J. Alfred Prufrock, Jr. [A poem loosely inspired by T.S. Eliot’s famous one]

The too-early sun setting from behind these streets
must at last answer the question—
“What is it?”

Impossible, that our departure
must take place on some terrible train
that pushes along with loud clattering.

Shod horses leaping over obstacles,
carrying desperately a burdened and miserable cargo
to some abyss from which the soul may never return.

Few remember that outside the city
it is night. And here our voices are raised in song.
Melancholy trill through the air
as of a lone gunslinger in a haunted wood, disarmed:
“Sweetness, where the evening wind lies …”

With lovers’ sighs fill the air,
as if just now a final wave
of parting brought out to sea
sweet wine and dance and the blessed sleep …

But go now, in the amber dusk,
where each moment will be an eon.

Here at last will I find the old place,
the forgotten or vanished door
of my country home,
where time passes on without me,
and the monotonous tasks of life,
churning mechanically, recall to me
the memories