You should read the original poem. It’s very good.
I hate writing these types of poems. I hate imitating. But I kind of got into this one, so I’m going to post it. The structure is not mine at all mine. Most of the words are. I left Eliot’s language intact either because:
a) it served the tone/meaning of my poem
b) I changed the meaning of the language by modifying the context.
The Rural Life
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.
Where to go, you and I,
When the evening has blotched out the sky
Like Pollock with his paints that cry?
Where to go, through certain dead-deserted streets?
Oh so quiet retreats
Of peaceful nights in green-grass box houses
And garages, perfect for aged spouses:
Streets that sleep in this here tedious moment
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Where to go and make our visit?
Around the fire we all just stare,
Wondering what we’re doing there.
The heavy air that hangs thick and empty outside the car-window,
The silent air that bangs mute and empty against the car-window,
Pushed its way into the corners of our evening,
Lingered upon our thoughts that stand alone,
Let fall upon our backs the thick and empty nothing,
Let fall upon our ears the mute and empty nothing,
And fully seeing and perceiving my desperate cry for truth,
Thick and mute and empty, it hung my desperate fleeting youth.
And indeed there will be time
For the heavy air that puts to rest all those weary,
Rubbing its safe nothing upon old eyelids;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a future, kind and sweet for elder faces that you meet;
There will be time to order and to procreate,
And time for all the work and all the babble
That lifts and drops a question on your plate;
Time for us to sit and putter and play Scrabble
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the watching of television.
Around the fire we all just stare,
Wondering what we’re doing there.
No! No! No! There is no time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
No time! Don’t turn back and reverse the car,
We must, we must, keep going somewhere—
[They will say: “There is no place to stop in!”]
My still-clear eyes, my claws gripped around unopened gin,
My vision pure not blurring, so I demand: “I want some sin”—
[They will say: “But how? Where will we begin?”]
I do dare
Disturb the universe.
In this minute there is no time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have built my whole and hollow self out of careful lattices,
I have measured out my life with these Facebook statuses;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath clicking from an empty room.
Are we wasting our youth?
And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that stare not really looking anywhere,
And when I move to lock us in, they act as if they are sprawling on a pin,
If they feel pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out anything authentic, anything at all?
Are we wasting our youth?
And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Wild arms that swing the beat and pump the air
[But in the lamplight, drunk with sweaty hair!]
It is something from that glass
That makes my voice so loud and crass?
Arms that give out hugs unstable, and then steady on a table.
Am I wasting my youth?
But how could I begin?
Shall I say, “let us talk of T.S. Eliot”
While watching smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely kids in shirt-sleeves, sitting around a fire?…
I am a black and rusted derrick.
I am so very claustrophobic.
And the evening sleeps so peacefully!
Smothered by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Wrapped around the car, around you and me.
Should I, before drinks and pills and vices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
I have forseen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have forseen that eternal Cancer work my bones, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
No. I am not Good Apollo, nor was meant to be;
Am just some stupid kid, one that will do
To throw a bonfire, start a scene or two,
provide the place; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Contrived and anxious, but zealous;
Full of potential, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, King Midas.
I decay… I decay …
Shall I regret my life when my hair turns gray?
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
We have lingered under empty night of stars
With vacant eyes, minds, and souls in this glade
Till adult voices shake us, and we fade.
