Madame Sosostris

Another reading of The Waste Land, Lines 43-59

Fame catches a cold.  Fortune clears her throat.
She tells whatever can be told
From stories Waite & Rider wrote.
Wisdom deals the cards.  She plays a wicked game.
The deck is short, the rules are hard,
The names begin to sound the same.

The wheel turns.  The world walks
In circles.  Thank you everyone.
A fisherman up on the docks
Appears with extra gear at dawn.
Lady Belladonna rocks.
The one-eyed merchant carries on
His back a blank, an empty box,
And here, my dear, your card is drawn:

A sailor lost at sea.  She tells me this is me.
Drowned in the place I ought to be
The most alive and free.
Each card she flips for me is contradictory
Or worse: they're random, cryptic and
Impossible to see.

The wheel turns.  The world walks
In circles in a purple dawn.
Lady Belladonna rocks.
Right here, my dear.  Your card is drawn.

Live, she says, in fear that one day you will die
Within the stream that brought you here,
Without the time to wonder why.
Look while you still can at how your eyes will be
Like pearls buried in the sand
At the bottom of the sea.
Learn, she says, from this, and generally beware,
But as far as I can see, there is
No hangman anywhere.
Some things are forbidden.  Some things can’t be found.
The meaning of the cards are hidden,
Left for blank and turned around.

We, having our whole lives to read,
Would ask somebody blind to read us.

The wheel turns.  The world walks

In circles.  Thank you, everyone.