Run Softly, My Song

Run softly, my song,

sweet song, by the waters.

I hear the waters chuckle.

Summer nights are friends.

Wind and wet nights

are departed unheard.

Summer crosses fingers of leaf.

I hear the chuckle spread.

At my back, friends

have sat down by the waters,

loitering till I end my song.

The river runs softly, sweet silk.

Written for Day 15 of Poetry Month at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.  We were asked to use a complex method of poetry generation to turn a section of Eliot's The Waste Land into something more upbeat. As I couldn't access the required site on my computer, I treated a section of The Waste Land as an erasure poem, then jumbled the words around some more. I actually had two attempts and ended up combining them into one piece, hence the repetitions. The section I used was:

  The river’s tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf

Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind

Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.

Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.

The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,

Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends

Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.

And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors;

Departed, have left no addresses.

By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . .

Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,

Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.

But at my back in a cold blast I hear

The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.