Relic Environments Trilogy: Book III, Part 1.ix

from Book III, Part 1, The Lord of Time, His Curiosity and Galliard

Paladin

(The crowd) wants blood and death…           

                                -Robert “Evel” Knievel, 1938-2007

Across the ancient mirror, blooms of acid

Fixed in these islands, between shadows

A raw heart

The first breath and rawness of dreams

Pale days passing unrecovered, the senses

Blanked to everything but the flawed bell echoing

How else the plain speech of it without sadness

How else the night’s collapse, and morning’s faint sparking   

To appease

A prophecy of dead stars, moving

As a creature moves, calling into the silence

This is the future without us, instead

Of time, a border bound by all the dead

The clock running backwards, pools of light spiralling

Past the crust of galaxies

Where the gods were

*

A box of headlights

And within that box another, and another, each

More deeply hued        

November numb with rain, matryoshka traffic opens south

Forecasts whittled-down to doughy cumulus underlit red

With the far city

Driving through the night, I hear the radio say

Evel is dead

60s daredevil and later

The motorcycle jump across Snake River, a rocket to clear it

*

It’s easy to make comments, assumptions

Facts distorting facts, emotive

Aimed at

The game, Evel Knievel Stunt Master
Thomas J said

I still haven’t beaten the substance missions

I still haven’t found the hidden place in Silent Cartographer

But I can do Evel

There's more, but most aren’t worth the breath

The hahaha of getting your ass owned 

In Prototype Mode, priceless, yeah
And pretty hard, especially this version of souped-up

Eternal Darkness

You have to get all the effects

Wembley ‘75, London buses side by side for Evel sailing  over

When he hit the ramp his bones went

Bang

A prophecy of dead stars, moving

Thomas J and Vada, riding their bikes on Vada’s drive

Thomas J springs his feet off the pedals and Vada says

Oh wow, a real Evel Knievel

Is that the only way it can be remembered 

*

Snake River

Evel remembered

I didn’t even think I had a fifty-fifty, everyone

Said to me don’t do it

But I wanted to keep my word

I climbed up and got strapped in, when

I punched that Power button I thought God, here I come

I always said when the canyon jump comes

If I miss it I'll get somewhere quicker where you're all going Someday

When the Sky-Cycle launched, the parachute opened

Too soon, the headwinds blowing Evel

Back into the canyon

He crashed six hundred feet below

By the waters of the Snake

Twelve thousand people trampling fences

To get to the edge, to see what’s going down

To see what they’d remember

Evel climbs out of the rocket, walked away

The first breath and rawness

Of dreams

*

In 1895, crowd-psychologist Gustave Le Bon wrote

Isolated, a man may be a cultivated individual

In a crowd he is a barbarian

*

‘Yosemite’ Sam Radoff, still out the ten grand

Evel owed him

The bounced cheque, the legal trouble, date back years

Sam built a custom bike for the stunt king

Detroit, the 70s, Evel shows up at the shop                     
A real showman, all furs and jewellery    

Kids follow him everywhere

Sam said, we had a judgment against him

I called him before the Snake River jump, and said

My lawyer’s going to stop the jump

If you don't do something with me real soon

Sam and Evel met up in a bar

Evel had a contract for Snake River

Eight million bucks

He passed it round

Lost it later boozing, somebody said

Then accused Sam of taking it

Downhill from there

Sam said
Pale days passing unrecovered

Sam said

He and Evel had a deal

Sam could use the bike he built for Evel, for Sam’s own shows

Sam said, Evel called me from Jackie Gleason's, said

You can't use the bike

They sued, then settled, Sam’s ten grand

Dated June ’74

Sam said, Evel knew it was dud paper
But his fame was where everything

He touched, he wanted something of it, instead

Of time, a border bound by all the dead

*

Sam said

I'm just a little guy at the bottom of the food chain
I paint flames on bikes

I'm an artist

I don’t want to end up bagging Big Macs

Sam never told anybody about the money

The faint sparking to appease

*

Then Evel died

*

Le Bon found crowds tap

The unconscious

Sam said

I never minded about the dough

Hell, he said, Evel was a hero

Climbing in the rocket to clear Snake River

That day, walking through the parking lot

Pools of light spiralling

Evel wore the white jump suit, across his chest

The blue-X, harness effect, strung

With stars                    

You know the one