I, I AM WILLIAM BLAKE

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Sweet bird of youth, I attend your birth and watch thee grow

As fond as any doe or any love that I in honour still may show

The amplitude of life, either ascending or descending as a lark

My heart, faint of love becomes a river born of hope, another ark

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I, I am William, William Blake, my true respect carries me forward

Through the dearth of my adolescence, through that awkward night

Of middle age, I rip the page, it held no bottle top nor taught me how to stop

Till the sun goes down upon my soul I will stand at heel in repose

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The curiosity of exchange, where people meet unholy

In matters of discernment, frail the condition of society

Lament O’ Lamech, though the fires of hell await thee

Good fathers visit then thy children’s sin, treat to agree

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Bold, the golden Lion of Judah, whose oiled template I desist

In favour of the pen, the fever of the brow, the trial, the grist

I scroll de capita, dismiss the leaven, bind Dante’s heaven/ hell

Speak only of the former, describe the torture – of Nebuchadnezer

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And other spiritual contrives, important detail that affects all lives

The handle of the brush, the stain, the rush of watercolour as it dries

Art’s prophetic choices, in consequence of abandon, often does decide

How we listen to the voices, madmen, seers, taste prophets salted tears

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Listen thee between the lines in soft words, illustrated by the mind

Beatrice addressing or what our forefathers, foolish, naive might find

Elohim, Newton, Satan, Job, the Ghost of a flea, Pilgrims of Canterbury

Innocence a freedom, infant morning Joy when the Stars all sang together

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They journeyed on a dusty road, wan brothers Elisha and Elijah, to their Emaus

Sweet joy befall thee, the rule of ebbing life-blood never better than its cause

Who questioned then, other than my alma-pater of a negro hung alive by the rib?

Questioned the absurdity, analysed eternity, profanity, a religious life yet never glib

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I am Blake, my conscience I forsake, led by opportunity, by the invisible forces

Engrave a pallet from earths hard core of stories, some brave, some darkest blue

Some born to warn, some impossibly true, the aspect of Newton’s compass, Pity,

The Great Red Dragon and Woman Clothed With the Sun, Titania, Puck, alongside Oberon

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The season I decided my pretence of reason, through age does not seem as long

A song of thorny youth, caught in the crossfire of distant revolution, a forkéd prong

The mysteries of organic nature and causal moments to each generation belong 

Those who weaken, set to fall, those who widen their belief, like William stay strong

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I, as William Blake understand  the changing tides, like Canute I walk naked out to sea

Realise in daubs of paint, line and light, celestial forces fight the Archangel of the free

As Job I settle on constellations, question truth, barter youth, on pain of wise conclusions

Within my reverie, the only Angels that I see are those that offer me practical solutions

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And that being that, we queue to view The Night Of Enitharmon’s Joy, then let us salute

The actors who must take the stage, jealousy and cowardice, laid out within the page

Honour, love and rage, triple law to triple love, all creatures woven here, except a dove

In tone nothing is much darker, the rule of Rome, a mythical lack of love and laughter

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The world was stronger, life seemed longer in the delve and sway of William Blake

A sniper who set his sights, amidst the glow, ere the dawning of the feast of lights,

Banish then dull tradition, attest brave St Pauls divine confession and utterly forsake

All others for one night, the chimes rang out in London Town to our prince of Light

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I, am William Blake unrecognised, I walk the streets unseen through life’s darkest sunrise

Such deft compromise causes Sun at his Eastern Gate to rise, despite the horror of my eyes

Refill my pen, incline my brush, I record this triumph of the Dawn, reflect in artists’ ways

Draw lines, write verse, assimilate, I meditate and at my last create my Ancient of Days 

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Ref. 24092020

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