Poem: Dialogue with TS Eliot

I am old
I wear the bottom of my trousers rolled

I shall curl up
in the cold
hear no more
the voices scold

In his day
he could have this say
We are drowned by machine noises today.

He was recognized.
I'm unknown to eyes
Sad, torn apart
and unrealized

I live in a second between noises and smoke
I like in a world where to live is to choke

I call for help but the help is too late
or too little because not enough is at stake
You're not that important
No rescues, no help
No one really loves you
You know it's your fate
You die in the harsh shell that seemed to surround
Others find loving arms
You just were found

dead, decomposing, alone, and bereft
You could not live nicely on what you had left

Human voices wake us enough to wake up
but not enough to save us from what we gave up
gently calling but where is the one
who will rescue me and save me so I don't give up

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  • No image found Selected Poems (Faber Paperbacks)

    Chosen by Eliot himself, the poems in this volume represent the poet’s most important work before Four Quartets. Included here is some of the most celebrated verse in modern literature-”The Love Song of J. ...

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