Remote Eliot (T.S.)

J.L. Adams

 

What of the difficult narrative? In comparison
the scene from the Thames left men upon men
washing one another in saliva and urine and blood;
something feeble and oil-based in response to monstrosity.

My father spoke candidly of Vietnam, of women
run through with bayonets when bayonets were
no longer fashionable.   You do what rutting you can
in the middle of such heat.

His fingers play an invisible piano, autistically
conjuring the melodies of voices in crescendo:   a scream
before silence, a little red at the edge of pale fringe.

We tear ourselves apart over this narrative.   Tear
because it only seems civilized to display scars
in response to accusation.   I am not unscathed.

Eliot would have made of this closed circuit
circus, a graffiti artist, etchings in staccato
up and down Main street, in staccato
thunder trailing us, in technicolor Sanskrit.