Your iPod thunders Dizzy Gillespie. Lying on Lilliput shore you shut your eyes to see yahoos jive on caramel colored sands. Dreaming of Gulliver, his folly and modest proposal, you wake to ink poems those which, no rule can cultivate.
Swift said that the very fabric of society depends upon trust, so dishonesty may be even more damaging than theft and violence. Back in the seventeen twenties in his land, landlords had their chains jerked. It was good to have the Saxon to blame. You dream diversion for it is a Lenten abstinence from pubs; you have given up booze, smokes and treats until the seventeenth.
You ask Swift; “in your time, did woodcutters paint floats or wear galoshes as they marched for self-indulgence?” The Dean of St. Patrick’s is annoyed at being disturbed.
“Yes, but you suggested we eat our children,” you say in your defence.
“Rather that, than let them starve,” he replies.
“What would you suggest we do now?” You ask.
“Can you make a roux?”
“A roux?” You’re disconcerted with his reply.
“A coating sauce!”
“Hmmm…” you wonder what he’s playing at.
“Well, cook them in that on a slow heating stove…”
“They don’t starve anymore.” You snap.
“No. Just kill themselves and each other”. Eyebrows raised, my time has gone, is all he says as he leaves your dream and you sit up on your carpet of moss, searching shrouds, which drift in mist, searching to find him again and you do and suddenly he is there in front of you asking.
“Is St. Patrick really a Catholic now?”
“It is our time.” You say as you smile and beckon him closer for his distance is your past.
“So Maeve lost out to Rome?” He questions.
“No, Maeve lost out to St. Patrick, Rome lost out to sex.”
He turns to leave. Again, you call to him.
“We put on shows!”
“Put on�?” He echoes, stops.
“Like the Lilliputians, we recognize names; wealth and our politicians walk tightropes, turn tricks.”
“You wear the mantle of governors?” But, our governors are not Houyhnhnms you reflect and you hear his laugh drift through time as your iPod plays Dizzy Gillespie and on Belvedere shore you dream diversion.
MLF ’07
