Syd Barrett's Flowered Garden

1.

Not ageing, not going bald
or cultivating fat, eating too many pork chops,
wearing hand-me-down cardigans
in faded out pinks and browns,
not forgetting 
the dusty stringless guitars in the basement...
				    
Syd Barrett's spirit roams bird-free
scattering a spiral of psychedelic bats
from the cob-webbed belfry
of his scintillating mind...amazing us with his words,
his fragile breaking voice, a zen koan
echoing on and on
forever

We were scraping the surface of the moon,
exposing our dog-bellies to the Goddess,
lost to the sound, in effervescing light.

It was the pursuit of the miraculous, really.

I was sleeping in the woods one night
and I saw a woman appear from nowhere:
it was her, it was Emily...

Diamond-eyed, he trip hops 
through tantalising tulips:  
this shaman, this seer, 
this poet, this voyant... 

this ultracoloured madcap, his laughter coming 
from deep within the heart of nowhere.


 
2.

So tell me Syd, what exactly is a dream?

It was playing Interstellar Overdrive 
over and over for hours and hours.
  
It was too many trips.  

It was the mad bastards I lived with.
  
It was leggy, open-mouthed groupies.
  
It was always wanting to paint.
  
It was smashing a twelve-string guitar  
to matchwood splinters.  

It was brylcream and mandrax
melting to mush in the limelight.
 
It was playing 
only one chord 
forever and ever.  

It was being called Roger 
and living in a suburban semi 
with mother.  

It was being hospitalised 
for having too many dreams.


 
3.

In my dreams Syd
your spirit rises above the penumbra 
of burnt-out acid madness.  

You are dancing and singing,  
all movement accomplished in six stages,  
your voice lilting, 
echoing across time, across space, 
painting pictures in the sunset  
where seven is the number of the young light.  

You are the quintessence of spirit, of laughter,
of second sight 

reverberating in the raw bone,
in the naked soul of every drifting dreamer.

You once said
change returns success, action brings good fortune.

So here, cast your brass coins
in the Sybil’s cleansing fire,
be hypnotised by the shadow of this rainbow.

Throw away the sedatives,
turn back the clock and rewind the years.

Run naked 
through the mystery 
of this forever-flowered garden.

Be mythological.

Sing your tripped out poetry
deep into the heart of everyone.