"I am a better poet than T.S. Eliot." -Michael Pendragon

Oh, the laughter....!

Per your request...

DAYBREAK
M.M. Pendragon
(Inspired by "Rhapsody on a Windy Night," by T.S. Eliot)

The moonlit masquerade at last is done
As music fades like stars at dawn's first kiss,
The streetlamps sputter sparks, like fireflies gone
As mad as April trees whose budded bliss
Will freeze beneath the season's final snow.

While through the quiet streets, the gentle glow
Of morning amber stretches sleepy arms
As taxis yawn their way past bursts of steam
That hiss through subway grates, while New York warms
Awaking from her bootblack-scented dream
To pushcart cups of joe and cigarettes.

I greet the old bronze clock at Herald Square
With ragged vagabonds, and fond regrets
Of cocktail-colored dances, unbound hair
And Cinderella eyes lost in the blur
Of midnight faces, heavy-lidded lies.

The new day beckons, Broadway buskers stir
Sweat suits give way to button shirts and ties
Newstands roll up their gates as pushbrooms sweep
The shadow-remnants of the night aside.

I wander through the crowds, too tired to sleep
Too spent to keep the pace; I opt to hide
Inside a small café, as sunbeams spill
Their contents 'cross a pigeon-feathered sky.

The morning calls, but I have had my fill
With alabaster hopes of wealth and fame
I nurse my coffee, watch the day slip by
And wonder why I'd never asked her name.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0NhytKdNLg

vs

Rhapsody on a Windy Night
T. S. Eliot - 1888-1965

Twelve o'clock.
Along the reaches of the street
Held in a lunar synthesis,
Whispering lunar incantations
Dissolve the floors of memory
And all its clear relations,
Its divisions and precisions.
Every street lamp that I pass
Beats like a fatalistic drum,
And through the spaces of the dark
Midnight shakes the memory
As a madman shakes a dead geranium.
   Half-past one,
The street-lamp sputtered,
The street-lamp muttered,
The street-lamp said, "Regard that woman
Who hesitates toward you in the light of the door
Which opens on her like a grin.
You see the border of her dress
Is torn and stained with sand,
And you see the corner of her eye
Twists like a crooked pin."
   The memory throws up high and dry
A crowd of twisted things;
A twisted branch upon the beach
Eaten smooth, and polished
As if the world gave up
The secret of its skeleton,
Stiff and white.
A broken spring in a factory yard,
Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left
Hard and curled and ready to snap.
   Half-past two,
The street-lamp said,
"Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter,
Slips out its tongue
And devours a morsel of rancid butter."
So the hand of the child, automatic,
Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the quay.
I could see nothing behind that child's eye.
I have seen eyes in the street
Trying to peer through lighted shutters,
And a crab one afternoon in a pool,
An old crab with barnacles on his back,
Gripped the end of a stick which I held him.
   Half-past three,
The lamp sputtered,
The lamp muttered in the dark.
The lamp hummed:
"Regard the moon,
La lune ne garde aucune rancune,
She winks a feeble eye,
She smiles into corners.
She smooths the hair of the grass.
The moon has lost her memory.
A washed-out smallpox cracks her face,
Her hand twists a paper rose,
That smells of dust and eau de Cologne,
She is alone
With all the old nocturnal smells
That cross and cross across her brain."
The reminiscence comes
Of sunless dry geraniums
And dust in crevices,
Smells of chestnuts in the streets,
And female smells in shuttered rooms,
And cigarettes in corridors
And cocktail smells in bars.
   The lamp said,
"Four o'clock,
Here is the number on the door.
Memory!
You have the key,
The little lamp spreads a ring on the stair.
Mount.
The bed is open; the tooth-brush hangs on the wall,
Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life."
   The last twist of the knife.

General-Zod wrote:
>
> "I am a better poet than T.S. Eliot." -Michael Pendragon

> Oh, the laughter....!

Knowing Pendragon, he's probably just lying about it.

🙂