Delta40
07-14-2011, 06:34 PM
At the height of his day, inkblot polyps splash across dried slurries of paper.
Yet eventually he discovers there are not enough burnt bones,
tar or pitch to colour all characters.
Too few pigments and resins to warm a matchstick girl dying in a shop doorway.
Poverty, he tells himself is what nourishes us best,
while under the dim oil lamp he sucks handfuls of 19th century caramels,
relishing the peppermint centres.
The fountain pen scratches to the squally winds across the moors
till the dye fades and his weary eyes squint.
He mixes more lampblack but the shellac is too thick to give him the fluidity he craves.
Curse this India Ink!
Another soot faced character is sacrificed on the embers.
Indeed, he reasons to himself, snuffing out creative sparks is the best of times.
He slumbers in his armchair, a glass of tawny port his closest friend.
By the dancing firelight, dreamy plots unfold on his tippled horizon
but are soon erased by the Ghost of Insolvency.
In the kitchen, his faithful maid rolls out dough as thin and as far as it can go.
The scratched oakwood bench is notched with hopes her master will live a long, sheltered life.
The drowsing writer is oblivious that once the pastry tears,
he will have reached the final line of his own story.
Yet eventually he discovers there are not enough burnt bones,
tar or pitch to colour all characters.
Too few pigments and resins to warm a matchstick girl dying in a shop doorway.
Poverty, he tells himself is what nourishes us best,
while under the dim oil lamp he sucks handfuls of 19th century caramels,
relishing the peppermint centres.
The fountain pen scratches to the squally winds across the moors
till the dye fades and his weary eyes squint.
He mixes more lampblack but the shellac is too thick to give him the fluidity he craves.
Curse this India Ink!
Another soot faced character is sacrificed on the embers.
Indeed, he reasons to himself, snuffing out creative sparks is the best of times.
He slumbers in his armchair, a glass of tawny port his closest friend.
By the dancing firelight, dreamy plots unfold on his tippled horizon
but are soon erased by the Ghost of Insolvency.
In the kitchen, his faithful maid rolls out dough as thin and as far as it can go.
The scratched oakwood bench is notched with hopes her master will live a long, sheltered life.
The drowsing writer is oblivious that once the pastry tears,
he will have reached the final line of his own story.