On BLAKE IN MAYFAIR by Steven Micalef (The William Blake Congregation – Spring 2026)
Stephen Micalef writes on and reads from an endless piece
Of paper onto which, folded are all of his dream scrolls for Blake,
Whose travails through London and Mayfair unfurl across
His new book, flagging worship, scribed from a lifetime’s dedication,
And all for Bill’s and our sake. ‘A prophet is not without honour’
He cites Mark 6.4 ‘except in his country’ and it is indeed confounding
How little this land praises him. I remember Alan Moore’s view,
That to research the word visionary pictures William, and so
It proves in these pages providing their own imbrocation as Blake
Brews and bubbles with love and learned words to the brim.
I give you a golden ball is for Niall, that great, gone McDevitt,
Joint Apostle with Stephen and Helen Elwes, his Catherine,
In which ‘Judas’ kiss by a candy store’ is forseen as well as
‘King David’s son next to Primark’, and Christ himself crossed
At Tyburn, dies and cries for all, in name only so that we may all
Gather in, to the world that Micalef makes, with his true Jerusalems
At each corner, with Blake as ‘the Desert Father’ from which
New sacred realms now arise. From South Audley Street
And the Grosvenor Chapel, to his heart and home at 17 South
Molton Street, freshly threatened as if the barbaric Grosvenor Property
UK were bastards and banishers blinded by the beauty and burn of the prize
Of Blake’s jewel in our crown, (albeit one left on some inappropriate bedpost),
While the great ghosts are expunged and the fire of the lamb of God were
Downsized. Bill and Kate’s domestic bliss is described in simple terms,
Painting pictures of peace and purity beside angels, or beside them perhaps
At the hearth, before ‘hammering Eternity’s ring’ next to Moses and Jesus,
As ‘humanity awakes in a sea of flaming stars’ and the dearth of all that was
Holy is clear in today’s lack of vision, which filled Blake’s eyes at all moments
Bestowing on him God gained worth. ‘If only Blake had met Hendrix’ Steve writes.
Well said, sir! Songs on fire. With Hendrix knelt at his fender altar as William
Fans flames beside. Pour the poem petrol on strong, soak the strings
With sound sainted from the 1804 and 1969, ever onwards across ground
And genre as all Angels sing backup, and at a pitch of perfection that even
Philistines would abide. ‘In This Very Room’ situates the Blake process,
Placing the reader right next to him and his quill, or blood-rush and brush
Flowing into the page, marking paper with mind print perfected through
The skin on the hands God gave Bill. From ‘Urizen’s universe to a grain of sand
in Lambeth.. Divine Vision wept evening dew on every herb of the breathing ground’
So we live beside and within William as Micalef now inhabits both soul and subject
With the love and lines lifted from everything Blake came to give. We see Steve’s
Sketches and scrawl from which angelic airs make word mountains. At each poem
Summit we see more of the world Blake bestrode. Down to New Bond Street
One day to deliver to Richard Edwards 537 watercolours, the ‘bibliomancy’
And poetry orgasm behind him as he and Kate entered into their sweet motherlode.
This a book then which burns with sex and saints sucking wisdom, from pearls
And petals, from shadow and street and from suns which blaze behind rain, industry
And invention. What Micalef makes is small beauty from a time we can taste still,
Despite the societal end we’ve begun. From Blake ‘mesmerised by Urizenic wheels
within wheels’ to dark despair in South Molton, this slim volume ‘Orson’s’
With Wellesian girth instantly, making a cinema of Blake’s soul as well as a pulpit
From which to preach his soft gospel and his sharp rebukes, honestly.
From the Canterbury pilgrims Blake drew as enquired by Cromek, to the ‘english
Michelangelo’ sculpting from ink and light a new age, Stephen Micalef forms
Both school and church beside Helen to rehouse and to honour what Bill
In London did on each page. Here are 100 sheets for every day Blake has given.
There a million more. Read. Feed from them. For there is bread and fruit
In these poems. Tygers burn brightly, lambs bristle. And gold can be glimpsed
At each stage. Blake’s death mask stares still, on Niall, Stephen and Helen;
Holy, his vision finds freedom for all of us who are struggling, striving
And searching for seers, unversed by vision and forever kept in time’s cage.
David Erdos 19/3/26
Photos: Max Reeves
Photos: Max Reeves
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