The Love Song of J. Indy Prufrock-Jones

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Posted by Inby from sdn-ar-001waseatP254.dialsprint.net (168.191.238.16) on Monday, December 03, 2001 at 11:11pm :

Submitted for your approval, a small distortion of a junior-high English class staple...
(I've omitted the Italian prelude; the link to the original is below)

1 Let us go then, my whip and I,
2 When the silver screen is spread out against the sky
3 Like Marion drunk in her bar;
4 Let us go, through certain half-deserted temples,
5 The Hovito retreats
6 Of restless thefts of gold-plated cheap idols
7 And jungle trails littered with .45-shells:
8 Trails that follow like a tedious plotline
9 Of insidious intent
10 To lead you to an overwhelming question ...
11 Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
12 Let us go to the forum and make our visit.
13 In the forum the Indyfans come and go
14 Talking of Indy 4, or no.
15 The Nazi spy that rubs its nose upon the window-panes,
16 The Smith & Wesson HE that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
17 Licked its tongue into the corners of the Raven Bar,
18 Lingered upon the pools of bar vomit that stand in drains,
19 Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
20 Slipped by the terrace, made a desperate leap,
21 And seeing that it was a soft Nepali night,
22 Curled once about the bar, and fell asleep.
23 And indeed there will be time
24 For the Nazi goons that slides along the street,
25 Rubbing their backs upon the window-panes;
26 There will be time, there will be time
27 To bash a fedora to meet the Nazi goons that you meet;
28 There will be time to murder and create,
29 And time for all the scripts and days of hands
30 That lift and drop a headpiece on your plate;
31 Time for Marion and time for me,
32 And time yet for a hundred Paramount indecisions,
33 And for a hundred visions and script revisions,
34 Before the taking of whiskey and a date.
35 In the forum the posters come and go
36 Talking of Micah and A. Jolie.
37 And indeed there will be time
38 To wonder, "Do I dare escape?" and, "Do I dare climb from my office?"
39 Time to turn back and collect those term papers,
40 With a bald spot in the middle of my hair --
41 (They will say: 'How Indy’s stubble is growing thin!")
42 My morning Wested, my Raiders-type collar mounting firmly to the chin,
43 My necktie black and woolen, but asserted by a simple pin --
44 (They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!")
45 Do I dare
46 Disturb the college professor’s universe?
47 In a minute there is time
48 For decisions and revisions which a flashback montage would reverse.
49 For I have known them all already, known them all:
50 Have known the Crusade, Raiders, Temple,
51 I have measured out my life with hatters blocks;
52 I know the co-eds leaving with a turning fall
53 Beneath the soundtrack from a farther room.
54 So how should I presume?
55 And I have known the archaeology lectures already, known them all--
56 The words that fix you in a formulated phrase,
57 And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
58 When I am pinned and wriggling in front of the tenure committee,
59 Then how should I begin
60 To spit out all the wisecracks of my days and ways?
61 And how should I presume?
62 And I have known the arms already, known them all--
63 Arms that are revolvers and semi-autos and lost in China
64 (But in the torchlight, downed with light brown hair!)
65 Is it perfume from Elsa Schneider’s dress
66 That makes me so digress?
67 Arms that lie along a table, or rest within a holster.
68 And should I then presume?
69 And how should I begin?
70 Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through jungle temples
71 And watched the smoke that rises from the torches
72 Of traitorous guides in ragged sleeves, drawing their pistols? ...
73 I should have been a museum curator
74 Scuttling across the floors of silent galleries.
* * * *
75 And Marion, the dame in distress, sleeps so peacefully!
76 Smoothed by gloved fingers,
77 Asleep ... tired ... or she malingers,
78 Stretched on the floor, here beside my whip and me.
79 Should I, after booze and dates and snake surprise,
80 Have the strength to force the plotline to its crisis?
81 But though I have shot and whipped, chased and dug,
82 Though I have seen a monkey’s head (cooked slightly underdone) brought in upon a platter,
83 I am no Imam -- and here's no great matter;
84 I have seen the moment of grabbing the Grail flicker,
85 And I have seen the eternal crusader hold my coat, and snicker,
86 And in short, I was no knight.
87 And would it have been worth it, after all,
88 After the cups of Christ, the poison dates, the booze,
89 Among the chilled monkey brains, among some talk of Honduras and me,
90 Would it have been worth while,
91 To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
92 To have squeezed my fist into a ball
93 To roll it towards some evil thieving Frenchman,
94 To say: "I am Indiana, come from the temple,
95 Come back to kick your ass, I shall whip you but good" --
96 If one, settling a roundhouse by his head
97 Should say: "That is not what I meant at all;
98 That is not it, at all."
99 And would it have been worth losing tenure, after all,
100 Would it have been worth while,
101 After the lectures and the co-eds and the inscribed eyelids,
102 After the test papers, after more co-eds, after their skirts that trail along the floor --
103 And this, and so much more?--
104 It is impossible to spell Neolithic!
105 But as if a magic lantern threw excavation slides in patterns on a screen:
106 Would it have been worth while
107 If Marion, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
108 And turning toward the window, should say:
109 "That is not it at all,
110 That is not what I meant, at all."
111 No! I am not Rene Belloq, nor was meant to be;
112 Am an expert on the occult, one that will do
113 To steal an idol, start a gunfight or two,
114 Advise Sallah on equine transportation; no doubt, an easy tool,
115 Deferential, glad to be of use,
116 Charming, a cautious fellow, and rugged;
117 Full of high degree, but a bit obtuse;
118 At times, indeed, almost ridiculous--
119 Almost, at times, the Fool.
120 I grow old ... I grow old ...
121 I shall wear the bottoms of my Noel Howards rolled.
122 Shall I tilt my fedora behind? Do I dare to eat a date?
123 I shall wear a woolen necktie, and walk upon the beach.
124 I have heard my father and the gulls squawking, each to each.
125 I do not think that he will squawk to me.
126 I have seen the U-Boat riding seaward on the waves
127 Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
128 When the Nazis threaten to blow up the Bantu Wind crew, white and black.
129 I have lingered on the rail of the Bantu Wind
130 Watching Marion and the Ark taken by Nazis evil and grim
131 Till adventurous voices wake me, and I swim.



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