Everyone likes to have a secret person
Of whom no one else knows a thing
For they only exist in their imagination,
But with them they’re having a fling.
They may not even live in this century,
They may not have ever been born –
An ideal that’s fleshed out from fantasy,
Who’s customized for the love-lorn.
They’re Ishtar; they’re Aphrodite;
They’re a timeless Helen of Troy;
They’re Alexander conquering the world;
They’re an orgasmotronic toy-boy –
An earth angel who’s beyond good and evil
Who doesn’t give a fig for morality,
With an hypnotic beauty hinting at the truth
Of worlds hidden beyond this reality.
Amused to be an unwitting muse,
They dance in and out of vision –
A trick by which you’re happily fooled
Into living life to please a magician.
Everyone has to have a secret someone,
Someone with whom they’re in love:
A crystal someone who can sing as they soar
And turn what’s below into what’s above.
Heathcote Williams
Illustration: Elena Caldera
Very Fine.