Looking For Hope

Sometimes I think that T. S. Eliot was right with his description of “The Waste Land”, or is it ambiguous to think that we may have possibly reverted back to a time like that after the Tower of Babel collapsed, as there is no good news for people that want to find hope.  We will never be able to perfectly comprehend the obscure allusions of a culture that seems to be decaying and withering away before our eyes.  Can we overcome the seemingly impossible struggle between man and our greatest enemy, the gradual decline that represents the universal entropic (having a tendency to change from a state of order to a state of disorder) forcing doom upon all of us?  Percival was raised in a remote dark forest culture that disregarded what it meant to be a man and he would have remained an innocent fool if he did not ask the Fisher King, “What is the secret of the Grail?  Whom does it serve?”

April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.  Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding a little life with dried tubers.  There is no joy in Mudville even though the sun is shining bright, a band is playing somewhere enticing hearts with delight, and somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout that spring has arrived, because it is bringing flowers and mild weather and sex and love should be in the air.  April is the cruelest month because the numbness is gone and feeling has returned adding color, and although Jupiter granted Eos her wish that her lover Tithonus could become immortal, this did not solve the their problem, as Jupiter did not grant him eternal youth and longevity and being without eternal youth is what lead Sibyl the Greek prophetess to shrivel up like an old prune and say in extempore, “I want to die.”

Tiresias is now an old man with wrinkled female breasts, as he witnesses a loveless encounter between the exhausted typist and her lover, a lowly clerk in a real estate office.  He can see the typist home at teatime, as she waits for her expected guest. The meal has ended, she is bored and tired, but the young man is flushed and decided, he assaults her at once, enjoying his hasty encounter with the tired and unresponsive women and bestows one final patronizing kiss.  She glances into the mirror and thinks, “I’m glad it’s over”, as he gropes his way out, finding the stairs unlit.  This is a real humdinger, as Tiresias is the man who lived as a woman, and then became a man again.  This happened when he came across these mating snakes and he struck and wounded them causing him to transform into a woman, but seven years later Tiresias sees the same snakes coupling and this changed him back into a man again.  Juno and Jupiter had a disagreement about which sex experienced more pleasure when making love, so they logically consulted Tiresias on this issue, and he asserted that women had greater pleasure than men, and Juno struck him blind because she did not like his answer.  Jupiter thanked him for his support, and gave him the gifts of prophecy and longevity.  Lazy people are to blame for the failure of sex in a relationship, transforming sex into a purely physical kind of entertainment and thus it has it lost its moral and social purpose by becoming a matter of mechanical routine.

The famous clairvoyant Madame Sosostris might actually have been a fraud, as she has no clue how to avoid getting a cold, so why would anyone think that she can predict the future.  Phlebas the Phoenician died apparently by drowning and in death he has forgotten his worldly cares while the creatures of the sea pick his body apart.  Life holds no great significance as death and decay triumphs over the dead sailor at the bottom of the ocean.  Phlebas’ death is necessary before rebirth can index to the next step in the process.

Written for Daily Addictions prompt – Remote, for FOWC with Fandango – Ambiguous, for July Writing Prompts – A real humdinger, for Sheryl’s A New Daily Post Word Prompt – Lazy, for Ragtag Community – Extempore, for Scotts Daily Prompt – Index and for Word of the Day Challenge Prompt – Enticing.