Preludes

The winter evening settles down With smell of steak in passageways. Six o’clock. The burnt-out ends of smoky days.

The evening lamp is lit. The reported cigarette butts, The ash–dim light of neighbored windows, Veil dreams above, and dreams yield void.

The sodden street, An electric avenue tarnished with leaves. Trampled turf against quaint forms, Under glass, a fungal aspect of flowerless gardens.

When the daylight shines thin between fences, And the iron vanishes in cobbled paths. Faces and bodies recede, Controls linger and swift the void reclaims.

In the aura of hell, That maps the places I have been…

• TS Eliot