In Conversation with Humphrey Ebelthite

Q: Humphrey, it is an honour and a privilege to sit with you today. I’ll just get stuck in straight away. How would you describe the importance of poetry?

H: “Poetry, to me, is a diet. Feed your brain with nourishing vocabulary and you will feel it smiling. Too many people are consuming fast-food words, and their brains are desperately weeping. People who taste my words always tell me how vitalised they feel after only a few days of absorbing my literary offspring.”

Q: You mention a nourishing vocabulary. How do you ensure that your work contains such nourishment?

H: “As a deeply philosophical thinker, inspiration strikes in many ways. One particularly organic technique is to, after a warm bath, exist in the nude, hold my cat’s face, and intensely stare into its delicate feline eyes for hours on end. Cats are incredibly reflective and analytical beings. I am fortunate in that I can understand the non-human feelings which cat’s project. A different perspective on life, if you will.”

A Cat’s Perspective:
The room, it is larger than usual,
Or is size relative?
And I, a cat, feel smaller in comparative terms.
Although the world is larger, much larger to us,
We cease to forget the way home.
Spatial awareness, o’ spatial awareness, for you I thank the Sphynx.
Oh why, Oh why, Oh why, Can I…
Navigate so gracefully,
Beauty lies in elegance,
Reward me with your catnip.


Q: Clearly you feel a connection with spiritual forces, particularly with animals. Has spirituality inspired you in any other ways relating to your work?

H: “I once had an incredibly intimate experience with the pure air around me and I just had to share my discoveries. No truth is shed truer than truth shed through the purity of air. If you have a gift, you must share it. Insight the people. I am fortunate to have a gift and an outlet in which I can share my gifts to the world.”

The All Seeing:
Standing naked,
Awakened,
Exposed to the nature,
My trust with the air is a trust I put faith in,
The air,
It is crisp,
Speak to me air,
Tell me the truths politicians don’t dare,
Gift to me knowledge you all seeing gas,
“Hello it is I”, Oh hello air, at last.
And at one with the air I was drowned in its truths,
And with you I share truths you don’t hear in the news,
Dogs are robotic,
And magnets not real,
Its illusion which gives off that pressurised feel,
Invisible wires connect all of our phones,
Trees are the fossils of alien bones,
We can breathe underwater, You can smell global warming,
And brains convert music from plain pencil drawings,
The whitening agent in toothpaste is paint,
All people on Earth are originally gay,
And at death will you be faced with a fall or ascension,
Afterlife fate…
Is it hell?
Is it heaven?
What determines this fate is important to learn,
Its how kindly you treat all the wasps, slugs and worms.
And now it is time,
To bid you goodbye,
You now know the truths,
You now know the lies.
I will leave you, my friends, with one final mention,
Jellyfish…
Are the live streams of souls…
From a different dimension.

Q: Eye opening stuff. With such spiritual abilities, do you ever feel yourself disconnected with other people who don’t have these gifts?

H: “My good friend and fellow poet, Archibald Percival-Fry, told me of the importance of remaining grounded and humble, and to provide a message for the everyday people. Bathing is known to all, and whether or not they are aware of it, all people in baths are connecting with an unknown entity. Nobody truly understands water, but at that moment, the water Gods are caressing our vulnerable bodies, delicately licking every crevice. It’s a truly heavenly experience. But sometimes there is a level of difficulty in achieving such bliss, this is the message I convey in my poem ‘The Hot Bath’. It is a poem which, as well as working on many levels, also hits home hard in terms of relatability.”

The Hot Bath:
My foot dips into the searing water,
Hesitant. Grimaced. Steamy. Damp.
Taken aback, I recoil in anguish,
But with strength, undeterred, I stand up tall,
Take one deep breath, take two steps back,
I put back on the colder tap.


Q: Are there any other things day to day connections which you feel with the general public?

H: “Fashion is important. I whole-heartedly believe in hats. Do not underestimate their power. I will live and die by that statement. A hat can encompass many emotions, many of which the human brain cannot understand. You feel the unknown power of a hat resonating when you converse with a hat-wearer first hand. You feel it hit you; It’s a powerful thing. Hats consolidate thoughts through applying a confining pressure around your head. One day I hope to dedicate a poem to hats, but as of yet, no words have given them justice their glory deserves.”

Q: When you see such complication in ordinary things, are you ever able to enjoy simplicity?

H: “Rarely. But I do sometimes manage. Christmas is a simple day. I personally share mine with my shared soul, Arabella Smythe. The simplicity of the day is conveyed in the simplicity of my poem, 'Christmas'. But I still shrewdly manage to encompass an unexpected quirk.”

Christmas:
At this time of year it’s merry and festive,
Christmas is here, crack out the digestives!
The weather is cold, and a little but murky,
But still all is good, now let’s eat that Turkey.

Q: Final question now, and it is with consideration of your most recent poem, ‘Going to the Shops’. Is this an attempt to enter the political realm?

A: “Politics invisibly governs through concept of thought alone. Does politics exist? I don’t think so. Show me some evidence. I’ve never seen it. I believe in culture, and politics is culture which has been tampered with and bottled, and we are all passively drinking the juice. And what becomes of this? A consumer culture destined for doom. This is the essence of ‘Going to the Shops’. I hope that one day, the term ‘going to the shops’ will become a metaphor for a downwards spiral, thanks to me.”


Going to the Shops:
Going to the shops,
Going to the shops,
Cash card, cash card, going to the shops.
We’re going to the shops,
We’re going to the shops,
There’s other people shopping too, they’re also at the shops.
Shops shops shops,
Shops shops shops,
Build some more then go in them,
Shops shops shops.

Rooney Reflects (Press Conference)

Journalist: "Wayne, you've now had some time to reflect on the recent tabloid reports concerning yourself. What are your thoughts on the matter?"

...

“The way I see it is... Life is filled with hard times and I personally have had many hard times.”

Although these hard times were admittedly hard, if it wasn’t for these hard times, I wouldn’t be able to reflect on the hard times and feel much harder for it, as I do now.”

“Its hard to think that hard times will come again, bringing hard experiences”

“But as I’ve already hardened, I now own the knowledge that future hardship will harden me further.”

“I have learnt that when times are hard, those hard times will soon be over.”

“Hard times are temporary; all times aren’t hard.”

“I stay strong. I stay hard.”