William Blake’s youngest brother, Robert Blake (William’s “special favorite” as one book puts), died at the age of 25 in 1787 of tuberculosis—at least scholars are pretty sure. As Aileen Ward writes in her article Who Was Robert Blake?, “[M]ost puzzling of all, nowhere in the St. James Parish register is the birth or baptism of Blake’s beloved younger brother Robert to be found. Robert’s absence from the record remains the most controversial question regarding the makeup of Blake’s family.” Robert appeared to William often after his death—a ghost, a vision—most famously when, in a dream, he showed William his printing method that would transform not only his own work, but the entire genre of art printing. For someone so essential to William Blake’s life—there is little to nothing known of Robert. He remains an apparition—not only to his brother but to history.
Milton 37. Copy D.
Milton 37. Copy D., is the title of the image below. It appears in William Blake’s prophetic text, Milton. This is the only known image of Robert Blake.
Robert thrusts back as if a string pulled taut from his center up toward the sky. Pained, he thrusts back. One poet, suggests ascent though I know it’s descent. Or, I don’t know, but I can feel it. His brother draws a star. Draws his brother’s body. Nearly naked. Each limb and a head. A falling star. Translucent shorts that cover nothing. One goes down into this place only once. Hard truth. One comes to outside in the night. The night sky. A brick staircase losing shape behind him. I always want back what’s been lost.
Robert Descending
When I found Robert his life was like the space between walls—hollow, the quick flicker of a rat running through them. Nothing like a comet crashing. His life teetered between this world and the next. I built him this way then another. He must be a drinker, I thought, Port in the afternoon. Scraped his knees as a boy. Licked his lips at Revolution. At night, he watched a lover weep in the city streets. I thought it, then he thought it. Terrifying and inscrutable. It was sleep then it was like sleep, it was living then it was like a picture of the living. He is dying. Absent but not quite gone. He lived in a house. Lived, the worst word. His body in the ground? His body in the ground. I thought, What an image of somebody you love.
Robert Comes Back
My shirt was blue and my pants were blue and I loved the sky in the morning. Wind taking the snow off the tenement roof top— like smoke you used to say. Like smoke I appear, I disappear. The snow twirls up like a fire put out. As boys we always wondered, what it was like to be divine. A holy scale, my eyes, they glimmer like that. Hellacious serpent. Green then blue then back again. The Thames flipping shades under the good moonlight. I laughed a lot; I did things wrong. Salacious, and unforgiving. I went down hard inside myself—wanting to die and wanting to live and always wanting both at the same time. We’d stare up the perpetual maple. I never saw anything where you saw it all. I threw myself perpetually into another perpetual night. Epic? I so wanted to be. People love when something happens— Yet, in the end, what? I was sick and died. It was so simple, how it happened. Life, end stopped. I made no mark. Dreams, dreams? No, nothing. Obliterated. Done.
Blake’s Parable
I draw a line in the sand.
I say, my life begins here
starting now. I am leaving
it all behind. Robert,
laughs. He goes to stand
on the other side
of my line. And now?
What about me? He says.
Robert so desires an origin
and I tell him so—hitting him
where it hurts. Robert
takes the stick. He draws
another line—parallel
to the first. He stands
on the other side of his line.
Distance, Robert says
without saying it. The lines
seem arbitrary at first—
just things that are. Then
they grow into something
else entirely.
Robert stayed silent—
and so did I. He takes
the stick and begins to dig,
slowly, between the two
lines. Depth, I consider,
but remain quiet, even
when I don’t want to. He digs.
He digs silently, slowly. Digging.
Days and nights come to pass.
There was nothing beautiful
about the distance
nor the silence, that became
their lives.
One day,
the digging is done.
Robert gets into the hole
and lays down.
I call to Robert. Nothing.
I reach my arm down
into the hole. Nothing. I peer
down with a light. It provokes
nothing. I am alone now.
The bad kind. Robert? I say.
Nothing. Robert I find myself
saying my whole life now—
getting nothing and wanting
only this one thing.
Robert’s Dream
I never was : I never could be : my eyes : don’t matter : my lips were red like a boy playing : sweet fruit : I made a glance : the glance looked sweet : I wore red gloves : it was winter : I wore a cigarillo in my mouth : I wore expensive wool : I wore a big cock tucked into my jeans : I was a man: frighteningly sentimental : I looked : behind me : a world : a tree : a chevy silverado : pepsi cans skirching across the road : I walked : I walked and walked : like I knew what I was doing : there was a question : on my mind : the question became clear : I was looking through a window : William approached : He said : Never : I said : What? : William said : Never, it will never be wrong : Wrong, the sound a bell makes : The world, from before, was emptying, now : of everything : it had never been there : and nothing ever came back : it was night: foiled and endless : it was time: yes: outrageous and very quiet
S. Yarberry is a trans poet and writer. Their poems have appeared in Tin House, AGNI, jubilat, Indiana Review, Redivider, The Boiler, and miscellaneous zines, among others. Their articles and interviews have appeared in BOMB magazine, The Adroit Journal, and Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly. S. is a Ph.D. candidate in literature at Northwestern University, where they hold a Mellon Cluster Fellowship in Poetry & Poetics. S. is the Poetry Editor of The Spectacle literary magazine. Their first book of poems, A Boy in the City, is forthcoming from Deep Vellum.