RAVEN’S BREAD
RAVEN’S BREAD
*
Once Upon a Time a young man wandered into the Desert,
to live alone and become a Hermit.
Concerned for his Welfare, and perhaps a little curious,
Friends & Family would visit the new Hermit,
and, strangely perhaps, despite their initial apprehensions, they often found themselves impressed by the magnificence of the Desert Wildscape & the Tranquillity of the Hermit Lifestyle.
Word spread amongst their associates and soon it became a Fad amongst the fashionable Bohemian types to speak wistfully of their pining for the Desert and yearning for the Serenity & Simplicity found in a Solitary Lifestyle. A magazine called “Raven’s Bread” was started to spread the Hermit Word and publish the Editors’ poems.
Inspired by the Hermit’s example, Others soon followed in his footsteps, setting up their hermitages at a respectable distance from each other at first so as not to impact on the Solitude too greatly, but still close enough to be within reach in case of emergencies. (Hey! We’re Hermits, not Savages!” explained one.)
But as Time passed, more and more people were moving into the Desert to escape the Hurly Burly of City Life and join the Hermit Movement, as it was now called. Indeed it had become a mainstream cultural phenomenom and many of the Bohemian Set who had first colonised the Desert now found themselves being squeezed out by the Forces of Gentrification.
But Lo! A Plague of Self Appointed/Self Entitled
Spokespersons for “the Community”
(Ken’s & Karen’s to a man)
descended upon the Land like Locusts.
Holding Forth & Holding High
the Legendary (some would say; “Imaginary”)
Big Book of Community Values
& Intrusive Council By-Laws,
they laid down the Law as They,
“the Community” and,
apparently, God, saw it.
Yes, there were many Voices vying,
crying aloud in the Wilderness
and each read from a different Page
and a different Book/ their
many competing voices struggling/ straining
for Lebensraum & Airspace. Tall Transmission Towers arose
to broadcast the bountiful Babble/ whilst all the while
the Glory of the Desert Stars at night were lost
in the glare and the glow of street lighting.
Then the Local Council announced plans to Subdivide the Land to cope with (and cash in on) the expected Population Boom and many Old Timers announced that that was the End of the Wilderness as they knew it.
But when the News Crews were sent out
to do a “Passing of an Era” piece
and interview the Original Hermit,
they discovered that He had gone
and no-one knew when He left,
or where He went.
*
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The Reverend Hellfire is a practised Performance Poet,
an Ordained Minister of the Church of Spiritual Humanism
& Vox/Spokescreature of Post-Punk/Alt-Pop Primitivists; The TAPELOOPS.
What if the World/Saw Itself thru my eyes/How disappointed
It would be.
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Reverend Hellfire's Sunday Sermon 