there were no
openings in the real world
so
he slipped into his
own story like Willie in ‛The Crop’
by Flannery O’Connor
and
was never seen
again,
sucked into the
kaleidoscope of Illiantyn
with its toy plastic
lens of ’59 that did not work
the brain that did,
dangerously
the tadpoles that
lived on in the slimy creek
scope for
hallelujahs in the green line under the edge of the glasshouse pane
no openings anywhere
and now age was a problem too
exclusion unto death
electricity in an
egg
bon appetit
he was a fine fellow
and his arse was huge
a paean to forgotten
utopias
as the economy
drowned in a whirlpool of inefficient capital
yet they ran from
the bloody boar
of child-smothering socialism
unable to tell
property from propaganda
he transitioned into
Illiana and died bound to the clapper of a giant bell
made up of vibrating
fancies
Wow, Robbie, what a ride
ReplyDeleteGlad you like it, Sarah!
DeleteHa. Beautiful, Robbie. Great. Strange. So many vibrating fancies, the brain working dangerously, I feel like I'm in the bell too. In-between getting nogginned, I find that I've still got a few atoms left to grab hold of a dim memory of Helen of Troy (?), and then the gall to ask you to tell me more about Illiantyn and Illiana.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Rob.
DeleteIlliantyn is a childhood imaginary country of mine and Illiana is its strange goddess. It is a quasi-utopian 'magic republic'.
Thanks, mate. Illiana you may know is another name for Helen, the face that launched etc. I had assumed that these places were imaginal, somehow outside of these hard realms, but it's a bit interesting that your words, your lands, are related in another public language to a powerful feminine principle of lure and seduction. Don't know...and I'll shut up in a minute. Talk of Sappho as the 10th Muse today is obviously getting to me. Henri Corbin's work on the Persian poets and the Imaginal sprang to mind, and anyhow how it is more like a spring than a well. And what does that mean except that we are blessed by it. Now I'll really shut up! :)
DeleteAll I can add to that is that my mother's name is Eileen (it was to be Elaine but someone stuffed up) and I think that name may relate to Helen too … but I'm afraid that sounds positively Freudian!
DeleteWhatever...it's very fine! :)
DeleteTerrific Robert. Especially like the ending. Stay away from clappers ...
ReplyDelete