45
I wish that young swagman Rimbaud could have met this divine Juggler
Who spins the world of our hopes on the tip of his little finger.
He has thousands of other tricks, but he never displays ‘em;
He has come to awaken the people, not the more to daze ‘em .
The real difference between the true Master and the fakes:
The latter dope and rob you; the former illusion’s spell breaks.
There are more spiritual sharks in the world than price-riggers;
There are more guns aimed at your head than are fired by triggers.
Seership through hallucination? But what else could he think,
Child as he was of times that were gathering towards the brink?
His soul longed for a sunlike guru who would quell
The rebellion of dreams, who had nothing to sell;
Who for fame and following did not care a fig,
But just loved. Yes, young Rimbaud would have come in big.
A sweet poem praising the innocence of Rimbaud as a seeker who searched for a true revealing from his vocation as poet, which he abandoned in youth to lead a life of wandering (a swagman).
Desperate for truth Rimbaud tried ‘Seership through hallucination’, the systematic disordering of all the senses. He died in 1891, three years before Baba was born. He stood for one who abandoned all worldly fame, who saw achievement as ‘not worth a fig’. The true hero of the poem though is the Avatar. His was the meaningful magic for which Rimbaud longed.
The poem itself is pretty relaxed and informal, not trying to be high art.