La Folie de Grandeur

Renee Magritte, La Folie de Grandeurs II

La Folie de Grandeur

He could have at least named it Phileas,

That contrary kook.  

Oh, but the French and their damned irony-

Right, M. Passepartout?

It was by rail! By rail! No balloons!

And what romanticism

That could have been portrayed by that buffoon,

Timeless imagery:

The subjugation of tonnage by torque,

Of wheel by track, of iron by steel;

The magic order produced from the suppression

Of the raw, black salt of the Earth

Via technology:

Firebox to cylinder, Valve and Regulator transmuting

Savage power into productive work

Like yolks over bulls.

I suppose I see the idea behind those gridlocked

Thighs, that engorging torso-

The ever-growing British Empire-

But how am I, the subject of this whole blessed business,

Reduced to that bloody blue balloon?
 

by: Raymond Alistair

For Magic

When you left
it was like air leaving a pressurized cabin that's been punctured
or leaving a lungs of a gut that's been pummeled

When you left
it was also like you'd gone out for a smoke;
I'm childishly waiting
for you to come back

No matter how wide I stretched
I couldn't ever match the breadth
of your narrowest welcome.
Your laughter was a hearty soup
a salty and soulful wooping
And we are all Oliver Twists
hungry
begging for more.

Just before the smoke appears
and the crowd's collective breath
draws in with awe
when the hand is waving into existence
or into the nether  whatever bit of trickery
there was, the true spell of the magician is cast 
over the eyes of the audience, captive
In the same way, we were all watching
you, Magic, spellbound as you waved
I only wish I knew you were waving
goodbye.

When would stretch that puckish grin
that shook grimy sorrow
like sand from a flapping beachtowel
I could almost hear a whisper,
"I've got it figured out,"
and you must've, so do all who leave us too soon.

by: Raymond Alistair