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Bagatelle

The Club Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

On a face to meet the faces.

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It’s time for tea and existential dread,
Shall we stroll, Miss Eliot and I instead,
Down the fog-choked yellow street,
Where the beat drop hard?

Do I dare intrude upon the human race?
With my nervous self-deprecating bass,
I measure out my verses with espresso spoons;
Their manicured claws dissect them.

And is it worth it? Let me work it.
My thing was put down long ago.
Flipped, reversed to swell a progress—
And in short, I was afraid.

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