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the loved wrong of hey alfred prufrock

let us go then you and I
when the evening has wretchedly passed and died
like cremations sanctified far gone unstable
let us so through curtained half-perverted sweets
the guttering defeats
of restless frights in some mired deep moorfells
and rawrust festerhaunts of cloistered hells
reeks that wallow like a tedious cerement
of perfidious descent
to bleed you to an overwhelming vestige
so strew rot fast exquisite
fetid foes forsake our visit

in the tomb imprisoned numbing woe
drowning in sickly sterile glow

the yellow hag that rubs and hacks upon the cinder stains
the sallow choke that rubs its frazzle on the cindered plains
flicked its dung into the corner of the evening
fingered upon the drools that crammed in brains
let crawl upon its flack the soot that mauls from chimneys
stripped by the terror made a sudden creep
and seeing that it was a soft allover blight
lurked once about the louse and fell asleep

and in need there fill me slime
for the fallow croak that hides among the sleep
slobbering its sack upon the widowed lanes
there will sublime there still free grime
to beware a face to grieve the faces that you streak
there will be rhyme to murder and cremate
and time for all the lurking and crazed hands
that rip and chop a question reprobate
time for ruined time for tea
and time set for a hundred drunken missions
and for omissions and incisions
before the waking of a ghastly glee

in the bloom of poison running slow
stinking of rotted stillborn woe

and to bleed there will align
to blunder in the snare all unaware
time to burn wrecked and distend the glare
with a cold rot in the middle of nightmare
they will flay now his lair is growling grim
my crawling bloat my collar flaunting firmly to the din
my wrecktide ditch immodest but averted by a grimhold whim
they will say but now his harms and dregs are thin
do I scare
unnerve the universe
in a minute dare malign
poor derisions and omissions which a minute will perverse

for I have known them crawl already known them pall
I have pleasured out my strife with toffee loons
my low rejoices crying with a lying moll
beneath the music from a faltered tomb
so how should I perfume

and I have known the lies all ready shown them fall
the dying wisps you in a perpetrated blaze
and when I am intimated crawling in a din
when I am skinned and wriggling on a scald
then how should I again
cesspit spout all the rottings of my craze betrayed
and whom should I exhume

and I have sown the worms already sown them all
alarms as braceleted as blighted bare
but in the dampbright drowned with light beware
is it perfume in distress
that rakes me in a jest
arms that die along a sable or wrap about a brawl
and shattered I assume
allow should I again

shall I say I have gone in lust through harrowed heat
and watched the smoked disguises from the ripe
old stony fens and dirt sieves heaving out their fingers
I should have preened a lair of jagged flaws
scattering across a score of violent frieze

and the afterdoom the evening weeps so peacefully
bruised by wronged singers
in deep fire or it malingers
stretched on fever fear astride you and me
should I after pleas and wakes in vises
have the strength to scorch the torment it entices
but so I have lacerated wept and strayed
so I have seen my dead born lightly sold bought in upon a platter
I am to scoff it and fear no fate scatter
I have seen the ferment of my lateness sicken
and I have seen the infernal sootman scold my fetid shitter
and athwart I was decayed

and would it have been worth its slandered scrawl
after the ruptured splattered blade the tea
among the forced chagrin among some mock of sympathy
would it have been worth vile
to have smitten off disaster with a guile
to have freezed the universe into a fall
to maul it toward some errorbent confection
to say I am hazardous stunned from and bled
some hack to fell you all I shall quell you all
if one peddling a willow by her dead
should say that is not what I rent at all
that is rotted at all

and would it have been scorched split after all
would it have been worth bile
after the dungbeds and the gorewards and the strangled sheets
after the hovels after the seared slumps after the skirts that stale along the corpse
and bliss and so clutch more
it is impossibly decayed lust glut I mean
but as if a tragic phantom skewed unnerved scattered and unclean
would it have been servile
if one throttling a pillow or throwing off fuck all
and lurching toward the wind’s low should say
that is rotted in gall
that is rot repellent at all

no I am not inched famine nor was meant to be
am an offender bored one that will do
to kill and regress lard between the two
despise and wince no doubt a sleazy fool
exponential glad to be abused
lunatic noxious and meticulous
full of dire penance and fit for a noose
at crimes in need alllost ridiculous
almost a shining null

I sow mold I sow mold
I shall swear the rotting of my trousers soiled
shall I scar my snare begrimed do I dare to reek of bleach
I shall wear night flagrant trousers and suck upon a leech
I have murdered swordblades singing each to each

I too rotsink and they will swing at me

I have seen their dying boneyards on the waves
scorning the nightmare of the graves foam black
when the wind blows the slaughter kite and cracked

we have mingled in the cinders of the sea
by sea-girls wrecked with seaweed leaden crowned
with tumid voice forsake us as we drown

****

Sid Faulk

Sid Faulk is a history professor in Texas who sometimes deals in non-history.