Twenty-Two Words from Eliot

Burnt, I circumambulate my maisonette
in protozoic stupor,
mulling hollow images formulated
from the sawdust
of etherised metaphysics.

Outside the window-panes,
sun-kist hyacinths
dance with the arboreal shadows
falling across my tea and marmalade,
but I conjure only
broad-bottomed sea-girls
in ragged trousers.

Empty, I whimper
like a fugitive.
                             Empty
is the cruellest word.

© 2014 Douglas J. Westberg. All Rights Reserved. Please share, link to, reblog, but do not copy or alter.

The prompt (adapted from The Poet’s Companion [Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux; New York: W.W. Norton, 1997]):

Skim several books of poetry by, perhaps, your favorite poets. Without paying too much attention to the context, jot down words that strike your fancy. Go through the resulting list and pick out about twenty of these. Fashion them into a poem, using these words and as few other words as possible.

In this case, I started with a list of twenty words exclusively from T.S. Eliot poems. (I added “burnt” and “tea” as I went along.)