I knew
so had to come out and look
and it explains everything
Waning Gibbous!

Thunder roars
lightning strikes
rain lashes down
upon exits.
Who would want to
wake up to
clouds that hide
blue skies.
Our streets
will either wave happy
banners of red
or be filled with blood.
We tried but the
blind can never foresee
the foreshadowing of
our own doom.

Today I was given a lucky charm
Or defensive hanger to protect me
Against the flea bitten of spirit.
A talisman to conquer that elusive love
Against hybrids of tails and coins
Against hybrids of toads and butterflies.

Oh Lucky Charm defend me from
Those who make work more complicated than it is with
All kinds of *******.
Protect me against cars and their drivers
And those who make me afraid with their fear.

Give me luck so that I can put up a shield against
Those so twisted that they bite their tale with
Intentions I do not need to discover.
The two faces in one
And those who despise poetry and art.

I hope that by hanging onto you I will
Fight against those who want more from me
And find those that seek love.
Safe from those that make us afraid with fear
Wrap promises in warm true fingers
Not wearing gloves instead of hands.

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,
Paralysed 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 dead 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 ***** 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.