On the 8th anniversary of the passing of Heathcote Williams.
You won’t need me to say that we all thought you Immortal;
A fitting subject for study, as in my favourite of your plays,
In which 278, interviewed, in foraging through flesh, swills
The bloody until it’s the fluid veining just one endless day.
You are living it now, sucking stars, beyond our ken (beside
Campbell), sensation seeking in a countless counter culture
Out there, and writing with light through the dark, instead
Of the lightbulb mouthed for amusement; an Abductee
Astronauting, antennae charting each star to behold
Through your hair. We certainly still need you down here,
Mapping the marrs man’s inflicted at each pole of the planet,
Across politics of course and between, as you wrote for Dolphin
And whale, elephant, tree and the emblems for which
We raised standards. H, if we’re honest, you’re the emblem
Now, the lost dream. You are still referenced much but increasingly
Unremembered, in some sense written over by a particular book
I won’t name. But for those who revere what you wrote on wall,
Screen and paper, your words and texts are religions that the most
Secular can reclaim. Roy Hutchins has said that you need a new voice
To continue, and that it should be a young girl or woman who connects
And conveys all you did. It is a fantastic idea. Perhaps a girl from another
Isle, with no present knowledge of you, but who can be introduced
To the wisdoms Williams homed in his id. And who will make you
Immortal once more, just as I try to do with these poems,
And carry you on through the 80s and 2101, a star-child
Much like Kubrick’s bright babe, one light year on, if not older,
Who will run sun stun fingers through your zero-G hair,
Flying wild. It will be eight years today, and how strange still
Without you. But then, John Henley’s journey was always set
To stay singular. And so we watch, write and wait for the great
Reveal to connect us, not just as friends again, or immortals
But as calls across chaos. If that young girl hears now,
Heathcote, listen, for right now, through this writing
I am currently calling her.
David Erdos 1/7/25
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