Mistah Kurtz—he dead.
A penny for the Old Guy
I
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed 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 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 kingdoms
In this 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 a whimper.
Truly a work of art, The Hollow Men by T. S. Eliot. He is one of my favorite poets, really, with this piece being my favorite of all time. It's times like these when I sit in my computer chair, surrounded by the deafening silence that permeates my room, I read this poem. And I think. I think of my life and how things could have been different for the better.
Of course, one cannot change the past; such thinking is dangerous to one's mind. Wishful thinking is just that -- trying to contemplate it becoming a reality can damage one's sanity. It nearly happened to me, so take my word for it.
Yesterday, two people I know that went to my school died in a car accident. There were three of them in a car, and they were driving to the Vocation school we have out in town instead of riding the bus. The three people inside were Justin, Dylan, and Jacob. They were following the VoTech bus on a very narrow road when they decided to pass it. When they did, they flipped their car into a ditch.
Justin, the driver, was killed instantly. Dylan and Jacob survived but were hurt. Dylan was so wounded that he was airlifted to The Med in Memphis. Jacob was brought to the town hospital. He will be okay.
Dylan, though... He died in surgery yesterday afternoon. He was crushed internally from the wreck. Out of the three of them, I was closest to Dylan. I hoped and prayed that he would be okay, but it was all in vain.
His time was already decided.
I am going to miss my friend. I wish I could have spent more time with him before yesterday. The last chance I had to hang around him was the last weekend of October when we TPed a bunch of houses from midnight until four in the morning. There were a lot of us there, and yet he did not want to actually do any TPing.
I wish I had convinced him otherwise.
I wish I had a chance to make my last words to him meaningful.
But wishing is just that, wishing.
So now I feel like I must end this entry of grief. Out of all of this, I can say that Dylan was a great friend, and we will all miss him terribly.
RIP Dylan Roland
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
