Seligor's Castle, fun for all the children of the world. Blogs
Wed, 05 Aug 2009
Mad Tom Tantamount, fantastic new prose from the pen of the brilliant Willowdown.
GOLD
AND SILVER
Tom Tantamount.
Mad Tom Tantamount walked
along the riverbank and played his
flute beside the fount where
butterflies and old cuckoos issued from
the singing mouths of harlequins and montebanks.
On an Autumn's clammy
dawn he wandered where the trees were shorn of leaves and flowers til their bones
rattled in the wind and moaned and all
the butterflies were dead and all the
cuckoos flown and fled and old Tom
wandered all alone and played his flute to cloud
and stone.
Mad Tom
Tantamount lay his head in deep cold snow and all his tunes went to and fro where the dreams of stars are sewn and the
souls of men are blown inbetween the
Midnight trees where giants crawl on hands and
knees.
When the long cold
Winter passed old Tom's bones had turned to mash and barley grew between his toes and inbetween his eyes and
nose there grew a sweet and thorny
Rose but mad Tom played his ancient
flute and all the Summer brought forth fruit.
Mad Tom Tantamount walks
along the riverbank and played his
flute beside a fount where butterflies
and bold cuckoos issue from the madcap
mouths of passing bards and
mountebanks and lads and lasses walk in
wonder where the wild bees raid and plunder.
Old Tom dawdles through the
day or strides upon his long thin shanks where the crystal fountain sings and brings forth things with legs and
wings - but though Tom plays his rustic
flute all the world is deaf and mute and Sleep hangs heavy on the eyes of Men
beneath the midday skies.