Ralph

One sullen morning, dear Ralph, you’ll see

Why master Osmond called you a protégé,

In your attic the answer dwells, shabby

Yet bright – the beacon in life’s plangency.

 

It hums, it drums, the beats they echo a tune

And shines through the wooden window the moon,

A cure for your enervated heart, Ralph,

As master in spirit evinces – our art;

 

Our fodder for this drought, young were we sought

To display a trait, cut through the haze of hate –

Pulverise! Decimate! Raze the shackles

Of our fate, burdens to our dreamy fey;

 

And beckons you to this day, I sigh,

Another lie, another life descry,

Your inner design, an old fleeting rhyme

Metred by time, dear Ralph, your pantomime

 

In your befuddled mind, passing passim

A mist by your side – muse, your seraphim,

Your ale for your pallour that gives colour

And thus snuffs our cuffs, and then retires.

 

One bright noon, dear Ralph, you’ll fret –

Why your muse in aplomb not blow trumpets,

Instead a soul it cleft, a might heart

Bereft, in want of a beat solemnly

Loud – anodyne for days ‘neath tempest clouds;

 

And so you smite what you arduously write

Ona paper white, your only light, streaming

Into your constrained mind, revolting rhyme,

Pulverise ghastly fetters that confine

 

Your bustling tale, no longer be restrained,

But lead the raven into its dark game,

And then mighty Ralph, your verse will be in flames

And tame your bonds, lead you from where you came.

 

One dreary night, dear Ralph, you’ll find

That all your muse is frantic in your mind

And then no mountains shall into wandering

Clouds vaporise, by your iambs not abide;

 

But dance to tumultuous rhyme, a new paradigm

Of your muse’s trance: white planes do a mellow

Dance – at last in the attic you swoon

By the smirking moon, Ralph, the midnight loon.

 

 

Image: Throes of Creation by Leonid Pasternak