1981 (The Phantom of Liberation)
by Steven McCabe
In 1981
The Phantom of Liberation
Paid me a visit
Commanding
A sketch
I obliged
Thinking that was all
That was all
There was to it
Hello and goodbye
To the Phantom of Liberation
But the Phantom
Must have said
Eat my body
I complied
Thinking that was all
That was all
There was to it
Hello and goodbye
To the Phantom of Liberation
They found a foreign body
In my heart
And said it’s spread
To your brain
And your wings
I said I don’t have
Any wings
They said I was covered with wings
Beating ferociously
Refusing to stop
And bothering the neighbours
I asked if I should move
To a cemetery
They wanted to know
If I was trying to escape
Liberation
Or the conditions that require
Liberation
I listened to their question
Thinking that was all
That was all
There was to it.
poemimage 
The repetition of words in the poem and the images are hypnotizing. I want to hear this read by Dylan Thomas with Miles playing in the background. Another treasure from your head and heart Steven…I’m blown away…
Thank you John for your cinematic thought imagining the scenario you so creatively describe.
Perhaps there are treasures enveloped in a sense of being ‘out of place?’ Of never having quite put one’s finger on what was happening? Of what had happened.
Thank you for your generosity.
Wow! You’ve gone to a whole new level, Steven. This line, “… If I was trying to escape/Liberation/Or the conditions that require/Liberation.”
Thank you very much for your kind appraisal Nell. It was a quick ‘write’ after one false start. I decided to write from the inside of the drawing or from the inside of having done the drawing.
I wondered if I had taken my experience seriously enough. With the proper amount of investigation…
“to write .. from the inside of having done the drawing” Love it!! The proper amount of investigation can only be discovered from there.
Tentative but grounded… and yet seamless and rhythmic like water seeking its own level. I’m hypnotized too, Steven. As the scenario moved along I wasn’t sure which way to look..”Thinking that was all… That was all….There was to it” … the water getting deeper over the rocks. I put my swim fins on and read it again, and again…the water carrying me along.
“They said I was covered with wings
Beating ferociously
Refusing to stop
And bothering the neighbours”…. definitely my favorite part
Jana I’m glad you have a favourite part.
Thank you Jana, I hope you didn’t get too wet. :- )
It seems we approach what we did or who we were or what we were all about from a great distance with some trepidation. Like someone you once knew very well. Or thought you did. And swimming, yes. We swim to ourselves across many dimensions and backwards through many experiences. I’m not even sure I’ve gotten there yet.
Sinuous, gripping work – I love your technique, Steven – writing from the inside of a drawing is such an interesting (and devilishly difficult) thing to attempt. I like this piece so much.
Thanks very much Richard. I might get back into the pencil/shading/approach. It taps a different place than colour or line. I appreciate your encouragement in this. I’m not quite sure how I got to the ‘inside’- I only know I didn’t want to approach from the ‘outside’ and give an ‘overview’ or describe it like a still life. Maybe it was through interacting with the ‘personas’ in the drawing is what did it.
Hi Steven, after getting up from being knocked down and my head being clear, I am aware of a hefty atmosphere of veracity and heart hanging around this poem and images. Maybe that is what knocked me down.
Hi Jack,
Thank you for your heart-felt words and images. I think we are hit hardest by what we know, otherwise the impact is muted and abstract and slow-developing. I had coffee yesterday, meeting for the first time a Facebook friend (from another culture) and there was something in this person’s art I related to, as a metaphor or borderline, but put differently than I would put it. It had an impact on me like being knocked down. Maybe your hand was in my glove?
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