After TS Eliot

After Philip Larkin (for now) but before I get round to Roger McGough, I thought I'd share this old Eliot inspired poem. As you can see, it's little more than a fragment compared to the works that triggered it. I quite like it though, despite the dubious grammar. I called it 'The Obvious Word':


Keen to avoid the obvious word
he held us up by his whetted sword
and pinned like pictures to his wall
said: not it, not it at all.

And I, avoiding cliches too,
avoided obvious words with you.
But pinned you, wetted, to that mast
until the obvious broke at last.

TSE, like thee and me
used words for what he thought to see.
Avoided obvious, truth his aim,
and at the end we do the same.

You'll find a slowly-building archive of my poetry (and eventually other works) if you go to my website