Not by the Direct Method.: I've always loved Tolkien's poetry.

Jun 08

Not by the Direct Method.: I've always loved Tolkien's poetry. →

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
a flaming eye, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the Minas Tirith streets at dawn
looking for a golden ring,
angelhaired horsemen and darkeyed Gondorrim burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry Girdle in in the machin-
              ery of Eru,
       who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat
              up smoking in the supernatural darkness of
              the cold stone flats floating across the tops of the other four Levels
              contemplating lute music,
       who bared their brains to Valinor under Mindolluin and
              saw Maiar staggering on stone roofs illuminated,
       who passed through the White Tower of Ecthelion with radiant cool eyes
              hallucinating Dol Amroth and Elendil-light tragedy
              among the scholars of war,
       who were expelled from the Tower for crazy &
              publishing obscene odes on the predilections of the
              Denethor,
       who cowered in naked stone rooms in underwear, burn-
              ing their gold in cooking fires and listening
              to the Terror through the wall,
       who got busted in their loin beards returning through
              Harad with a belt of Longbottom leaf for New York,

and so on.