After Eliot II or, The Storytelling Man

The lanky storytelling man
Rests on his back upon the bed;
Although he seems so sane to one,
He is crazed and nearly dead.

Nearly dead he hides within,
Susceptible to nervous fray;
While the she-poet calls to him
To leave his shell and come away.

His storied Roman lips oft fail
To say the gospel to its end,
While the she-poet raises sails
To take away her ailing friend.

The ’teller, he can never reach
The mast-head on his ship’s main mast;
But stands bewildered, ears enwax’d,
As the she-poet pilots past.

At adiós, his rasped refrain
Reflects she-poet’s fare-thee-wells,
But each time these two meet again
It in the heart e’er briefer dwells.

The storyteller’s anguished day
Is passed in work; at morn he runs;
She-poet’s time runs counterways—
At daybreak she turns in at once.

I saw the ’teller run his course
Descending on Chinookèd valleys.
As blaring drivers damn with force
The name of God, in concrete alleys.

Water and soap won’t scour his spleen
And he won’t in Peace’s bosom lie,
Amongst the porc’lain he’ll be seen
Standing in fear—ne’er speak nor cry.

He shall be sat, dressed dark as night,
By hamlet pub’s oak panes at dawn,
While the she-poet waves adieu
Raises her anchor and sails on.