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Heathcote Williams at 84
Would a wine from 1941 taste as sweet as the air once did
Through your talking? Those day and night phonecalls
Of nearly five years made a life which I am still living in part
As I write once more for your birthday, calling to you across
Cosmos, to at eternity’s edge slice through strife
And see if a splint of you can be seen somewhere between
The word-wept silence and shadow. For your elegant air, wild
With wisdom and even wilder youth taunts my age. As I was
Not as vibrant as you, despite being the life and soul
At some moments, whereas you are life and soul sat here
Assessing these lines from death’s stage. No doubt as to
Whether they’re worthy of you. And yet missives from the heart
Always hope that. And if they are not, then what spirals
Onto my laptop screen is light pressed onto the printed page
From a star travelling on ever further. I wrote before
Of your journey; by now you must be at Andromeda’s arch,
God-dust dressed. A meteor made from the poetic pulse
Of new planets. An expansive nebulae nuking each galactic glaze
As it bursts. You will be unfolding flapped light at a black hole’s lip,
‘cunnilinguing’ while giving alien head to the notion that matter
Itself is the motion of engineers who are astral, masturbating
Machines to spill Life-forms in any number of tones, shades
And firsts. You will be watching it all, swimming through sky
And space shifting. 84 on earth had you made it, you’re a
Star-child now, Kubrick shaped. You would have tripped out
Seeing that in 1968: 27. At the top of your game: stigmaticed
And Shrimpton’s, Frestonia formed, and star scraped. Blazing
Through booze and whatever else you were taking. I knew you
Calmer, yet glamour from the legend you left still homed
And housed your somewhat fragile frame, but what a force
You were sweet John Henley! Your words and work stay
Within me and are before with me as I write. You’re not
Doused by the oncoming rain or by rhyme, as even
The neatest of those can’t contain you. So, live on.
Send a signal as we track you still, those who loved. Friends
And family. Fans. Who should not forget. I’ll remind them
Of what you were and are, both in death and in action:
An idea and ideal always forming. And a new astral author
Spicing silence and sending bright books down from above.
David Erdos 15/11/25
Illustration: Claire Palmer
Album cover design and illustration for Between Bright Worlds by David Erdos
Suriya Recordings
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