The Sanctum of Sanity

The Market

This is almost my favourite place,

This market for men's minds.

The stalls of different size and decoration

Proclaim the temporal fame the vendors

Seek, and sometimes find.

For years now, the prime site

Has been taken by a man in garish waistcoat

And bow-tie, whose brash style

Has certainly attracted the crowds.

Even idle passers-by with little cash

Pause, enthralled to witness such success.

His best performance recently

Was when he auctioned Elvis Presley,

Whose brain was housed inside a gold guitar,

With fingerboard, suitably engraved

With the place and time of death.

It’s rumoured that the sale enticed

Sufficient ghouls to fetch a record price.

But, he’d had success before.

His fortune built upon the sale

Of a score of super minds.

For through his hands, have passed

The brains of Holly, Vincent, Lennon,

Bill Haley and Keith Moon,

And among the dealers there is word,

That very soon, Bob Marley’s brain

May come his way.

Sometimes, there is an extra rush,

When amateur collectors crush his stall

To bid for living minds

Whose future value is unsure.

But, he’s a showman, no mistake,

I’ve seen him suck a budding brain

Out of the eyes and mouth

Of a still living skull

With such sweet skill,

That only small spots stain his hands.

There are of course, other sites of interest

To those who seek a rarer find.

The mind of Marx,

Which has been sought for years,

And has changed hands many times

Is always popular.

But, its value is inconstant,

Not a sure investment for the connoisseur.

For one who seeks a rarer mind,

A tireless wait of countless years

With ears kept to the ground,

Is sometimes insufficient to acquire

Mohammed’s malicious
And mendacious mind.

Or sign a bill of sale

For Buddha’s frail brain.

For almost two thousand years

The mind of Christ, has been bartered for

But never truly bought.

Many men, have thought that their devotion

Had delivered to their care this rarest find,

But, most experts have agreed,

That, some aspects of discovered creed

Has proved their purchase false.

It’s said among attenders at the stall

For such religious relics as the mind of Paul,

(Which does not find too many takers now)

That Christ’s real mind

Had been dissected centuries ago,

And sold in sacred lots

To fetch a higher price.

Yet, in the corner of this market,

There stands an ancient stall,

Whose regular devotees

Make up the smallest group of all.

The auctioneer is old and poorly dressed,

His clothes are crumpled

And his eyes are going blind.

The minds which he displays

Are draped with dust;

Their value, damaged by neglect.

But here, the curious,

Can for no fee at all, but simply

The provision of a large holdall,

Of sufficient strength and size,

Collect such prizes as the minds

Of Rilke, Blake or Yeats for free.

And the old man, who collects such minds,

And knows demand is slight,

Will pay the stray enthusiast

To take away more modern finds

Like that of Larkin, Hughes or Hill.

For this is where the bargains are,

Where you can travel further through

The thoughts of men than anywhere.

Where the old man, will pay

A boy with interested eyes

A fee, to cart away

Minds which would decay for good.

But for his interest

In the waiting words

Of extraordinary men.

Yet when, he finally unpacked
His recent finds,
It was the undiscovered female minds
Which shone the all illuminating
Light upon the thoughts of men.

© James Rainsford 2011

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