You inherit the infinite palace
But live in its gate-house alone
Your orchard fragrant as incense
You aerosol the fruit in ersatz foam
Linen sheets of lavender by your bedside
You lie in electric nylon mummified
Dreaming Himalayas of the mind
You hurry back to base-camp for a tissue
You are a kind of rebel
One may always cut a deal with
Idealists are so often crucified
Remaining inaccessible to compromise
Freud and Jung devour each other’s Shadows –
Fish in Escher’s lithographic pool –
They hold no water in a world of finance
Liberals howl of Capitol’s control
Hunting-dogs will one day out-run Pan
Cattle-truck commuters on the Tube
Suffer Panic attack subliminally –
Psychic wounds are unassuaged by cities
In life-drained-of-life
Humans are turned to soap-
Opera in a lamp-shade shadow play
The Shade enquires ‘so what is on T.V.?
Give me something authentically not me
I am unreal enough to cry and laugh
At anything not really here nor there’ –
In the Library of Ancient Wisdom
Talking-Book is talking to book – ‘and this
May be recorded for training purposes’ –
Ledgers Alpha to Omega seek a merger
A Living Book
As Nature once a Quietist declares
‘I am the fifth gospel –
John from a heath of stubs –
I too testify…
Now open and read on…’
.
Bernard Saint
Illustration: Claire Palmer
.