls, but only

As the shallow men

The plastic men.




II.




Women I dare not meet in life

In pleasure's dream kingdom

These do appear:

There, the women are

Clad in sheer nothingness

There, is a webcam showing

And bodies are

In the mind's knowing

More distant and unreal caress

Than a faking porn star.




Let me be no closer

In pleasure's dream kingdom

Let me also don

Such intentional masks

Dog's slobber, Snakeskin, swollen staff

In a darkened room

Behaving on Lust's behalf

No closer --


Not that casual meeting

In the fantasy kingdom.




III.




This is the fake land

This is the practice land

Here the camera's images

Are shown, here they receive

The stroking of a lusty man's hand

Under the faint light of a computer screen.




It is like this

In pleasure's other kingdom

Being alone

At the hour when we are

Craving the fantasy

Lips that would kiss

Form exhalations of broken grunts.




IV.




The women are here

There are women everywhere, here

In this 2-D world of shooting stars

In this shallow valley

This broken heart of our forsaken kingdoms




In this fakest of meeting places

We fondle together

And avoid intimacy

Gathered on this information super-highway




Emotionless, unless

The soul reappears

As the real life woman

Many-hued, faceted being

of life's true kingdom

The only hope

of shallow men.




V.




Here we go round the prickly truth

Prickly truth prickly truth

Here we go round the prickly truth

At three o'clock in the morning.




Between the concept

And the doing

Between no emotion

And the action

Falls the Deception




For Mine is the Kingdom




Between the energy

And the climax

Between the disrespect

And the using

Falls the Deception




Orgasm is not very long




Between the lust

And the release

Between the potential

And the reality

Between the legs

And the sheets

Falls the Deception

For Mine is the Kingdom




For Mine is

Pleasure is

For Mine is the




This is the way the real love ends

This is the way the real love ends

This is the way the real love ends

Not with a voice but a keystroke.


~ C.L.R. ~