Eric Ratcliffe
Message from the Cosmos
(i.m. Peter Russell, 1921 – 2003)
Yes, we’re all here, we think them up and they come,
unless they’re too far up the System near to reincarnation.
It takes time to adjust to the new Service without priests,
but even Browning recanted on Mr. Sludge, ‘The Medium’,
although I don’t see him much, the title brings back the mud
in La Turbina too vividly. A pox on your Reality,
all you see are shadows of it; the Ancients were closer,
sensing the essence of hamadryads in trees.
All we get now in the astral are those missing their cars,
the television, or visiting graveyards as if
their bones were buried treasure.
Yes, we’re here, the two of us, me and Quintilius,
alter ego, my own manufacture, solid as thought-form
in his own right, many layered, giant and bright,
ascended Tiphereth-like, a sun where all paths meet
and cannot be missed, guiding beacon in a forum of souls.
He doesn’t know yet, but he’s acting the biggest carrot in Rome
(Plotinus said the gods must come to him, not he to the gods),
so god or no god, I’m waiting with thought-pens at the ready ...
will the real Quintilius step forward !
Page(s) 173
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The