Theme and Variationa: on "Lady

Theme and Variationa: on "Lady Lazarus"

[a passing eddy in the tidepool--ignore it gentle reader and move on, say a prayer or two for the poor soul who so unburdens himself that he may soon return to dancing before the Lord.]

aka Where is Thomas Chatterton when you need him?

[much deliberation about posting this, perhaps too much. Post it and then in your chagrin delete it. No one need know, no one will be looking, it's fine?]

It has been a day and more than a day. So below I vent, give rise to a smallish cloud of black dust which will fall to Earth unbidden and unseen. Those looking for edification would do well simply to skip this post and let me vent. Undoubtedly, all will be back to normal soon. Although, I am with Macbeth at this moment concerning circumstance, "It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." As Jesus said in another context, "This kind is only driven out through prayer." And at least there is the consolation of prayerful conversation, I have much to be thankful for, if only I can make THAT my frame of reference these irritants would slip into perspective.

from "Lady Lazarus" Sylvia Plath

I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash--
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there--

A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr god, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

from "In a Dark Time"
Theodore Roethke
Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
A fallen man. . .

from "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
T.S. Eliot

For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?