The Stuffed Men

 My blog content is evolving with my newfound gift of time, so today I am using this forum to share my satirical parody of T.S. Eliot’s poem, The Hollow Men.

It is meant to be read side-by-side with Eliot's poem, but formatting details eluded me, so I am posting his poem below mine and letting the reader decide how to digest this. 

This is part of a much larger collection of thoughts/writings I've been working my way through, which may be posted here as they coalesce into share-able narrations.

The Stuffed Men

Sandra Balisky

2014

                I.

We are the stuffed men

We are the hollow men

Standing apart

Headpiece filled with 4G waves. Alas!
Our cyber voices, when

We update our statuses

Are silent and meaningless

As bubbles bursting as they land

Or echoes in a canyon from a million lonely voiceless people

In our enclosed, virtual worlds.

Communication without talking,

Relationships without touching,

Pics and captions that belie

                the haunting emptiness behind them.

Those who have crossed

With strong intent, to the Real World

Remember us – if at all – not as friends

But only as pixels, presenting ourselves

As the stuffed men.

We are the hollow men.

                II.

Eyes I dare not meet in waking life

Deep souls call unto deep

I dare not answer.

I am AWAY

                the status on my forehead clearly states

Collecting gigabytes of entertainment

Through my broken iphone screen;

There, in real world,

The voices are more obscured and more unheard

Than heartbeats in a shrouded tomb.

Let me be no further

                From a wifi-enabled device

Than a moth to the light.

Let me also be

Anything or anyone I want

Disguised in anonymity

Behaving as the wind dictates

No better.

Not that real person

In life’s other kingdom.

                III.

This is the cyber land

Where desperate men hide

From their fears

Of boredom, failure, and responsibility

Despairingly raising hope

To the google images.

It is like this

In our bubble world

Waking alone

In the century when we are

Most enlighted and connected;

Lives that should be lived

Sucked dry

by the Mind behind the machines.

IV.

The live are not here

There is no life here

In this canyon of masquerades

Two dimensional representations

Of everything that could be real.

In this last of meeting places

We fall together

All the words

of all the people

all the time

Swallowed up by the flaming, swirling black hole.

Lifeless, unless,

The internet dies

And the real souls

Multifarious rise

Eyes meet eyes

The only hope

Of stuffed men.

                V.

Here we go round the interwebs

The facebook, pinterest, google search

Here we go round the cyber chat

At five o clock in the morning.

Between the thought

And the action

Between the intention

And the behavior

Falls the internet

And life’s other Kingdom is suspended.

Between the hyperlinks

And personalized ads

Between the string of comments

And the consumer reviews

Life is very short.

When every secret is virtually

Shouted from the rooftops

And every reputation destroyed

By fact or fiction

And no one left who can discern reality

The shadow falls

But no one notices

Because the night is alight

With blue-hued screens.

This is the way the world ends

The world has ended but stuffed men don’t know it

We float on into hollow space alone in our bubbles.

 

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The Hollow Men

T.S. Eliot

1925      

Mistah Kurtz – he dead.

A penny for the Old Guy

I.

We are the hollow men

We are the stuffed men

Leaning together

Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

Our dried voices, when

We whisper together

Are quiet and meaningless

As wind in dry grass

Or rats’ feet over broken glass

In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,

Paralyzed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed

With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom

Remember us – if at all – not as lost

Violent souls, but only

As the hollow men

The stuffed men.

II.

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams

In death’s dream kingdom

These do not appear:

There, the eyes are

Sunlight on a broken column

There, is a tree swinging

And voices are

In the wind’s singing

More distant and more solemn

Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer

In death’s dream kingdom

Let me also wear

Such deliberate disguises

Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves

In a field

Behaving as the wind behaves

No nearer –

Not that final meeting

In the twilight kingdom

                III.

This is the dead land

This is cactus land

Here the stone images

Are raised, here they receive

The supplication of a dad man’s hand

Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this

In death’s other kingdom

Waking alone

At the hour when we are

Trembling with tenderness

Lips that would kiss

Form prayers to broken stone.

IV.

The eyes are not here

There are no eyes here

In this valley of dying stars

In this hollow valley

This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places

We grope together

And avoid speech

Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless

The eyes reappear

As the perpetual star

 Multifoliate rose

Of death’s twilight kingdom

The hope only

Of empty men.

                V.

Here we go round the prickly pear

Prickly pear prickly pear

Here we go round the prickly pear

At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea

And the reality

Between the motion

And the act

Falls the Shadow

                For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception

And the creation

Between the emotion

And the response

Falls the Shadow

                Life is very long

Between the desire

And the spasm

Between the potency

And the existence

Between the essence

And the descent

Falls the shadow

                For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is

Life is

For Thine is the

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.