The Hollow Men

The Hollow Men

T. S. Eliot (1925)

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer --

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

What is in a name?

A name is a powerful thing. It identifies you to the world and with it you forge your own way through life. A name should not be easily discarded and left by the way side, it should be something that you can hold dearly onto in difficult times. The bastion that you can hide behind or charge ahead of as you move through life.

Most of us never think twice about our own names and only vaguely sometimes play with the idea of what it would be if we were ever to change it. However when opportunities present themselves for a name to be chosen, we tend to give it some thought.

Such a opportunity is given to ALL of us bloggers and whether or not you had given it any thought beforehand, the time still came around when you had to fill in that 'blog name' box and forever be associated with that name.

Now you may have chosen a name on a whim or come up with some witty, clever name that would be associated with the content of your blog. Whatever the reason or idea behind it, there it was, staring you in the face and (hopefully) welcoming to start posting away.

In Oblivion Lost has nothing to do with the game of the similar name, I have never even played it. It has more to do with the image below that I came across somewhere and sometime ago. Now I wish I had the talent to do stuff like that, I can't and I sadly don't know who did (if anyone does, please let me know).

(image used without permission, author unknown)

A blog is a place of self expression, a place to be completely random, incredibly focused or something in between. But I think a blog is also about trying to find yourself and what interests you and then go share it with everyone. Now we all want to understand ourselves (well I for one would dearly like to know more about why I do certain things the way I do, such as this writing this when I should be working on an essay for university, but that's procrastination for you :)

This blog is about carving out a small place on the internet that is just for me and of course any readers/commentators that happen along it. Now the internet is a vast labyrinth of so many people trying to do the exact same thing and it is quite easy to become lost and over whelmed within all that, but if you stop concerning yourself with what everyone else is doing and start thinking about what you want to do then oblivion becomes a place of complete and utter freedom. I mean, how can so much space ever be fully filled? There is so much out there to discover and be a part of that. All it takes is a small step in a single direction and a whole world opens up to you. And then there is no stopping.

As a very famous man once said:

"Not all who wander are lost."

Now pretty mush sums up what I am wanting this blog to be for me. A place where I feel free to be me and discover just who that me is. So let this journey of self exploration begin.

Hope you enjoy the ride :)

Testing. Testing. 1. 2. 3.

Hi there. This is not gonna be a big post, just wanting to get this blog up and running. When I have some real time on my hands I shall jot down some ideas of where this blog is likely to head in the future. Not sure how often I will update but hopefully I'll be able to give you something at least once a week, even if it is just a quote (I love quotes!)

So here goes, first blog, first post.

Matt