The Wizard of Clayton Close

From my book - 'Ishtar'.

He's steeped in the shadows of ivy and stone,

And time is the seed that the Wizard has sown,

Has sown for the magick of weaving the night

In a tapestry taken from burning delight.

Burning delight in the eyes of the mind he has

Stolen, to conjure insight for the blind, for the

Blind are the pebbles that litter his beach, while the

Tides of his mind set the blind out of reach.

 

The masonry wall is caught deep in the spell that he

Conjured forgotten, in some distant dell,

And if you should peer through the ivy and stone

There's a voice whispers... 'leave me, just leave me alone.

I've wandered with Ishtar, away from your eyes

From your spying and prying, away from your lies,

In the peril and terror that lonely men speak...

Seek not the undying, whatever you seek.'

 

But drawn to the shadows and drawn to the stone

I could leave him not ever, not leave him alone,

And turning one day to the light and the lace

He uncovered his forehead, uncovered his face.

I froze in the instant to question my mind for

The face spoke eternities, infinite time

And the stars held their place in the lips of the man

And the cheeks and the ears, and the eyes and the hand.

 

The wall crumbled inward as slowly I fell

Through his eyes to the stars, to the depths of his well,

And knowledge was mine as it never had been,

In my mind, misaligned, in the things that I'd seen.

But knowledge was danger, disaster and death

To the heart that would beat, to the mind, to the breath,

To the cheek of a girl or the smile of a man,

To the whisp' of the wind, to the shift of the sand.

 

And nothing exists in the nothing of me

But the stars and the sky, and the sand and the sea,

The light that was night and the dark of the day

As I drift in the tides of his vision away.

And look as I might for the eyes of his mind

I believe that the Wizard is totally blind,

That once in the depths of his well and his breath

We're imprisoned in freedom, the freedom from death.

 

If only the way was as clearly defined

In the world of the deaf and the dumb and the blind,

I'd crawl through the stars to the lids of his eyes

To the breadth of his world and the width of his lies.

For the comfort of woman and warmth of a man

I would give all the shift and the sift of the sand,

And not all the shadows of ivy and stone

Would lure me to walk in the winter alone.

 

David Lewis Paget