Jeremy Richards, Nathan Ramos "T.S. Elliot's Lost Hip-Hop Poem" 2002 National Poetry Slam

T.S. Elliot's Lost Hip-Hop Poem 

By Jeremy Richards

Performed by Jeremy Richards and Nathan Ramos at the 2002 National Poetry Slam's Team Championship

Let us roll then you and I the evening stretched out against the sky like a punk ass I laid out with my fat rhymes the eternal footman is no one to fuck with alas he shall bring the ruckus you think that you can step to this and lo, I hear your steps like Lazarus echoing through my soul bring the bass

straight out of Missouri 

Harvard University in your face 

I've got ladies in waiting all over the place 

hear them singing each to each 

do I dare eat a peach 

you're damn right I

'll eat a peach

for who shall stop me with my

roof rock nonstop a clippity-clop a clippity-clop

I hear the horses carrying the wassailers 

I'm ready to impale their ears with my verse 

rolling off my parched tongue the way

trousers roll off my ankles 

no other literati around 

can confound 

the post-Victorian quickness I bring 

to the microphone 

— though I shall die alone —

but not before I rock the house

watch me douse you in my eternal flame 

of a freaky-ass style 

my crew has the knowhow 

with the European tangent

Кто твой папа сейчас (kto tvoy papa sejcas)

the Russian for “who's your daddy now?”

for I will tell you that I have

scuttled across the floors of ancient clubs 

and yay, knowing that you may never return 

I will tell you this

that I have

been over to a friend's house for dinner

and lo, the food was not any good 

the macaroni soggy the 

pees mushy and the

chicken tasted of wood

like the wooden coffin I created for myself 

if this is going to be that sort of a party 

I will stuff my desire into the mashed potatoes 

I tell no lie 

I will show you fear 

and a handful of hip-hop

making your body rock 

your soul shutter 

your utter of disbelief 

when the old school 

the ancient school 

returns from busty bookcovers

and scorned lovers 

to reign again on

the open poetry mic

bring the pathos

bring the pathos

bring the pathos

you wannabe MC's just can't stop 

till human voices 

wake us 

and we back the fuck up 

into 

eternity

[Applause]

At the National Poetry Slam 2002 Team Championship in Minneapolis, MN, on the stage at The Orpheum Theatre, Jeremy Richards (primary author) and Nathan Ramos of Seattle, WA perform "TS Elliot's Lost Hip Hop Poem" in Round 2 on August 13, 2002.

Video Lead: Gabrielle Bouliane

Cameras: Emil Churchin, Mike Cadela

Video and Audio editing and production: Tazuo Yamaguchi

PSi Executive Director: Steve Marsh

Host City Chair: Cynthia French

Last year's words belong to last year's language

Little Gidding, Part II
By T.S. Eliot
(Written in 1942, during the constant Luftwaffe air raids on London)

Ash on and old man's sleeve
Is all the ash the burnt roses leave.
Dust in the air suspended
Marks the place where a story ended.
Dust inbreathed was a house—
The walls, the wainscot and the mouse,
The death of hope and despair,
This is the death of air.

There are flood and drouth
Over the eyes and in the mouth,
Dead water and dead sand
Contending for the upper hand.
The parched eviscerate soil
Gapes at the vanity of toil,
Laughs without mirth.
This is the death of earth.

Water and fire succeed
The town, the pasture and the weed.
Water and fire deride
The sacrifice that we denied.
Water and fire shall rot
The marred foundations we forgot,
Of sanctuary and choir.
This is the death of water and fire.

In the uncertain hour before the morning
Near the ending of interminable night
At the recurrent end of the unending
After the dark dove with the flickering tongue
Had passed below the horizon of his homing
While the dead leaves still rattled on like tin
Over the asphalt where no other sound was
Between three districts whence the smoke arose
I met one walking, loitering and hurried
As if blown towards me like the metal leaves
Before the urban dawn wind unresisting.
And as I fixed upon the down-turned face
That pointed scrutiny with which we challenge
The first-met stranger in the waning dusk
I caught the sudden look of some dead master
Whom I had known, forgotten, half recalled
Both one and many; in the brown baked features
The eyes of a familiar compound ghost
Both intimate and unidentifiable.
So I assumed a double part, and cried
And heard another's voice cry: 'What! are you here?'
Although we were not. I was still the same,
Knowing myself yet being someone other—
And he a face still forming; yet the words sufficed
To compel the recognition they preceded.
And so, compliant to the common wind,
Too strange to each other for misunderstanding,
In concord at this intersection time
Of meeting nowhere, no before and after,
We trod the pavement in a dead patrol.
I said: 'The wonder that I feel is easy,
Yet ease is cause of wonder. Therefore speak:
I may not comprehend, may not remember.'
And he: 'I am not eager to rehearse
My thoughts and theory which you have forgotten.
These things have served their purpose: let them be.
So with your own, and pray they be forgiven
By others, as I pray you to forgive
Both bad and good. Last season's fruit is eaten
And the fullfed beast shall kick the empty pail.
For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
But, as the passage now presents no hindrance
To the spirit unappeased and peregrine
Between two worlds become much like each other,
So I find words I never thought to speak
In streets I never thought I should revisit
When I left my body on a distant shore.
Since our concern was speech, and speech impelled us
To purify the dialect of the tribe
And urge the mind to aftersight and foresight,
Let me disclose the gifts reserved for age
To set a crown upon your lifetime's effort.
First, the cold friction of expiring sense
Without enchantment, offering no promise
But bitter tastelessness of shadow fruit
As body and soul begin to fall asunder.
Second, the conscious impotence of rage
At human folly, and the laceration
Of laughter at what ceases to amuse.
And last, the rending pain of re-enactment
Of all that you have done, and been; the shame
Of motives late revealed, and the awareness
Of things ill done and done to others' harm
Which once you took for exercise of virtue.
Then fools' approval stings, and honour stains.
From wrong to wrong the exasperated spirit
Proceeds, unless restored by that refining fire
Where you must move in measure, like a dancer.'
The day was breaking. In the disfigured street
He left me, with a kind of valediction,
And faded on the blowing of the horn.




I am not a fan of T.S. Eliot. I actually think as a poet, he's kind of dick, specifically because of "The Waste Land:" "Let's write a poem you'll need a hundred pages of footnotes to comprehend, because nothing makes language beautiful and elegant like complete obfuscation. In a hundred years, the common man will proudly point to 'The Waste Land,' as proof to say 'see, I told you, poetry sucks.'"

Thanks, T.S., you douche, for ruining poetry promotion for the rest of us.

Although, Eliot's influence on poetry probably indirectly inspired the Beats to make poetry relevant again and also Marc "So What?" Smith to create slam to make it populist.

Poetry should be understandable. As language is meant to convey ideas from author to reader, speaker to listener, thus poetry, being language in its most polished form, should convey ideas in the clearest (William Carlos Williams' "The Red Wheelbarrow") or most elegant (John Milton's "Paradise Lost") or most bluntly straightforward (a slam satire) or most beautiful (Shane Koyczan's "The Crickets Have Arthritis" or Derrick C. Brown's "A Finger, Two Dots, Then Me") or most moving (Andrea Gibson's "Still") means -- depending on the poet, style and voice.

"The Waste Land" is the antithesis of poetry's purpose. It is forcefully convoluted with such obscure allusionary references that only Eliot scholars can sit down and read the thing without a footnoted guidebook to understand it. It also uses Greek, Italian and Sanskrit, none of which have I be fluent in since ... the accident ... and seem to have been added only to show off how wise and worldly, and better than you, Eliot was.

Of course, H.P. Lovecraft (horror author who gave us the ancient evil god Cthulhu), who hated Eliot probably as much I do, wrote a great satire of "The Waste Land," called "Waste Paper: A Poem Of Profound Insignificance," and it's a far more entertaining read. Lovecraft called "The Waste Land," "a practically meaningless collection of phrases, learned allusions, quotations, slang, and scraps in general."

And if you thought Eliot was a dick, you haven't met an Eliot scholar yet.

A Eliot scholar is the guy at the party who'll tell you why the 1998 E. Guigal Cote Rotie Brune et Blonde - which he says he's drinking - is vastly superior to the 1999 Alain Graillot Crozes Hermitage, which you're drinking -- although you just don't care to tell him you just helped the party's host fill those two bottles of expensive-looking wine from the same tap of Almaden box wine and, fuck, you only stopped to talk to this guy so your roommate could make moves on the hot hipster chick this douche-bag brought, and as soon as he gets her number and sets up a date, you're fuckin' out of here and headed to another party where the girl you like is double-fisting a pint of Guinness and a bottle of Jameson, like the kick-ass cool chick you love her for -- fuck, is this guy still talking?

That being said, I actually like some of Eliot's work. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" ("In the room the women come and go / Talking of Michelangelo," which referencing is ironic, I know, as this is almost like writing "On this blog, readers come and go / talking of T.S. Eliot, whom we claim to know") and "The Hollow Men" ("We are the hollow men / We are the stuffed men ... 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.").

The four-part "Little Gidding" series I vaguely remember reading in college, but yesterday, my mother sent me the highlighted passage as a New Year's Eve quote.

Which is why I love my mother.

(Whose married surname, coincidentally but irrelevantly, is Elliott.)

Shantih shantih shantih

"T.S. Eliot's Lost Hip Hop Poem" by Jeremy Richards

T.S. Eliot's Lost Hip Hop Poem
By Jeremy Richards

Let us roll then, you and I,
the evening stretched out against the sky
like a punk ass I laid out with my phat rhymes.

The eternal footman is no one to fuck with.
Alas, he shall bring the ruckus.

You think that you can step
to this, and Lo, I hear your steps like Lazarus
echoing through my soul.

Bring the bass.

Straight out of Missouri,
Harvard University in your face.
I've got ladies in waiting all over
the place, singing each to each;
do I dare eat a peach?

You are damn right I’ll each a peach.
Who shall stop me, with my Prufrock hip hop
non-stop, clippity clop, clippity clop
I hear the horses carrying the wassailers,
I'm ready to impale their ears with my rhymes
rolling off of my parched tongue
the way trousers roll off my ankles.

I get it done better than John Donne.
Pound for pound, like Ezra Pound,
no other literati around can confound
the post-Victorian quickness I bring
to the microphone, though I shall die alone.

But not before I rock the house.
Watch me douse you in my eternal flames
of a freaky-ass style, my crew has the flow
with European tangent, Kto vahsh otsiets saychoss--
the Russian for Who's your daddy now.

For I will tell you.
That I have scuttled across the floors of ancient clubs,
and yea, knowing that you may never return,
I will tell you this:
That I have been over to a friend's house
for dinner, and lo, the food was not any good.

The macaroni, soggy. The peas, mushy.
And the chicken tasted of wood,
like the wooden coffin I've created for myself;
if this is going to be that kind of party
I will stuff my desire in the mashed potatoes.
But I tell no lie, I will show you fear
in a handful of hip hop,

making your body rock, your soul shudder,
your utter disbelief when the old school,
the ancient school, returns
from dusty book covers and scorned lovers
to reign again on the open poetry mic.
Bring the pathos! Bring the pathos!
You wannabe MCs just can't stop...

...'till human voices wake us,
and we back the fuck up

into eternity.

Copyright © Jeremy Richards

Jeremy Richards is a writer, actor, and radio host living in Seattle. His work appears widely, including in “The Spoken Word Revolution Redux,” The Poetry Foundation, McSweeney's, The Morning News, Rattle, and on National Public Radio's “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered.”

In tours and competitions, Richards was a two-time member of Seattle's National Poetry Slam team, a three-time winner of the Bumbershoot Poetry Slam and was invited to perform on HBO's Def Poetry.

His new collection, “An Inaccurate Theory of Everything,” was recently released from Destructible Heart Press.

Jeremy Richards' website
Jeremy Richards' Livejounral

Cadaeic Cadenza, a poem in π

To my critics who think I include "too much mathematics" in my poetry, I have found that beats my wildest attempts at using mathematical number theory.
It's also one of the biggest formulaic constraints on writing a poem I've ever read, Mike Keith's "Cadaeic Cadenza." Why is it so constrained?

Think π.

"Cadaeic Cadenza" is a short story/poem of about 4,000 words composed in Standard "Pilish," or "πlish" in which the length (in letters) of successive words in the story "spells out" the digits of the number π - in this case, the first 3,834 digits. The constraint is reflected in the story itself: its narrator discovers that all the books in the world have suddenly been transformed into πlish. In order to illustrate this for us, the readers, excerpts from the πlish version of several works of literature are included in the story.

Written in 1996, "Cadaeic Cadenza" still holds the record for the longest composition using this particular constraint. Every word in the poem/story below comes from π. It begins thus (3.1415926...):

One
A Poem

A Raven

Midnights so dreary, tired and weary,
Silently pondering volumes extolling all by-now obsolete lore.
During my rather long nap - the weirdest tap!
An ominous vibrating sound disturbing my chamber's antedoor.
"This", I whispered quietly, "I ignore".

Perfectly, the intellect remembers: the ghostly fires, a glittering ember.
Inflamed by lightning's outbursts, windows cast penumbras upon this floor.
Sorrowful, as one mistreated, unhappy thoughts I heeded:
That inimitable lesson in elegance - Lenore -
Is delighting, exciting...nevermore.

Ominously, curtains parted (my serenity outsmarted),
And fear overcame my being - the fear of "forevermore".
Fearful foreboding abided, selfish sentiment confided,
As I said, "Methinks mysterious traveler knocks afore.
A man is visiting, of age threescore."

Taking little time, briskly addressing something: "Sir," (robustly)
"Tell what source originates clamorous noise afore?
Disturbing sleep unkindly, is it you a-tapping, so slyly?
Why, devil incarnate!--" Here completely unveiled I my antedoor--
Just darkness, I ascertained - nothing more.

While surrounded by darkness then, I persevered to clearly comprehend.
I perceived the weirdest dream...of everlasting "nevermores".
Quite, quite, quick nocturnal doubts fled - such relief! - as my intellect said,
(Desiring, imagining still) that perchance the apparition was uttering a whispered "Lenore".
This only, as evermore.

Silently, I reinforced, remaining anxious, quite scared, afraid,
While intrusive tap did then come thrice - O, so stronger than sounded afore.
"Surely" (said silently) "it was the banging, clanging window lattice."
Glancing out, I quaked, upset by horrors hereinbefore,
Perceiving: a "nevermore".

Completely disturbed, I said, "Utter, please, what prevails ahead.
Repose, relief, cessation, or but more dreary 'nevermores'?"
The bird intruded thence - O, irritation ever since! -
Then sat on Pallas' pallid bust, watching me (I sat not, therefore),
And stated "nevermores".

Bemused by raven's dissonance, my soul exclaimed, "I seek intelligence;
Explain thy purpose, or soon cease intoning forlorn 'nevermores'!"
"Nevermores", winged corvus proclaimed - thusly was a raven named?
Actually maintain a surname, upon Pluvious seashore?
I heard an oppressive "nevermore".

My sentiments extremely pained, to perceive an utterance so plain,
Most interested, mystified, a meaning I hoped for.
"Surely," said the raven's watcher, "separate discourse is wiser.
Therefore, liberation I'll obtain, retreating heretofore -
Eliminating all the 'nevermores' ".

Still, the detestable raven just remained, unmoving, on sculptured bust.
Always saying "never" (by a red chamber's door).
A poor, tender heartache maven - a sorrowful bird - a raven!
O, I wished thoroughly, forthwith, that he'd fly heretofore.
Still sitting, he recited "nevermores".

The raven's dirge induced alarm - "nevermore" quite wearisome.
I meditated: "Might its utterances summarize of a calamity before?"
O, a sadness was manifest - a sorrowful cry of unrest;
"O," I thought sincerely, "it's a melancholy great - furthermore,
Removing doubt, this explains 'nevermores' ".

Seizing just that moment to sit - closely, carefully, advancing beside it,
Sinking down, intrigued, where velvet cushion lay afore.
A creature, midnight-black, watched there - it studied my soul, unawares.
Wherefore, explanations my insight entreated for.
Silently, I pondered the "nevermores".

"Disentangle, nefarious bird! Disengage - I am disturbed!"
Intently its eye burned, raising the cry within my core.
"That delectable Lenore - whose velvet pillow this was, heretofore,
Departed thence, unsettling my consciousness therefore.
She's returning - that maiden - aye, nevermore."

Since, to me, that thought was madness, I renounced continuing sadness.
Continuing on, I soundly, adamantly forswore:
"Wretch," (addressing blackbird only) "fly swiftly - emancipate me!"
"Respite, respite, detestable raven - and discharge me, I implore!"
A ghostly answer of: "nevermore".

" 'Tis a prophet? Wraith? Strange devil? Or the ultimate evil?"
"Answer, tempter-sent creature!", I inquired, like before.
"Forlorn, though firmly undaunted, with 'nevermores' quite indoctrinated,
Is everything depressing, generating great sorrow evermore?
I am subdued!", I then swore.

In answer, the raven turned - relentless distress it spurned.
"Comfort, surcease, quiet, silence!" - pleaded I for.
"Will my (abusive raven!) sorrows persist unabated?
Nevermore Lenore respondeth?", adamantly I encored.
The appeal was ignored.

"O, satanic inferno's denizen -- go!", I said boldly, standing then.
"Take henceforth loathsome "nevermores" - O, to an ugly Plutonian shore!
Let nary one expression, O bird, remain still here, replacing mirth.
Promptly leave and retreat!", I resolutely swore.
Blackbird's riposte: "nevermore".

So he sitteth, observing always, perching ominously on these doorways.
Squatting on the stony bust so untroubled, O therefore.
Suffering stark raven's conversings, so I am condemned, subserving,
To a nightmare cursed, containing miseries galore.
Thus henceforth, I'll rise (from a darkness, a grave) -- nevermore!

-- Allanpoe, E.

Two
Change

My customary bedtime reading book hastily shelved, I sat, bewildered, pondering Allanpoe's poetry.
"Something's wrong", I murmured. "Despite Ravenesque timbres, so mesmerizing (the echo

'nevermore
nevermore
nevermore
nevermore
nevermore
nevermore
...'

survives, for example), my intellect detects wrongful alteration. This imitation, simulated Raven!..."
I recognized large, arbitrary changes. "Odd", I thought. "Why?" To research, I headed downstairs, muttering softly, "Hmm".
I hastened below carefully, there revisiting my book room. Books inhabited each table, shelf, and nook. Taking Cambridge Literature Treasury and proceeding to "Poetry, Poe's", my fears - oh my God! - heightened. Sighting no Raven but The Dark Bird, severe distress arose. "Absolutely, The Raven is maimed!", I exclaimed. "How?!"
Immediately arriving upstairs, I posited a conspiracy: a literature alteration conspiracy. "Are," I did quietly question, "all writings changed?"

Three
Of Carrolls

Jabwocky

Slithy toves, borogove
Gimbled there all out in strathwabe
Mimified and gyrified,
A rath is outergrabe.

"Beware a scrunch, a scratch, stepson!
Beware Jubjub, withstand a word!
Respect the Jabberwock and dread
Manxomian songbird!"

He, sword off hand, placement maintained
Thus to complete father's grand quest -
Then waited, vaunting showily
His progenitor's crest.

Therewith three swords he animized,
Before the creature, rumbling.
It was alive; its feelers straight
Burbled while whiffling!

The vorpall sword o' vulcanite
Smote - snicker! snacker! - artfully
A headless Wocky residue
Yielded strength mournfully.

"Youth did it - O, praised fearlessness!"
He issued melodies, forthright.
"Death's strike! O, day! Strallough! Stralleigh!" -
A-chortling in delight.

Borogove, strange slithy troves,
A brilligtime quickstep
Mimsy creatures, gimblified,
Frolicked on a steppe.

Four
An Hypothesis

I exhausted Carroll's rewritten ode, Jabwocky, soliciting essential clues to fully explain my difficulty.
"A Heisenberg Twinge could have modified books' contents thusly, but (my dubious thinking declared) surely these mutations are willed. I could sit and research a quantity of poetry's excellent, famous passages, or try uncovering the structures."
I therefore chose to scrutinize the words, and deliberate. I pondered games of alphabets, verses, language, sentences, equations, words. Lifting feather and inking it, my quill carefully scribbled thus:

A few schemata involving linguistical play

Lipograms: Writing so a letter's missing
Haiku: An uncommon ode (poem) bearing eccentric metrification characteristics
A Cento: Quite strange poem; borrowed lines
Anagram: To turn an item (words) into a novel expression
Double-entendres: Words, dualistic sense
Palindrome: Forwards or backwards, words are not transformed ("Redraw, detooted warder!")
A pangram: An amazing sentence, using whole alphabet
Acrostic: Inspected vertically, letters spell additional statement
Mnemonic: Can remember a factoid using this device
Pun: Groaner ("Stop, pundit!")

Thus utilizing the plumelike pen, I hesitated.
"To cause these variations surely insinuates much diabolical, innovative ingenuity. My poetry's clearly overturned; I cannot, however, rationalize. The [repeating] diabolical, innovative ingenuity! Although most beguiled, actually I'm near exhaustion. I am defeated, quite defeated, and undone!", I yelled.
Truthfully, the eerie enigma was greatly intriguing. Reading afresh Raven's discourses, I considered many options - a palindrome, a mnemonic, a conundrum.
"Full of mysteries, these poems crave observant review," I announced. Thoughts involving rest stayed, however, slowly causing lethargy.
"Now," (quietly said) "this sojourner will seek serenity. To bring sleep, the Musical Anthology usually renders help." Turning to "Poetry, Anderson", thus emerged a remarkable poem suggesting Jon's musical group, Yes.

Five
Dreams

Many depths of accustomed
Workings controlled when dreams single electric life do touch
Assessing expression, future affection, ways yesterday
O, to yesterday
The day, a way, flying through someone
Controlled my reigning

Accepting evenings knowledge, a shout
To a revelation laid endings, talks by a flower
No yesterdays, heart faster alternate
Mutant leaves creativity
Of clay, understand doors reigning silhouette our skylines
A stone

Expression - a children's - and being
Discoursing in lands, not put movement
Of hate - all expression creativity
The queen, those
Thousand answers sights done, understood, to mean changed
Love daughters

Memory come between all my antics
Did splendour I tell, a confusion endlessly?
We quickly as turned understood
Seed on turned
Mountains flowering of my sunrise, forgotten valley
Reasons together

Oh, all hands when highest
Touching a future way there's thunderous oppression
Straining and work, a spirit's
To a winter
Will I be, I regaining, returning, to this woman?
Outbound corner

Not I, apart yesterdays
You controlled my relayers, runner. I remember
My endlessly quickly soft mover
Night, night, deliver
Proportion spread running down forgotten coloured day rebounds
Watch loneliness

Arose ways satisfied from round
Thoughts consider touch preacher nailed daughters, as turned
Political regaining clear flower expressed
Understand rearrange, we dancing
We a foundation, morning, endlessly morning, while
Encounters searching

Not understand, my awakening
Hurry shoot out to transformed mutant
Enemy son, when here dislocate
Recorded chasers to battleship
In charger white begun returning moment loneliness
Is not seemed

From relayer's silhouette charge
Liquid sweet girl disregard, conceived topographic endlessly
Strength mornings I consider the good; highest
Splendour reasons silence
Watch one space season glider, I'll awaken
Regaining together

Silhouette amongst them, to lights
Stand more to stare, as watched begotten
There's to begin solid, I remember
A madrigal; tell a marcher,
Touch wonder's hand, there's running my eclipses
Somewhere accustomed

Returning,
Awakens
Awakens
Awakens
Awakens
To stories wonderous

Six
Cadaeics

Conundrums, conundrums, conundrums...nonsense! I needed some outdoor atmosphere. Taking Cambridge's Literature, I opened a door, waved my hand, commenced a promenade.
"I'm a Cadaeic!"
Huh?
"I'm a Cadaeic! I'm a real Cadaeic!", shouted an old woman.
Astonished, I took a step back.
"A veritable Cadaeic, old woman? Really?" Cadaeics' myths were numerous. A clique, a new mystic association, whose members had...power. An eerie power. So, I was now most curious. Still, staying calm, I placidly said, "Elucidate more, please."
"Cadaeics have," she murmured, "power. Do you?..."
"Yes, so I've intimated. Regardless, . . . Cadaeic? You apprehend this?" I said.
"Yes, sir. The true power lies greatly, heavily, within me."
"What," I softly inquired, "manner of power? A strength? telepathy? learning?"
"The power" (thusly continued that wizardly woman) "makes change in paralleled, tunneling universes. As I cultivate it, it is a powerful good, an element of great peace. Deplorably, he - Surta - uses it quite evilly, altering original Cadaeic intent."
"Changes? A Cadaeic scoundrel generating wild mutations? This, though intriguing, I cannot quite see. This humble spirit requires validation - your narrative produces numerous doubts!"
"My apology, oh sir - I'm utterly desperate. A Cadaeic normally avoids 'incapables', enjoying other Cadaeic contacts only. Can, stranger, you befriend me? Cadaeic existence - indeed, people's existence - demands prompt action."
Startled, I then asked, "What? A pedestrian incapable's worthless skill?"
"You, stranger, treasure the crucial analytic skills. Our people undervalue numerical ideas, preferring arcane, mystical, Cadaeified philosophy. Please help! Oh my Surta! O my Surta! Oh, lamentable Surta! O!"
I replied, "Yes, outlander, I'm available, amenable - also, somewhat numerical. Please, completely disclose:
When I am expected,
What assorted mathlike topics to review carefully,
plus
Where Surta's mysterious home is."
"Come, I recommend, before seven on tomorrow night (Michaelmas it is). Of a mathematic nature, review mensuration, infinite series, and trisection. Surta's shadowy home? Meet me. Cadaeic fortress awaits."
As my rendezvous was concluded, I meandered back, returning home.
"Quite impossible, what?", thought I. "An old Cadaeic, a bad Cadaeic...mythical powers subverted, indeed!" Regardless, curiosity still stayed. The woman's plea was serious, I concluded.
I desired an easement - perhaps more poetry. Opening Oxford's volume near "Poetry, Eliot", stanzas quite strange yet notorious filled my eyes. I saw Prufrock Lovesongs remarkably modified, thusly:

Seven
Prufrock

Let us depart then,
While eventide's withering skies threaten,
Impersonating the sufferers etherising upon pallets;
Together henceforth go, through these partially-unoccupied boulevards,
Muttering arguments like shards
About furtive nights amid threadbare hostels,
Discreet dialogues among oystershells,
Street complexes like dreary argument.
Its insidious regiment
Now leads to heavy questions . . .
Never inquire distinctly, 'wherefore?'
Directly go visit, herefore.

To an affair th' matriarchs sadly go
To talk touching MicAngelo.

Mist, cellophane breaths, rubbing on window latches,
A creamlike mist, rubbing, muzzling on window lattices
Soon lingered on watery apartments a curt instant,
Licked eventide's perimeter, tonguelike
(Partially discolored by fallen soot),
Vacillated a bit, making one extremely fast leap,
And, deeming that March night too remarkably quiet,
Stealthily curled womblike in quiescence, and fell perfectly asleep.

So, truly so, will exist a sundown
When amberlike fog permeates Cambridge Street
Above a door and a pane of doorglass;
Peaceful nighttimes darkening a boulevard,
Nighttimes whence faces verbalize to faces;
Nighttimes expedient for murders, or to intercommunicate;
Nighttime labors that create a query,
A query exalted, henceforth summarily despised.
Times touching you, touching anybody whom I appreciate.
Times involving several thousand hiatuses,
Forty illusions, forty revisions,
Finally settled by elegantly sipping green teas.

Matriarch speakers persevere [the discourses I forego],
A-talking about old MicAngelo.

So, cursedly, will remain eternity.
I can meditate: 'To aspire? Evermore aspire?'
Mornings for mounting stairs,
Brushing uncovered spot in nervous, swarthy hair -
[I think she'll certainly recognize a thinness!]
Stiff shirt, adamantly in place on chin,
Newly-purchased black tie, decorated using glamorous gold pin
[I conjecture he'll pronounce forthwith: 'Heavens! So frail! So thin!]
Should discreet adventures
Confound this earth?
Certainly eternity remains
To preside and deride, then turn around, reversing prior opinions.

Life advances, barely known -
The mornings, the bright middays, the nights of it.
My career is marked, poignantly, utilizing teaspoons;
I do know voices collapsing, sleepily collapsing, dying.
I do know the melodies emerging from the anterooms.
Henceforth, what ought I do?

Full well I did notice those eyes, everyone's glaring stares -
So glaring, implying formulated phrases.
Afterward [quietly subdued] I, stick-pinned, embellish a wall;
Sit stuck, wriggling, alongside baroque designs.
Altogether hopelessly extinguished, wherefore should I assume?
Mournfully spitting lifetime's butt-ends [a dreary existence],
What thoughts should thinkers think?

Truly known: discreet arms, jewelled arms,
Appendages slight and white and bare
[By th' lamplights, covered up by an hairy gossamer]
Is hyacinth what provokes memories,
Causes such reveries?
I loved graceful arms, lying across davenports or wrapping about nightgowns
Should, henceforth, I assume?
Moreover, what to presume?

. . . . .

The noiseless dusk falls on my narrow streets
When lonely fellows settle, smoking pipettes,
Sacredly communing, shirt to shirt . . .

Oh, I can envision being as an empty claw
Scuttling violently about seas' silent floors.

. . . . .

Thence unfolds an ominous property of the nighttime
Smoothed, having long hands,
Asleep . . . tired . . . lingering,
Easing comfortably beside you, while very serenely reposing beside me.
How, henceforth, after teapots, candies, ices,
Might lonely man's forgotten strength reenergize, and arise?
Every afternoon I've fasted and wept - cried, fasted.
Ofttimes I dreamed, then saw my head surrendered to Herod;
I never approached prophet status, lamentably.
Though greatness came, quickly greatness went.
Often I recognized eternity's hooded being, patiently biding, snickering.
Aftermath: fear perseveres.

So would it be valuable, valuable overall
Following saucers o' marmalades
Admixing porcelain and a talk among window shades?
Therefore, I can wonder, valuable indeed?
Alarmed by an evermore-present need
Pressing universes into mysterious balls
Slowly unraveling a disturbing, ultrameaningful difficulty.
I'll say: 'Hallelujah! Lazarus's return! I breathe, reanimate,
To entirely answer mankind's conundrums'
Afterward, if matriarchs, settling quietly upon pillows,
Should derisively pronounce: 'I despise meanings
My soul renounces all meanings.'

Would anything transpire worthwhile, everything appraised?
Mightn't a time symbolize 'worthwhile',
Following dreary sunsets, plain dooryards, shopping carts on street
O' the novels, after-lunch teas, lingering dresses -
Evermore a measured existence? -
It's a so-difficult mission, enduring this struggle!
If a candle revealed my innermost yearnings
Exposing skeletons upon vertical screens
If an oldish woman, settling cushions,
Discarding day's tattered, light-colored shawl, should aver:
'Worthwhile? I know no moments worthwhile,
Just shadowy, dreaded voids after while.'

. . . . .

I, too, am not William Shakspar's Hamlet - this I know, above a doubt.
Am one related lord, posing on the side
For acting very small acts or starting small episodes,
Most easy tool, Prince's attentive slave,
Am always ready, obedient, useful,
Politic, cautious, of a meticulous frame;
Extravagant also, a bit dense;
Many moments I've fitly enacted the classical Fools.

I'm old . . . exceedingly old . . .
Soon my trouser I desire rolled.

A procession of contemplation - which marmalade flavor: raspberry? peach?
I'll arouse up, and I will walk on Dartmouth Beach
To hear mermaids sing sublimely, and beseech.

I continue ignored, sorrowfully uninspired.

I have spied mermaid scales going fast underneath the waves,
Endlessly traversing an aquatic continent;
Wandering the high seas, capricious and content.

Thus we deliberate, oceanbound,
Looking for a harborside
Until mankind subsides.

Eight
The Readiness

Michaelmas. Waking up, I carefully pondered the baffling dilemma.
"Fact: vast changes unsettle alphabetic writings. Also, printed writings seem modified purposely (though possibly it's not so). A fact: this woman (Cadaeic?) I saw recently, before eventide, bravely spoke a fantastic tale. She spoke concerning change also, and insinuated I'm a relation amid these two!"
I swallowed a breakfasty meal heartily, then gingerly I approached downstairs' study for further linguistic review. I read poetry, employed statistics, parsed phrases. Near luncthime I modulated - as advised hitherto, I practiced mensuration, performed decimal expansion, and trisected triangles.
After my analytical labors, I read A Victorian Poetry Reader, The Book of Pastoral English Poets, Odes from Omar, Coleridge's Heroic Poem, and Pindar's Odes. "Still, I am not winning", I lamented.
I ruminated: "Is a chapter division's numbering important? Ignoring all elsewhere, I considered antepenultimate divisions. I succeeded there! Eureka! I codified a nice, simple formula which (I said to myself) "perfectly demonstrates the division's pattern. Some somewhat different rule appertains elsewhere, apparently."
Quickly I wondered: "Always this functions thus?" To see, I inspected longer antepenultimate pieces. Perfect agreement once again! No antecedent chapters functioned similarly, sadly.
I read poetry again, while hearkening to my clock - it was, I marked, dinnertime. Six literary booklets I collected (and, conjointly, a coat). On proceeding outwardly, the Cadaeic waited by a car.
"Quickly, neighbor, enter. Surta conspires - great danger awaits," she declared.
Instantly her vehicle (holding unlikely mankind-protecting partners!) did accelerate and commenced travelling toward...somewhere. Driving purposely, my companion's overall conduct was very somber. "Serious, is it?" I wondered.
To speak seemed an inapt stratagem, therefore nobody talked. "I think" (internally I said) "of a poem's subtleties I'll reconsider." Thence appeared, transmuted, one quatrain that that eminent Persian - the tent-maker Omar - fashioned (as translated by Edward FitzGerald), hence:

Nine
O Ruby Yachts

Poetic Muses alongside th' Bough
An oversupply o' Wine, possessed somehow
Thou with me treading Eden's Wilderness
Through all it seems a Paradise enough!

[Stanza twelve;
Translator: FitzGerald, Ed A.
3rd ed., 1872]

Ten
Clue

Completing poetical perusals, I restudied algorithms. "Perhaps," I speculated, "some counting scheme?" The car, I noticed, had just paused near downtown's Market Court. I then noted the miniature passageway which resided presently before us.
"Thence, neighbor, Surta awaits."
A mysterious passageway stood there, entreating. Entering, I discovered Surta's friend there.
"Promptly, proceed. Veritably, Surta's inventing monstrous calamity."
I walked the stone cobbles that covered the street and surveyed some ornamented doors. My guide uttered a word (magic?). Instantly I confronted an interior apartment - perhaps malevolent Surta's room?
I then discovered innumerable mystifying artifacts therein:

A "Mr. Sardonicus" poster (Wm. Castler's remarkable film)

Six heptagons containing six inscribed circles, drawn carefully below a weird finite-product formula

A large drawing showing horizontal striations with an underlined "sin (x¹²)"

Several computer prints involving triangles and angles

Accurately-reproduced picture of the Woolsthorp Manor House (Grantham, England)

Pieces for a strange "Snakes and Adder" children's game.

So I observed hastily. "Yes, I am close," I said. "Perhaps I am incredibly close now to resolving my dilemmas." I perceived a bookcase in shadow. I repeated, "Surely, I am close!". Infamous Surta's shelves (all in a grand display) contained:

A Cambridge Treasury
Poe's A Poem
Herbert's Dune, Wyndham's Triffids
Ad Infinitum & Beyond, Buzz Lite
Stories, Fitzgerald
Novels, Richardson
Aliceland, Lewis Carroll
Poems of England, Wordsworth
Oulipo Anthology, Perec

Several of my undeniable favorites I spotted among Surta's shelves. Undoubtedly worthy choices!
In my wandering I discovered Shakspar's Comedies & Dramas. "Hamletian inspection beckoneth!", I joked. In restless expectancy, I located the final paragraphs.

Eleven
William Shakespeare's tragedy King Claudius

[Fifth (terminal) Act]

. . . . So it is - deceased tanners a-populate the earth in multitudes. Wherefore? The skins are callously tanned! Here's, gravely, th' skull - O! - of a celebrated confrere.

HAM. Whose? Prithee, interpret.

A CLOWN. A mad fellow, foolhardy whoreson. Methinks he oftentimes frolicked i' your path.

HAML. Ay, I frequently experience jovial company.

CLOWN. A pestilence 'pon his head, stupid boaster! Doubtlessly oftentimes did 'e brag: 'I am Yorick, emperor o' merrymakers!'

HAM. Behold, [Thrusting skullbone heavenward.]
wretched Yorick! Truly, Horaitio, truly I adored him - excellent banterer and a great wellspring o' happiness. Thereon flourished a visage merry, a mouth pleasurably kissed, Horaitio. Where, I beseech, O head, are Yorick's verses, gibes, gambols? Sounds o' laughter tha' caus'd a table great gaiety? Quite chapfallen? Perceive, Horaitio, this deathmask expression: merriment, merriment, evermore merriment!

Horaitio, three troubling questions confound me.

HOR. Disclose, prithee.

HAM. Thus look'd Cesar, as entombed?

HOR. Yes, I reckon.

HAM. Would great Alexander's remains offend this nostril similarly? O! [Releases skull.]

HOR. Quite severely, assuredly.

HAM. So, is Caesar a dirtlike clump that remedies winecasks' splits?

HOR. No, I say, no! Blasphemy, sir!

HAM. Understand, Horaitio - visualize mankind's grave process. Originally, Caesar dies. In subsequent time, Caesar resides under th' earth. Thereupon, celebrated Caesar's decomposed. Forthwith, 'e makes loam. Consider - a loam, a plaste! Might this overlord's granules patch Horaitio's beer-barrel?

A Caesar now becomes a sediment
Henceforth to toughen graveyard's fundament;
Although a sovereign overrules with ire,
Henceforth, heartless, resembles th' ashy mire!

[Retreats]

Twelve
The Meeting

Carefully replacing Shakspar's Dramas in its shelf, I immediately heard a distant tapping. Anticipating Surta's arrival, instead I saw my Cadaeic guide.
"Directly Surta will arrive," she whispered. "Already I have ascertained several things. Every literary change that's happened is, indeed, caused by Surta's latest spell. I (actually, we, since I am quite unanalytical) must determine what change he's effected exactly, and what (if anything) will reverse it. But silence! - Surta arrives."
Fleeing quickly, my guide disappeared within an adjacent chamber. Evidently she maintained faith in my abilities - a faith that I didn't necessarily share. Casting my gaze near Surta's artifacts, I reassessed the clues present there. Each literary piece that I had studied flashed in my mind. Heuristic and mathematical schemes flickered in my brain.
I was interrupted by a stranger's entrance.
"Greetings, stranger. I knew that she was disreputable, but I never imagined she'd enlist an incapable..." Clutching a paper sheaf, the middle-aged man snarled the final epithet. Being sure he was Surta, I (surprising myself) gave a defiant reply.
"Capable, I'd say," I replied with sarcasm. "Huge literary changes were the first clue that the universe was amiss. Desecrated literature isn't a small matter - thus, I'll rectify the injustice," I declared.
"Fie!" yelled Surta, suddenly. "But a single flaw in my skills has permitted this discernment. Fully the entire universe (a single being excepted, apparently) can't even perceive the literary changes."
Determining that I was near the right track, I pressed ahead.
"Certainly, indeed, several rules determine each printed text's structure. Chapters besides the antepenultimate use a certain rule, and the antepenultimate uses a different rule." Haughtily I said this, as if sure, even as uncertainty nagged at my brain.
Clearly my statement had an effect, as Surta was visibly surprised.
"B'Gah's skull!" he hissed. "Getting a bit near the truth there, but still... I can't be hindered by a mere lucky guesser. Even with luck, my secret will remain hidden!"
Jauntily, he remarked, "The literary effect can be reversed - in quite an elegant way, I must say - albeit certainly this will never happen. But simply write a text using precisely the same rules as mine and all will be mended. Hilarity ensues at the mere idea - what a time-waster! Ha, ha, ha!", he cackled.
"Decidedly predictable, isn't he?", I said internally. "A big speech just like the classic villain's I'm-invincible-thus-I-might-as-well-tell-the-secret spiel!" I had, it seemed, learned all I needed, except the exact rules determining a text's structure. Given that I had already divined the antepenultimate-chapter rule, I was certain that, given time, I'd determine the remaining rules.
At that instant, my Cadaeic friend returned. Flashing me a significant glance, she entered in earnest debate with Surta. I sensed her cue and hurried exitward, stealthily grabbing the Shakspar's Dramas as I left.
Cursedly, I remembered that we had entered rather magically. I didn't have any idea where the exit was! I thus walked the hallways until I saw an uninhabited chamber. Camping there, I again began intense study, this time primarily in each text's early chapters.
Giving A Midsummer Night's Dream, the first play in the Shakspar reader, intense scrutiny, I suddenly saw it! "Electrifying!", I exclaimed, as further study verified, at least tentatively, my belief.
A rumbling in the nearby wall suddenly caught my ear. Jackhammers! "Egress must be nearby," I said quietly. Hunting left and right at eye level I quickly spied a crack. Behind it I saw the passageway we had walked a few minutes earlier. Jumping back, I ran firmly at the wall.
Gingerly picking myself up after my inelegant exit, I hurried back in expectancy, desiring the mathematical treatises residing in my study. During the next several days (as Surta's writing rules were quite difficult, the task advanced quite gradually) I crafted a slim treatise - this very tale - that fulfilled the necessary requirements. I finished it five days after Michaelmas at three A.M.
Descending my stairs, I apprehensively checked my Cambridge Treasury. Despite my best attempts, mutated texts still met my eyes!
Evidently, I was still missing a key clue. I was sure that my main rule (describing all chapters but the antepenultimate) was right - it was very bizarre, thus it must be right, I argued. But a new idea appeared: as the antepenultimate rule I had crafted was relatively simple, perhaps there was an extra rule that applied as well?
Carl Sandburg's Grass inhabited the antepenultimate chapter in the Cambridge Treasury. Just its few lines did I see, and study, thus:

Thirteen
Sandburg's Grass

Caskets piled beneath Austerlitzes, Dresdens
As, silently uplifting, blanketing, grass
Disguises it all, it all.

And as fierce Gettysburg witnesses,
Evident at Champagne, Falklands, Jutland,
I am grassiness, settling ever thus.
But ten years passeth, and my guests plead:
Fury, military struggles, did mutilate us?
Ere yesterday, hatefulness prevailed?

Cut my grass.
Evergreen grasses mend.

Finale
The Victor

Though concise, the aforecited lines revealed new formal properties. Thus I came to discover a new symbolic paradigm. "It's perfection now!", my conviction did maintain.
My book requested alteration - not, luckily, broad revision. Following numerous fixes, my opus was perfect! "Good show!" I exulted cheerfully. My intellect philosophized: "Is textual change fully mended?" I examined Cambridge's Anthology.
"Yes! Reality returns!"

Was this saga real? Apocryphal? Not believable? Perhaps. Regardless, Cadaeic foes remain, perchance to reciprocate or obliterate.
I celebrate.
I end, whispering ad infinitums.

THE END