Whatever is ailin' me is still ailin' me. A sweet boy I know through GMSMA offered me seven days worth of Flagiol, an antibiotic. I asked him to let me consider it and hold them for me for a while.

Y'know, I can't help feeling that what's going on with my body is a purging of sorts. I started to have these cloacal issues when Boss Sunshine flipped out for the first time. I remember at the time doing a web search on Irritable Bowel Syndrome and finding out that it was caused by stress. And now, I'm flushing Boss Sunshine (in a way), and I think it's appropriate that my body is doing its damndest to rid itself of these various and sundry toxins.

Now, I don't know that I really believe that. I think what's happening is a microbial infection of the lower GI track, and hopefully a round of Flagiol will be sufficient to knock it out. But there is an appealing synchronicity to this that appeals to me.

And another thing. To balance the list of 'What I Look Forward To In Moving to Bucks County,' I think I should do a list of, 'What I Will Miss About New York City.' By no means exhaustive...

• Spending a summer afternoon sitting outside of the Factory Cafe scoping hot boys;
  
• Bear Blast Sunday's at the Dugout;
  
• The New York Sun;
  
• Knowing all the in-jokes in the New Yorker;
  
• Watching Daniel Liebeskind's tower go up on the World Trade Center site;
  
• My gym, which I've come to love pretty quickly;
  
• Those great New York Fuckin' City Moments when you feel yourself to be a part of something not only much larger than yourself, but something really, really great;
  
• Watching the Yankees at Ty's (What will I do when the World Series rolls around???!!);
  
• Thai? Vietnamese? Malasian? Sushi? Re-interpreted Tex Mex? Cajun? English? Russian? Indian? What's your dining pleasure?;
  
• Bendix Curry, at Bendix on First Avenue and Tenth Street (since we're talking food);
  
• Everything being open 24 hours;
  
• Having my laundry done;
  
• The Leatherman on Christopher Street;
  
• Such easy access to airports;
  
• So many people who--however much I try--I'll probably be seeing less of;
  
• Running into Special Guy, in particular;
  
• Relatively stable cell phone signals;
  
• Brunch...
  
  And no doubt more that I'm not thinking of.
  
  Anyway, I've got the chills again, so I'm going to bed. Here's the poem. I realize I've fallen short of my Thirty Poems/Thirty Days quota, but be assured that here at the home offices of Singletails, on the lofty upper floors of the Singletails Building on Park Avenue in the 50s, heads will roll as a result.
  
  This is the obvious poem. Obvious to me, anyway. When I first heard it read in 10th Grade English, it blew me away. Our teacher, Mr. Jimmerson (an old hippie who started the year clean shaven and let his hair and beard grow as the year progressed... and was such a sweet man), read it to us as an example of what a poem can do. It always has seemed to me to be just that: everything that a poem can do.
  
  Just don't ask me to translate the Italian. I only had a three semesters.
  
  Eat a peach!
  
  
  The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
  By T. S. Eliot
  
    S'io credesse chc mia risposta fosse
    A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
    Questa Gamma staria senza piu scosse.
    Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
    Non torno viva alcun, s'i'odo il vero,
    Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.
  
  
  Let us go then, you and I,
  When the evening is spread out against the sky
  Like a patient etherized upon a table;
  Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
  The muttering retreats
  Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
  And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
  Streets that follow like a tedious argument
  Of insidious intent
  To lead you to an overwhelming question....
  Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
  Let us go and make our visit.
  
  In the room the women come and go
  Talking of Michelangelo.
  
  The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
  The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
  Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
  Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
  Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
  Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
  And seeing that it was a soft October night,
  Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
  
  And indeed there will be time
  For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
  Rubbing its back upon the window panes;
  There will be time, there will be time
  To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet
  There will be time to murder and create,
  And time for all the works and days of hands
  That lift and drop a question on your plate;
  Time for you and time for me,
  And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
  And for a hundred visions and revisions,
  Before the taking of a toast and tea.
  
  In the room the women come and go
  Talking of Michelangelo.
  
  And indeed there will be time
  To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"
  Time to turn back and descend the stair,
  With a bald spot in the middle of my hair--
  (They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!")
  My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
  My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin--
  (They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!")
  Do I dare
  Disturb the universe?
  In a minute there is time
  For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
  
  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?
  
  And I have known the arms already, known them all--
  Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
  (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
  Is it perfume from a dress
  That makes me so digress?
  Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
  And should I then presume?
    And how should I begin?
  .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .
  Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
  And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
  Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?
  
  I should have been a pair of ragged claws
  Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
  .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .
  And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
  Smoothed by long fingers,
  Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers.
  Stretched out on the floor, here beside you and me.
  Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
  Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
  But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
  Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald)
  brought in upon a platter,
  I am no prophet--and here's no great matter;
  I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
  And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
  And in short, I was afraid.
  
  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.
  
  I grow old ... I grow old ...
  I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
  Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
  I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
  I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
  
  I do not think that they will sing to me.
  
  I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
  Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
  When the wind blows the water white and black.
  
  We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
  By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
  Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
  
  

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