LOKI
After Blake
Peter Cartwright
He is a kaleidoscope, turning slightly
his colours change, from blue and red
shards, looking as sharp as a knife,
to green and purple, strange and ethereal.
He is a chameleon, changing shape
and size according to the background;
gentle with the gentle, savage with the savage,
and slipping deftly from categorisation of eye or ear.
He is a shaman and a common tradesman,
he is elegant and earthy, sure and uncertain.
He is an earnest trickster,
a whimsical barbarian. He is fire and water,
sword and staff. Above all he is soul,
spirit of everyone, spirit of no one,
all at the same time. He is beyond
definition, beyond truth and falsehood.
He is a poet.
Listen to the poet and his songs of experience,
where the past and the present,
the future and the never, are to be found,
numinously merged into one.
This poem arises from Blake’s Songs of Experience
Peter Cartwright is a Parramatta poet who has been published locally and internationally including in ZineWest the last six years. His themes are mental illness, aging, and social justice issues.
Hassall Street: M. Cristescu