The Hollow [Milo]

by [M.J.] [Lobiwan]

[Sorghum bicolor]—he dead.

                            A [rain-shower] for the Old [Crop]

I

We are the hollow [milo]
We are the stuffed [milo]
Leaning together
[Panicle] 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 [field]

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other [Section]
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent [plants], but only
As the hollow [milo]
The stuffed [milo].

II

[Inflorescence] I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream [Section]
These do not appear:
There, the [inflorescence] are
Sunlight on a broken [rachis]
There, is a [spikelet] 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 [Section]
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 [Section]

III

This is the dead land
This is [pigweed] land
Here the [dust] images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead [milo]’s [leaf]
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other [Section]
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to [blowing] [dust].

IV

The [inflorescence] are not here
There are no [inflorescence] here
In this [plain] of dying stars
In this hollow [plain]
This broken [glume] of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid [photosynthesis]
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

[Yield]less, unless
The [inflorescence] reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight [Section]
The hope only
Of empty [milo].

V

Here we go round the [russian] [thistle]
[Russian] [thistle] [russian] [thistle]
Here we go round the [russian] [thistle]
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the [Drought]

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the [Drought]

Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the [Drought]

For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the [season] ends
This is the way the [season] ends
This is the way the [season] ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.


(With sincere apologies to T.S. Eliot and his lovely poem.)