I dreamed of Vitas Geralaitus the tennis star we are but men and women that signify our presence by the essence of existence that may be told in terms of our appearance on the high court for a season we took a chance to join the dance but later disappeared behind the taller boy once I held position of importance in the eyes of those who knew me and those who watched the world go round I was Gerulaitus till the sun went down before I stepped away
where are they now the lords of our admiration ladies who by virtue of fey culture’s acclamation joined the social conversation this teeming metropolis gives no time for authentication you are born and join the moving walkway with or without luggage you can pick that up as you go find yourself a centimetre a box with holes to run in and out of locks for your doors Gerulaitus may not live here anymore but if he did he would have added thousands to your value your significant purpose
the roving eye of the spectator in the stands your deaf ears dead to sound caught in slo-mo action you see the ball approaching it is like the sun the life that flashes by before the crowd slips away you are then the umpire upon your high tower you are the ballboy that grovels to look manly the programme seller roles that don’t mean a thing anymore that tour bus has departed long ago and before we get started on your hero Gerulaitus he does not play tennis anymore
Pushing the rock up a hill did not seem as vapid as it had for twenty years or more i was submerged in a pool of philosophy and yearning
i did not understand whatever was expected as if anything had been expected at all; pushing a lifeless shapeless entity
when others emerged out of darkness we sat together reminiscing of the past: victories, nostalgia and regret uncertain plans for the future
it seemed an absurd venture i learned to chisel at the rock’s face, make changes to its shape there emerged a likeness to myself i soon became dissatisfied with
each day the rock appeared a little heavier, more difficult to grasp – i took a hammer and pummelled it to dust gathered in a builder’s sack
i tied the sack with rope to make a sling and yoked it to my back; i dragged the awesome bag yet yearned to feel again the rasp of rock against my skin
i spoke with the chemist and a builder, learned by apothecary of arts; burned powder in a kiln, mixed in my sand and a little water: recreated stone.
my new rock was square with corners, smooth, and plain more unwieldy than before i made a lever for my shoulder to move this monolith i’d made
the more i learned of science and philosophy the heavier my responsibility to the gods for the charge they had given the more i wished not to become a slave
each time the rock hurtled back toward the ground it lost another corner, another edge i remained determined at my duty i would not relent
futility of life and despair grew inside me as days passed yet i remained happy at my work catching moments of pure joy as I wandered down the hill
life seemed soon it might end and my rock be left alone i had learned to think of others my rock had turned to bone flesh of my flesh; dear to me
the day arrived at summit of a hill i realised were in fact a cliff i made my leap of faith into the sea a hundred leagues below; my rock fell back as before and i was free
wherever dust settles and the folded flag lays flaccid sprinkled with bloods of the innocent a partizan and his gun the zealot in his zeal pontificates of power rest easy who hold the bigger gun wield one thousand brave men and women in their khaki's and their wine epaulets their medals shining brightly to catch heaven's glory through the sun edged clouds where thousands lay dead on fields of Flanders the killing fields we spoke of once before we stood among the ghosts nailed to white concrete posts each had his pieces placed in a box his femur and his clavicle his broken head with one eye rolling his splintered leg young men's testicles hanging freely we can put this down to loyalty frailty; ignorance or hang their memories on an epitaph upon the skyline where once Mary Magdalene lay to see her beloved walking in the gardens of Gethsemane and other bolden stories we read from a large, black leather tome carried out on Sundays past the unknown soldier the woman caught in sin pro-creation's fight continuing in the backstreets, in the dark rooms
wherever dust settles schemes as plans are made mankind's ingenuity imagined slavery they wrote a doctrine to support it ripped pages from the tome verses that lay heavy as were a priest's used tunic laid beneath the sturdy oak lectern brother Bartholomew once fashioned from rough, sawn timber: brother Bartholomew who read from the Imitation of Christ by à Kempis each morning flagellated to avoid masturbation when he imagined the breath or touch or breast of a young woman the softness of her kiss her splendid conversation his shoulder blades raw to touch with unhealed lacerations did not deny him his beliefs or erections until he found his knotted rope and drove the monster from him but when he dreamed he dreamed the son of man he dreamed of Sister Martha among the crockery and the ovens a stove where he found her naked spilt his Onas seed on the ground
wherever dust settles fashionable pessimism ensues as when mentioning God you become the hypocrite the racist, fascist Islamist or Jew much worse you are a gentile who in seeing light has the tainted view upon the hills of Armageddon where saints, sinners and dark angels wait to birth their rights unravel earth's new skies Enoch knowing God became no more Job's end was greater than his before Jacob wrested the angel who touched his thigh the four horsemen approaching arriving late and saying peace peace to you my brother, oh sister where no peace may be found where are the bells ringing at the sepulchre of the ascension of the dead and dying
wherever dust settles there you will find leaches cling to staircases that raise you up lift you from the dark pool where pupfish and toads congregate and mimic creation in their cold bloodied way detached and adjacent from any human sway we have lost friends over less travelled assertive into death valley and returned confused
I woke one day in that dreadful season pulling wallpaper from the drabbest ceiling i heard the cuckoo in my head, a sound i’d come to dread and larks ascending and descending to an unmade bed where art lives for art’s sake ‘neath a poem of the bard William Blake
I woke in context of a bad dream where monsters cavort and roll their pale green eyes beneath the wonder of clear, bluish skies, the wolds of March on a winter’s day in a land of penicillium cheese and home grown ale from where the dance of America set sail
There, the rocks of nature: sandstone, limestone, granite mountain plundering streams where Wordsworth said to Byron 'sell me one of your dreams for a sovereign and a ha’penny for whosoever shouts the loudest up on Bleaklow carries home a pale of sphagnum moss for the younger Bronte.
Hardy quipped midst the rose hipped ships of my Dorchester Ariana bows to her bee loved Manchester whose losses are not lost upon the truly holy from Lindisfarne to St Michaels Mount and Gwent as we were taught to wait in an orderly queue in tower block rain for a ticket that is money well spent
The wood chip paper falls from the walls, i dream of Deborah and the common people, spires and chimneys, Lowry men, street dogs Cambridge punts and steeples it is time to wake up and dress the children, gather wood, to honour what is good
I caught a circle in the sky the RAF fly around above the fens, the marshland and the wild, wild sea as gannets patrol the coastline from Argentina; pirate birds disgorge the Arctic tern and geese winter from Siberia; we welcome seaside entertainers; standup Jimmy Carr and the Proclaimers who need no retainers
Our history is a Book of Kells, a Magna Carta, a Road to Wigan Pier, the Order of the Garter; questions in an antique quiz for a Bamber Gascoigne starter and we all saw Gazza cry; Shankly, Stein and Busby with other fish to fry one Friday night in Bootle with Ringo, Richard Starkey
Such malarkey, tis’ not a limerick by Edward Lear brings good cheer to people dressed in khaki overseas in a pea green boat it rivals not great poet Dante yet if divine comedy is your desire pull up a chair i'm here all week for Will Hay an’ Georgie Formby, you're having a ‘giraffe’ laugh until your sides ache and split in two
For we own a solid culture out under the stars – Olivier, Rutherford, Sir Alec Guinness, Richard Burton; of early-day saints, the goons, salt of the earth shopkeepers, flat caps, Scots and Irish Dragoons, Willie Shakespeare on the village green where do the Kinks take banter from Noel and Liam Galacher and Damon’s Blur
Listen O’ “Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art” were I to begin again in any other hallowed tone or were i to feast on luncheon vouchers inspired by Earl of Sandwich, of cucumber, egg and cress, buttered bread, playing cards and cricket the ambiguity of reason attested to in season by likes of John Keats, Wordsworth, Benjamin Zephaniah
Oh Britain roll your blood-red carpets down and welcome a history of queens kings and royal swans; a history of commerce and monetary exchange Fleet Street, the Bank and Drury Lane Corgis, the Hillman Minx, Hawker Hurricane aeroplanes; legends that show quiet disdain for our current unholy inaptitude
Stand around Stonehenge or from whence those stones were hued: multitudes, whether Whitman or Pollock imbued, left us in the lurch America so bright, America, born of a virgin bride taken from Great Britain’s side as the rib of Adam’s sleep where pioneers and pilgrims now gently weep the pagan circle so nearly complete
Barter not the charter of the Mayflower sweet English rose must again send her roots out deep, stand alone in her seas, build her castles strong as Lancaster and Stirling, Carrickfergus, Caernarfon, we have no further duty of regret, no one has taken greater blame of colonial shame all disperged in past Christian blood
Same blood we left in Flander's field or spilt in building civilisation’s honest moments, we for long enough were tied to Moses' burning bush, laid bare on Isaac’s alter, tho' we attested the democratic oath more than most and so, this Britain shake your fiery mane shout your roar, a dragons at the door give him no quarter, fight for your sons and if needs be die for Mrs Brown’s lovely daughter
By rain, by the colour of her hair by the sweet, soft fragrance of her cheek the curls fell and warmed my senses like fragrant oil warmed by a winter sun
she could never take a step by me but by her own gentle manner and stealth only time’s extravagant hands could mould feelings so hard and scarred
I met her on a Tuesa-day when a kite flew and hit the clouds in a bird’s egg sky it were a bag of surprises that burst and spilled shapes, some honey and golden
it never dawned it was tangled wool in wild cherry branches, twisted and thorned none were prettier, long-legged nor honest than the raven haired, rose hipped Colene
not Betty Ball, not Mary Lane could catch a fire while my silken maid went a walkin’ or smiled, or tidied her hair for she and a garland of forest flowers were much sweeter,
she could lean like a willow ash laugh like a spring of morning rain, speak so soft or bite like mosquitoes leave hearts raw, sore or kiss like peaches dressed in rose petals
they said write what you know as though I knew anything or any thing was knowable so many critical things had changed and I submerged within a sea of wondering it seemed likely this could not last I and my sticker book of crazy where even sleep denied me but then I considered and confessed of those imprisoned for what they believed how could I identify with nothing what would I be imprisoned for and when the prison door was flung wide open upon my release what would I be united with could I stand for politics nail my colours to the floor or expound upon true religion when religion seemed paler than that inside me within the realm of capitalism and sport or human endeavour my lost ship had run aground my filial respect lay in tatters on the floor could I represent the overweight or middle classes disrespect the pope alcoholics or disabled passes I was lost, a Steppenwolf beneath the bigotry and all the flag waving humankind’s inhumanity intolerance and banality where tyrants prosper and the ordinary common man does no longer exist nor polite wives and their sisters who in twin sets and swing skirts presented their hors d’oeuvres now sink their cultured nails in to desist or speak out for feminism even though they have no idea what feminism involves much like the bolsheviks and anarchists the marxists and the humanists who had no idea what was involved while we the offspring of the fifties were taught to read the small print except now the small print is longer than the koran; the holy bible; great expectations; smaller than 6 point Garamond we don’t read, we tick the box sign away conscience, heritage and all intellectual freedom willingly for a savoury waffle and a cup of high street coffee which becomes a sad omen for the new currency and a new oil we must now fight over finally a beverage to rival water until the new generation who avoid all hallucinogens takeover and coffee shops as banks and building societies ascend into the ether of Minecraft clouds created by the mogul wealthy who drop their rhetoric as poison onto our hills and dales where minds denied personality are blinded. .. yowl with the terror as though you were an animal as though you are lost not found ancient and modern it seems a real shame Ginsberg did not make one hundred
Unashamed tears, a tributary rivers run grey without a sun banners unfurled in cardamom reflect an orphaned moon
Nuremberg, your clenched smile your rendered face stained till there were no trace of love cacophonic, bitter gall
Nuremberg by the Regensberg rejected Adolf stronghold rejected of unwashed regret clear Messershmitt skies
Allies to a spurned sacrifice old as the black trees with woodpecker notes stapled glummest scenery of war
Out of darkness rose a phantom poisoned cheeked flattery one honest wolf spoke of how far we may have fallen
Nuremberg, your gold epaulets your rain turned red would that Saint Augustine had held you in his arms
Soft virtue departed as crowds gathered at your Zeppelin to hear hollow voices of demon and denial
Oh unholy relics the edicts peoples choose to subjugate garner and appropriate their rhetorics of shame
Nuremberg’s quality of atrophy undenied, belies constancy human grievance lies mutilates beneath your streets Unrevenged, relentless catastrophe burrows deep inside the fig awaiting fruit fly implosion which inevitability decrees
Old the testament of apology none surrender power except the word contains untruth God’s nature is revealed
In skirmishes of Hezbollah Hamas strikes the golden city in Nuremberg, Bahrain or Oslo words fried cheap potato
Besmirched of my laurel leaf my olympic quarter drawn I chastened do not reply goodnight to Vienna
Nuremberg you stand for nought I cannot wonder why in the heart of Bavaria witchy dark the eagles fly
1, 000 illuminated eyes
waiting to decide
Buddy Holly brides
endless eyebrows rising
space-pod aliens disguise
urban cowboys overheard
in private conversations
about their ears and eyes
Marianna’s blackened eaux
her mummified noises
heard inside cardboard boxes
where eyes stand on stalks
that only the poor people
think still are sexy
denied their laser surgery
they stand in queues
limited views, feline
pointy, pointy Siamese
elegante, palomino, suave
they wear tortoiseshell or ebony
black plastic frames
with camera lenses
amplify the senses
I am the cam-er-a
a silent listener to your
every thought on politics
economics, all the genres
considered non-essential
clan or controversial
this mechanical contraption
solid minuscule adaption
what aliens might wear
tune in, drop out, turn on
now that Timothy Leary’s dead
and lies a mouldering
while all his bona fide
fondue disciples
exit the programme
pilgrims halfway down
the open road
beatniks who stepped out
of Kerouac’s contradiction
who found a proper job
a job with payslips, prospects
black-rimmed spectacles
turtle necks and loafers
moustachios and goatees
who listened in on jazz
aficionados of the mellow
interdependence of
Miles, Getz, John Coltrane
counting meteors
and shooting stars
who fell to earth
clusters of the full moon
signatures to the authentic
signalled visitors
to our awesome planet
give me the beat boy
free my soul
. .. shutdown the world as if it is winter oil your knives and store your tools for i have seen the winter’s edge and i have stood on land’s ledge the sum of all our burdens all our loss and our discontent bronze fields they wait to tender resignation at her brightest thought give to me then my surrender let me fly like birds of field let me run with the fox dig deep with the badger and the mole for here is my life and here is my world I seek no cause to engender
so, those who listen for the swallow and the swift those who wait for the summer that never ends you like me will wait forever, yet beyond the awful springs cast your eyes upon the future and cast your eye down the lane of drills and farmyard pitch where the tractor and machinery have cut the earth till it will bleed forever forever, in this dangerous earth
be swift my fair four-legged companion be swift who walk beside my gait and I will show you where we may end where we may find each other’s friend and wait awhile and learn of song and learn of wonder and learn of skies all scudding past us, grey puffed like people are and we have waited for too long for this dark summer to end and we have waited for so long for softest badger baited on our breath and in our sight, hailing we work with words and thoughts and feeling we work to show where humankind can be apart from where all others fight and give nothing back but fear to me
o’ soft, soft words that light the fuse the fire the dream the moment that softened yet my blood-filled heart that pounds within the deepest ditch no more can I expect your reason no more can I expect your thought for we have given up on all that is wonder to make our thoughts as deep as deep
edenbray ☢︎ - a BEAT POET 
THE DREAM OF GERULAITUS .. .
..
the dream of Gerulaitus .. .
..
I dreamed of Vitas Geralaitus
the tennis star
we are but men and women
that signify our presence
by the essence of existence
that may be told in terms
of our appearance
on the high court for a season
we took a chance to join the dance
but later disappeared
behind the taller boy
once I held position
of importance
in the eyes of those who knew me
and those who watched
the world go round
I was Gerulaitus
till the sun went down
before I stepped away
where are they now
the lords of our admiration
ladies who by virtue of
fey culture’s acclamation
joined the social conversation
this teeming metropolis
gives no time for authentication
you are born
and join the moving walkway
with or without luggage
you can pick that up
as you go
find yourself a centimetre
a box with holes
to run in and out of
locks for your doors
Gerulaitus may not live here anymore
but if he did
he would have added thousands
to your value
your significant purpose
the roving eye
of the spectator in the stands
your deaf ears dead to sound
caught in slo-mo action
you see the ball approaching
it is like the sun
the life that flashes by
before the crowd slips away
you are then the umpire
upon your high tower
you are the ballboy
that grovels to look manly
the programme seller
roles that don’t mean
a thing anymore
that tour bus has departed
long ago and
before we get started
on your hero Gerulaitus
he does not play tennis anymore
..
©edenbraytoday18.08.2026
say no to artificial intelligence excepting speak and spell .. .
note: r.i.p. – with deep respect to the tennis star – Vitas Gerulaitus (1954 – 1994 ) something of a teenage hero
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