Salos

'Your words are no verse,
My dear William -
Try something else, won't you?
Stop making such a fool of yourself...
You and your visions -
Indeed.'

They whisper amongst themselves that Blake is mad
I hear their malice-loud whispers

In Russian they call
one who is crazy for God Yuródivyy
I think of myself
I think of myself

They call me madman
Incoherent
Worthless
Am I not the visionary I believe myself to be?
Tell me, starved dogs
Tell me, songless cherubims
Tell me, slaughtered lambs
Is it that you deceive me with your auguries of innocence?
Or does my sight beguile me?

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michaelangelo

My world is across the street
A thousand fathoms deep
I am what they cannot see
I am what eyes never read
I am -

But what am I to speak on will
Of my deepest wretched tears
I am no Prufrock, will never be
This is no lovesong, will never be
I am mad Prince Hamlet,
Come to wreck blissful ignorance
Is it only I that senses
That something is rotten in the state of Denmark?

In the room the woman come and go,
Talking of Michaelangelo

Do I dare?
Do I dare?
Inside, the Romantics sing passionate lyrics
Of their fanciful imagination
The words they utter
Are ready poems
But I may not enter
Dare I disturb the universe?

I laugh emptily
But I am no Alfred
This is my lifesong
I care not for the measuring coffee spoons

No!

I will fling open the door of the universe
Fear is a handful of dust
Fear is a handful of dust

Let tongues sing the songs
Of enthroned Wordsworth and regale Coleridge
I care not
I will teach those of my kind
'To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower'
I will sing my song
The world will listen