We´re the William St Brigade - Jeremy Balius

We’re the William St Brigade
by Jeremy Balius

Out here the archangel of William St
dreams her iron dreams, a touch sorrowful. We
gubbins gurk & come a gutzer. Life lived as
a listening post, our ears to the pavement,
the dark word’s in the soil – we spring roots for man-
kind to no avail. We’re the William St
Brigade, tho’ we don’t
know why & we don’t
know what it means. Hook-
shops & horse feathers,
business is not what it
once was & all of
the lights turn green, the
greenness of absolute.

Illywhackers and hornswogglers all of us,
the William St Brigade! We defend the
bookshelves of rootless gypsy-thought Bedouin-
isms & guides to hidden meanings in conver-
sation. We go down. Along the walls lean men
who’ve already gone down. Inside shop windows,
black Madonna candles
curtsy in the heat.
Doorways stand brazen
like squadrons of mag-
pies. Shadows grow slow,
as if they must with
no offence to any-
one. Saggy sogging

carhorns croon & croak. The smell of these ladies
& lights crawls from bulb to bulb barking. Our small
beat is small & we can find solace in in-
transigence, resisting some paradisal
misery. Longing for Eden, but feeling
like exiles. Is the street dead, or has it just
disappeared behind
an array of concrete
or unpalatable
immaterial
realities? Don’t
hate the lobby-gow;
we grow weary &
this is wearying.

On this block here, I is not I: these selves are
passed beyond here. What I’m saying is we can
anticipate probable responses here,
but the meanings attached to them are unknown.
Tho’ what I think I might be saying is this:
we never could expose what is concealed here,
only ever con-
cealment. & what you
think I’m saying is
deathly consequence
of the deaths of our
gods. The haloes are
hidden, hidden (pre)
(as)sumptions. Car tracks

vitiate the heart’s deepest longing for: now
first understand it tautologically:
the street is a sign of ours made unknown. &
the unknown demands us to reflect here &
imitate. The William St hot surface
is like a poem: it means. It does not just
be. All these surface
appearances are fear-
some, but we are fear-
lessness. William
St Brigade: We do
not dare to be our
selves out of boredom
& repetition:

two menaces. We conceal all secrets too
intimate to reveal & we do suspect
others similarly afflicted, tho’ of
course unable to unveil all that is hidden.
Spelunkers of the heart, descend! Now our doubt
is the street’s silent partner: if street noise is
repressed silence, then
boy oh boy oh boy
you better make your
peace with the repressed
silent doubt, concealed
fickle echo. Pursue
hyperbolic self-
effacement, the self-

interest loosening within us is an
antimetabole, like speaking in tongues
about the falseness of our last impressions:
birthless & deathless in this space occupied
by ascetic denial. The haunting heads
down the wind foot passage-ways. The haunting is
the hereness & the
newness & the seem-
ingness, the wombness,
the obscurantism,
the William St-
ness. Hey Mutt & Jeff,
put on the gyver, lads!
You pishers better

not be Mozart & Liszt! In the straight dullness
of the relative down here in concrete scunge,
we’ve been groaning in our travail together
until now. We know it methodically
but cannot understand the methods. So? We’re
the William St Brigade, we lean on our shop
walls, we keep our ears
to the pavement, we’re
concerned with matters
of the heart & roots,
Eden & iron
dreams, being fearless,
but we don’t know why
& we don’t know what

it means.