Birmingham Museums Trust; The Briar Rose Series - Study for 'The Garden Court' by Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Source: Unsplash, downloaded https://unsplash.com/photos/WN3f4NW3G70 (13.2.2020.)
Monarch Butterflies
I am afraid of things being written down Confined to the page so permanent There is an impermanence to song It is fleeting and of the moment Words grow wings Flying and out of the mouths of singers and crowds But never caught fully Never pinned down Celebrated for their imperfections Because they are a disappearing creation They live entirely in the moment A vibration, an exchange of enеrgy And that way things can be misheard... Reintеrpreted, you don't have to be seen You can be so loud so visible and yet Totally hidden By a flock of notes fluttering, already dying, Disguising the somewhat ordinary if anxious writer With their shimmering glory and colour My grandfather said I am Like the monarch butterfly That got lost I flew from North America In the eye of my mother... Drawn to the churches, frescos And old books of Europe The new world too new Back to grey stone and skies Ancient scrolls, death and dust Old death, not this fresh death There in your hand Glowing and Relentless
Song
The song speaks in grand prophecies
Older and wiser than me
Trying to out-think death and out-swim the sea
How would I speak
If it was just me
Not full of choirs, singing fucking constantly
How would I speak
If the song left me
That strange knowing entity
Man nor woman
Genderless, luminous
And free
Left me as it found me
Hollowed out
Self absorbed
Checking my phone and watching TV
Monster
So you start to take pieces of your life
and somewhat selfishly
other people's lives
and feed them to the song
At what cost
This wondrous creature
that becomes more precious to you
than the people that you took from
How awful
To make human sacrifices:
a late-night conversation
a private thought
all placed upon the altar,
but you can't help making a monster
Source: Useless Magic (Welch, F. (2018.) Useless Magic, Fig Tree)
