When You Can't Go Forward And You Can't Go Back

An Edda For Our Time

A wander through twelve
Or more utopias
All more or less cracked
But jewels all the same
First a place of howling dogs
Of teenage war and dreams
Where the sikh temple take
Their alcoholic outcasts
Where runaways are degrading
Drinking, building and fighting
The raw and violent side of
Anarchy. Of war paint
And hammer claws of
Black eyes and hangovers
I carved a stake
Like a unicorn horn
And painted it black
I was, with my long stare
Almost crowned blood-lord
But at the last second fell
Did not want this crown
Of skulls
So I wandered on
With aching bones and loose teeth
Came to a hero's haven
There the town and folk
Their protected wards, with fences
To hold back the evil empire
With metal hawks, it pushes
And the threat of Tarmac
Glass and Steel
Plates to catch the sun's fire gleam
And mills to drink the air
The men and women there wise
Beyond the years they hold
Veteran commanders of a past fight
Now to forage and to hunt
The bounty the empire leaves behind
We sup on the excess, their glut
Their greed fuels our effort
I thought I might stay forever
Learn from the best
Cook forever in the common kitchen
But with the fire in my eye I wandered
Not content to stay in fort
South and southern i went
To where a position nearly taken
Met our witch queen
And with the local troubadours parlayed
Sat in the castle that had stood ours
For ages. And entered the castle
Newly broken
A great hubbub and deceit
For our witch-queen worked her
Magic Sly.
Long evenings around the fire
And days spent learning
Descending were all the fire brands
Of south and central
But a camp of warriors in tents
Cannot a field plough
And a witch can only
So much corn duly sow
And so I wandered on
Cross bridges and ancient towns
Cross a dyke and by a river
Playing, through bluebell woods
Until at last we came to Hymn
Hymn who held the entrance
Deep in thought and meditation
And led us to where the fair people
Supped in tipis and laughed
Until their love ran pure
And their hearts run free
And twinkling eyes sing round campfires
And overall we drank the sound
Of the forest and lost ourselves
In reverie. But peaceful birds
Must give flight when startled
By prowling cats
So made to clover where a druid
Made us his guest.
And a rainbow appeared in the sky
I wandered on alone, seeking myself
I came upon a great black-flagged
Convergence across the sea
They spirited me to a vast field
With a big-top tent and raucous
Music playing. The wine flow freely
We fought to hold the land
A confederacy of outlaws and refuseniks
I stayed among the treehouse village
Wandered from shack to shack
Climbed to build their city in the
Skys.
But still I was drawn
To an even greater convergence
So I wandered the monsoon mountains
And lived among children, shepherds, cows
And clouds.
Played the mystic warrior with swords
Of digestive root
And I wandered to my miracle
Was teleported clear across the desert sun
And the thousands gathered to dance and sing
To caress tenderly and incestuously
The innocent bodies of one another
So profound the music on one mountain
I almost took flight from my body
But chose to writhe down the hillock
Shaking with joy and gratitude
A circle of singing hearts and
Sonorous sounds like babes unclothed
As free and lithsome as an antelope
I became, swallowing with glee whole fruit
Then came winds, and we clung
To the cragside, like the followers of Jesu
And still I had to go
To Jerusalem, my destination
War of peace in my eyes and heart,
Gut and loins
For a while I wandered
Backwards down the pilgrims road
Then came at once adrift, I floundered
I could not catch a wind
In the forest I sat eating fruits
A green man came to me, or
I summoned his prescense
And then how I flew!
I returned to the clockwork majesty
Of gears and sputters, of midnight gongs
Of markets, hubbub and animosity
There my castle was in discord
I could not stay
Took my leave with winter coming
I did not know my destination
But cruelty I cannot bear to see
And I wandered to a historical
Ground-breaking convergence
Of the broken, angry and ill
The circus of the disaffected, the disillusioned
The poets, the fighters, murders and
Hangers on. The Paris Commune
Of tents and general assemblage
And in the confusion glimpsed me God
In the Cathedral
And many months in winter shivered
Because I could only set my life
To some task. And suffered as the
Martyr among martyrs
And when the thunderclap came
I was in the canopy
And all about me laid
To waste
It could have been an end
But I was surrounded by the tribe
I never knew I had
It was a time at last to become
A multicellular organism, always
A leg or shoulder, belly or head
Touching the neighbour, never
Our minds and hearts entirely separate
Oh, we scuttled from shell to shell
Some huge theatres, some tiny hovels
With trolleys of dust and knickerknack
Preyed on moonlight, drank the depths
Of the city. Moved as one from city
To forest and finally split asunder
Like the slime-mould which comes together
And gloms apart
And when I returned from wandering
I found my place to save
The Library of Alexander from burning kept
And we slept on the floor like soldiers
Those musty bibles our forts and ramparts
And we ate together like monks
Our prayers for a better world
Slowly answered. And the sorcery of
Light slowly entered and a cry went
Up from the crowd
The people won at last
And I was glad.
But still I had to journey onwards
I had in my mind the notion
With red-and-black mohawked comrades
To settle upon a new world
Piece of land
So I took my flight to Mexico
And she, she, she
This deva with her spyglass
Her dances, her lips, her la la las
Her with the radiant mind and voice
Like bells. Journeyed with me to the jungle
And once more a great convergence
This time the end of the world at hand
A great tidal wave came to wipe
Our our newly constructed land.
We danced on the ruined temples
And I wandered on and on
A pirate house, our captain
One eye shot out in the war
A merchant in white powders
A lesson in Atavism
A very American Utopia
And returning to the smoggy mess
I set about expanding like a raiding
Pagan. More living room for the
Children. And drew our lifeblood
From parties, brought the tunes
Of peace and love but...
Can a tune be false?
We had a high castle and
I sated my lust on these three
Women, and gloried in the freedom
Of love unhitched and unburdened
We made a love nest in a church
And called our rutting holy
And went from meditation, to rut, to prayer
But violently they fought
And love turned to hate
And soon the need for solitude
Was all I needed to sate
And the last I wanderd
I made a camp to save a forest
At the locals folk bequest
And rituals we made to bring
Down the machine, that tore the
Earth and trees.
Blood of mine spilled
But wild apes tore down my Babel
I could not any more say
With kindness, I can forgive all things
The enemy came with offers of help
And before I knew it
I was betrayed
So many utopias
All of them cracked
All of them jewels
All the same