A Poetic Perspective

On a majestically miserable afternoon

In Peckham,

Life in London became a Library

Of poetic prose.

Sidewalks swayed in

Crazed contorted lines,

Poignantly painted by Gayford

Through turbulent transcription;

A memoir of an artist’s aesthetic life.

A story shaped by strife.

The Yellow House.

At five o’clock the rain

Became

A moon-stone encrusted cloak –

Capturing whimsical folk

In foreign fantasia.

The Pelican sang “Hey Diddle Diddle.”

Under ochre-stained Lidl,

A pauper tuned her fiddle

In fictitious frivolity -

Forgetting the cruel chronicles

Of insolvency.

The mystic music carried her ‘into a sea

Of dew,’

In a shoe

With Wynken, Blynken, and Nod,

To meet Motunui’s exiled demigod.

A greeting of greed:

Pints of Prestige,

Punnets of parmesan endowed polenta,

Whispering wine –

A sign

Of Winnie’s witchcraft.

She checked her overdraft.

Crime will aid her escape

The carmine hues of hatred.

Her manifesto mirrors that of

Murder suspect,

Mike Engleby who said:

“The thing about opium

Is that it makes pain or difficulty unimaginable;”

“Suffering, hypothetical” -

Poetical.

Aesthetical.

Scars of her past

Are now cast

Onto the canvas in the attic;

A hallucinatory resolve

To solve

Destitution.

Self-prosecution.

Prostitution.

Her dealer,

A hookah-smoking caterpillar,

Saved her from the streets;

A Carroll character of whom she regularly meets

In the Midnight Library.

A poetic perspective to

Perpetual plight.

A snapshot of suffering

Is simpler to understand

If detached in a distant dreamland.

Voodoo Ray’s decorated

In the terrible trajectory of

Doctor Facilier’s intangible tale –

Where Shadow friends wish to revengefully prevail.

For sale:

Fishcakes of Flounder from Ariel’s aquatic jail,

Alongside Monstro the sperm whale

As sashimi,

And Luca garnished in lactuca;

A diabolical dissection of the dreamy

Image of Disney.

The waiter,

Weighed down by Wednesday’s weariness,

Served Anton Ego –

An emaciated, egotistical villain.

Reptilian

In looks;

Echidna from mythological books.

A cruel and criticising consumer,

Kindness abated by ill-humour.

Anton,

Maddened from a brain tumour.

No one was to know,

Thus, believing his abhorrent act

To be a show.

“A vicious man.

Greedy for black forest gateau,

Created by the acclaimed Auguste Gusteau.”

No tip,

And a simple sip

Of sake.

A whimsical welcome.

An illusory idea of identity.

Named as the critique from Ratatouille,

Not dissimilar to the Marquis

Or Monseigneur St. Evrémonde;

Pitiless and arrogant.

The Aristocracy.

Dickens’ denouncement of those

Accustomed to gorging on the grandeur of high tea,

Whilst

He,

Succumbed to a less salubrious lifestyle

As a poverty-plagued juvenile.

Poetic pessimism

Promised human erasure.

Prejudgement in favour of whimsical wonders

Of Walt,

Arranged an arrogant assault

Against a dying human man,

With a limited lifespan.

Callous due to cancer.

We cast those who are cruel

Into characters

Whom we wish them to be.

So that we can see

Fantasy.

The poetic perspective

As Khalil Gibran would say, is:

‘A deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.’

We as humans must see,

Life in hues of whimsical beauty,

But daubed with the harsh tones of reality.

The little details,

Such as a smiling face,

May transport us to wondrous place

Upon our bookcase.

Yet, the person behind that grimace

Or grin,

Might need humanity to step in

And be a grounding safety pin.