i shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool...

love this collection.

have loved j. alfred

since i met him

in professor hanna's

class, c. 1977.

(sue hanna taught me more

about words than i

did imagine at the time)

this?

it's a departure, i

suppose, from the past,

but it also hearkens

back. like all

great collections that

will be remembered,

it looks forward.

i don't really read fashion

press (did for many years)

anymore, just know what

i like. that's that. i can only

imagine what's been said

about all of this.

well. i think this

is one for history,

a game changer.

that's my vote.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Eliot, T.S.

1917

images: chanel + vogue + pgt