Blake, Blues, and Other Bs.

Sometimes I think I hear a whisper in the music of the wind, telling of great destruction and upheaval about to be visited on the earth and the state of mankind. It presses my depression button and evokes the obvious chicken and egg question: is the apparent portent driving me mad or is my madness driving it?

Did I ever mention that I share a birthday with William Blake, or that somebody once expressed the opinion that I look like him? The Wiki article has a paragraph which begins:

Although Blake was considered mad by his contemporaries for his idiosyncratic views, he is held in high regard by later critics for his expressiveness and creativity, and for the philosophical and mystical undercurrents within his work.

Does any of that apply to me? How would I know and why should I care? But here’s William for the purpose of comparison:

 

I dislike the term ‘mental illness.’ It seems rather too prosaic and presumptuous for something as mysterious as the mind. Each case is individual, of course, and I haven’t yet found a suitable, all-embracing term for mine.

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And now I would like to indulge a fancy to write an open letter to somebody:

I preferred you in the days of the rats’ nest hair, the sloppy Joe clothes and the unpainted face. They suited your uncommon appeal well; they glowed gently like the pale unicorn and bestowed upon you an air of the fey. There was magic and mystery about you then, the natural magic of star-dusted spirit which you kept discreetly hidden when you were not alone. At such times you feigned the role of quiet and diffident human, although I had been warned and so I wasn’t fooled.

And now that you have chosen to strut your uncommon charm in common form, I never come close to assess the survival or otherwise of the fairy spirit. Did you kill it on that fateful day in the month of May, or did you lock it deep and cast the key away? Does it lie there still, sometimes crying for freedom, or did it come to dust and seep silently into the hallowed earth of a country churchyard?

I’m sure I shall never know, and I know of no reason why I should. Nevertheless, do excuse my presumption and my fanciful nature. It’s just that when a star disappears you can never be sure whether it’s been hidden by a drifting cloud or has given up the ghost for all eternity.

There now, that’s that said.