Fly Staggering along the Windowsill, Trailing a White Train Like a Bride

It’s not just a worldwide web—
It’s all your local cobwebs.

It can take hours, even days,
To remove your thoughts from them,

Ot at least from most of them.
You’ll think you’re more or less free

In a spare talkless moment
In a sunny, screenless room,

Then feel another cobweb
On your shoulder, and you’re back,

Your thoughts in the thick of it.
You’re the imaginary

Traveling backwards in time
That must convince yourself now

Is empty of the human
And meaningful memories

So you can blank your passage
To barrens before all that,

Convince yourself you’re in them.
Prufrock was right about that.

If human voices wake you,
You’re going down. The penny

You pull out of your pocket
Reminds you your world wants debts

And social obligations,
And cobwebs cover your eyes,

And you’re true human again,
Entangled in rank and shame,

Gossip and reputation,
Dumb, surging desire to win,

Once again already lost.
You have to escape again.