'Elidius thinks of death' by Lawrence Upton

Elidius thinks of death

I can imagine being dead –

and, presumably, removed as waste –

being, nevertheless, being,

more aware than I'd been living

alive to an aesthetic sense,

full of my own centrality

as one is of anything dominant

even if it is not present

knowing hearing filling a head

beyond the imagination

and impossible in one deceased

neither in heaven nor in hell

a consciousness concentrating

on now and now and now and now

to an outside metrication

without understanding without

the dimension of dimensions

a pendulum slowly turning

unto circles of rounding self

into circles of rounded self

(Saint) Elidius is one of the English names of one who may have lived at some time after the Roman period on Scilly. There is no evidence of him apart from the earlier name of St Helen's island, Insula Sancti Elidii. His feast day is 8^th August. Until now he has had no hagiographer.

 

Lawrence Upton; poet; graphic & sound artist. Most recent publications wrack (Quarter After, 2012); Memory Fictions (Argotist Online, 2012); and Unframed Pictures (Writers Forum, 2011). Recent exhibition: from recent projects, London 2012 + collaborative exhibitions with Guy Begbie. Currently Honorary Research Fellow, Goldsmiths, University of London.