English followed by une version en français y una versión en español. The Notes section, in English, quotes from several T.S. Eliot poems.

A noter : Compte tenu de toute l’énergie psychique que j’ai dû déployer pour repousser l’extrême droite et faire renaître le Front populaire, je m’étonne moi-même d’avoir eu le temps d’écrire un peu de poésie. Now to get Biden to step down and let Gretchen Whitmer, the Governor of Michigan, run in his stead.

My Eliot poem

Let’s say you’re old and you fall in love.

And – but! – your inamorata is taking her sweet time,

Before saying? Upon further reflection, I think not?

This is, or is supposed to be, my Eliot poem.

Toward the end of his – T.S.’s – life he wrote a good deal about time.

Should we say it has less to do with the sun than mortality?

And nothing like love to make us feel in a rush!

Before s/he gets distracted, before bigger wolves or warmer breasts come along.

(And what if, in old age, I should prove no longer able . . . ?)

The best thing about Eliot’s poetry is not the ideas or the scholarship.

It’s his music! When music there is.

The rhythms, rhymes, repetitions, alliteration.

Oh, dear reader, we are all too easily led astray?

The ambulance is here and we can’t find fresh panties.

(And why in hell is she taking her time?)

Notes

As regards T.S. Eliot and time, even in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” the great poem of his youth, the word “time” appears 13 times, seven of them in the following lines:

There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

And herewith two excerpts from musical, time-laden moments in his later work.

From “Ash Wednesday”:

Will the veiled sister pray for
Those who walk in darkness, who chose thee and oppose thee,
Those who are torn on the horn between season and season, time and time, between
Hour and hour, word and word, power and power, those who wait
In darkness? Will the veiled sister pray
For children at the gate
Who will not go away and cannot pray:
Pray for those who chose and oppose

From “The Dry Salvages” (Quartet 3 of the “Four Quartets”):

The tolling bell
Measures time not our time, rung by the unhurried
Ground swell, a time
Older than the time of chronometers, older
Than time counted by anxious worried women
Lying awake, calculating the future,
Trying to unweave, unwind, unravel
And piece together the past and the future,
Between midnight and dawn, when the past is all deception,
The future futureless, before the morning watch
When time stops and time is never ending;
And the ground swell, that is and was from the beginning,
Clangs
The bell.

Français

Mon poème Eliot

Disons que vous êtes vieux et que vous tombez amoureux.

Et – mais ! – votre amoureuse prend tout son temps,

Avant de dire ? Après réflexion, je pense que non ?

Ceci est, ou est supposé être, mon poème Eliot.

Vers la fin de sa vie, Monsieur T.S. a beaucoup écrit sur le temps.

Devrions-nous dire qu’il a moins à voir avec le soleil qu’avec la mortalité ?

Et rien de tel que l’amour pour se sentir pressé !

Avant qu’il(le) ne soit distrait, avant que n’arrivent des loups plus grands ou des seins plus chaleureux.

(Et si, dans la vieillesse, je me trouve, disons, moins capable?)

La meilleure chose dans la poésie d’Eliot n’est pas les idées ou l’érudition.

C’est sa musique ! Quand il y a de la musique.

Rythmes, rimes, répétitions, allitérations.

Oh, cher lecteur, nous nous laissons si facilement égarer ?

L’ambulance arrive, et on ne trouve pas de culotte propre.

(Et pourquoi, diable, prend-elle son temps ?)

Español

Mi poema Eliot

Digamos que eres viejo y te enamoras.

Y -¡pero! – tu enamorada se toma su dulce tiempo,

¿Antes de decir? Pensándolo bien, creo que no.

Este es, o se supone que es, mi poema Eliot.

Hacia el final de su vida, T.S. escribió mucho sobre el tiempo.

¿Deberíamos decir, tiene menos que ver con el sol que con la mortalidad?

¡Y nada como el amor para hacernos sentir en un apuro!

Antes de que se distraiga, antes de que llegan los lobos más grandes o unos pechos más cálidos.

(¿Y si, en la vejez, ya no pudiera… ?)

Lo mejor de la poesía de Eliot no son las ideas ni la erudición.

¡Es su música! Cuando hay música.

Los ritmos, las rimas, las repeticiones, la aliteración.

Oh, querido lector, ¿tan fácilmente nos dejamos llevar por el mal camino?

Llegó la ambulancia, y no había ninguna braguita limpia.

(¿Y por qué demonios ella se toma su tiempo?)

— Poem(s) and artwork by William Eaton.