The Teenage Wasteland

“APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.”

– T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland

“I don’t need to fight

To prove I’m right

I don’t need to be forgiven

Don’t cry

Don’t raise your eye

It’s only teenage wasteland.”

– The Who, “Baba O’Riley (Teenage Wasteland)”

“can we have class outside”

– teenagers

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land,

we’re graduating in may

do we seriously still have to do the reading

theres like three weeks left you cant be serious

mixing Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

can we have class outside

Winter kept us warm, covering

Earth in forgetful snow, feeding

A little life with dried tubers.

Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee

With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,

And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,

And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.

its so nice out can we have class outside just once

Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.

i dont take german

you know i dont take german im in AP spanish

And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s,

My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,

And I was frightened. He said, Marie,

Marie, hold on tight.

and i said fuck you you’re not the boss of me

you’re not the archduke of sleds

In the mountains, there you feel free.

I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow

Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,

You cannot say, or guess, for you know only

A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,

And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,

And the dry stone no sound of water. Only

There is shadow under this red rock,

(Come in under the shadow of this red rock)

no

fuck you

And I will show you something different from either

Your shadow at morning striding behind you

Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

Frisch weht der Wind

Der Heimat zu,

Mein Irisch Kind,

Wo weilest du?

oh my god i dont fucking know any german

except for what they say in nazi movies

so like maybe four german words

“You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;

They called me the hyacinth girl.”

no one calls you that

—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,

Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not

Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither

Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,

Looking into the heart of light, the silence.

Öd’ und leer das Meer.

oh good great

ive magically learned german since the last time you tried to talk german at me

oh fucking wait

no

i assing havent

Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,

Had a bad cold, nevertheless

Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,

With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,

Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,

thats not mine

i dont know where you got it but its not mine

(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)

no

Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,

The lady of situations.

oh my god how much longer is this going to take

Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,

And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,

Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,

Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find

The Hanged Man.

ok well then why fucking even tell me about him

i dont find shit all the time

Fear death by water.

ok

I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.

yeah its fucking gym class

congratulations youre a fucking psychic

Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,

Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:

One must be so careful these days.

tell her yourself

Unreal City,

Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,

A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,

I had not thought death had undone so many.

Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,

And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.

Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,

To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours

With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.

There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying “Stetson!

You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!

That corpse you planted last year in your garden,

Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?

Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?

Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,

Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!

You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!”

I

AM IN

AP GODDAMN SPANISH

NOT GERMAN

NOT FRENCH

NOT LATIN WITH THE LATIN FREAKS

I DONT SPEAK ELVISH OR KLINGON

I SPEAK AP SPANISH

this is why no one talks to you

in like any language

II. A GAME OF CHESS

The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,

Glowed on the marble, where the glass

Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines

From which a golden Cupidon peeped out

(Another hid his eyes behind his wing)

Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra

Reflecting light upon the table as

The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,

From satin cases poured in rich profusion;

In vials of ivory and coloured glass

Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,

Unguent, powdered, or liquid—troubled, confused

And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air

That freshened from the window, these ascended

In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,

Flung their smoke into the laquearia,

Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.

Huge sea-wood fed with copper

Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone,

In which sad light a carvèd dolphin swam.

Above the antique mantel was displayed

As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene

The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king

So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale

Filled all the desert with inviolable voice

And still she cried, and still the world pursues,

“Jug Jug” to dirty ears.

And other withered stumps of time

Were told upon the walls; staring forms

Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.

Footsteps shuffled on the stair,

Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair

Spread out in fiery points

Glowed into words, then would be savagely still.

“My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.

i have to go i have a thing

Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak.

What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?

oh my god

nothing

I never know what you are thinking. Think.”

just kidding

im thinking of how much you suck butts

I think we are in rats’ alley

Where the dead men lost their bones.

oh okay well i fuckin think we’re in

dog-ass river

where everyone’s eyes are bastards

see

i can make shit up too

“What is that noise?”

The wind under the door.

“What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?”

NOTHING

GOD

“Do

You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember

Nothing?”

I remember

Those are pearls that were his eyes.

“Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?”

But

O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—

It’s so elegant

So intelligent

i dont even take shakespeare

they dont even let sophomores take that class

im in fucking advanced comp

and it fucking sucks

“What shall I do now? What shall I do?

you should fuck offffffff

I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street

With my hair down, so.

well youre still gonna be late for civ

so you might as well comb it first

you look like fucking shit

What shall we do to-morrow?

What shall we ever do?”

The hot water at ten.

And if it rains, a closed car at four.

And we shall play a game of chess,

im not going to do that

Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.

do you have any weed

When Lil’s husband got demobbed, I said,

I didn’t mince my words, I said to her myself,

HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME

ill be there in a minuuuute god

Now Albert’s coming back, make yourself a bit smart.

He’ll want to know what you done with that money he gave you

To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there.

You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,

He said, I swear, I can’t bear to look at you.

And no more can’t I, I said, and think of poor Albert,

He’s been in the army four years, he wants a good time,

And if you don’t give it him, there’s others will, I said.

Oh is there, she said. Something o’ that, I said.

Then I’ll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.

HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME

If you don’t like it you can get on with it, I said,

Others can pick and choose if you can’t.

But if Albert makes off, it won’t be for lack of telling.

You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.

(And her only thirty-one.)

why are all your friends so old

why are your friends all in the army and so old

I can’t help it, she said, pulling a long face,

It’s them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.

(She’s had five already, and nearly died of young George.)

The chemist said it would be alright, but I’ve never been the same.

You are a proper fool, I said.

Well, if Albert won’t leave you alone, there it is, I said,

What you get married for if you don’t want children?

HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME

Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,

And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot—

this is the weirdest prom

HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME

HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME

Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight.

Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.

Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.

ok bye

god

is he gone

fucking finally

can we have class outside today