At Café Apollinaire

wordy wooden wordsmithy Wordsworth

tirelessly works with anvil & hammer

on wrought hot iron

erecting a wretched tower of Babel

in a field of golden daffodils

trailing clouds of glory

the visionary Blake bastes

& bakes his brain

in visions of Angels & demons

of Heaven & Hell

of Innocence & Experience

of gentle lambs & ferocious tigers

of weepy chimney sweeps

blasting the Satanic Mills

of the age of reason

crying out of the wilderness

in a hair-shirt & ashes

on a roof-top gnashing his teeth-



The romantic poet

wearing a green absinthe stained shirt

recites for the one for whom he lays his heart bare

wrapped in her cloak of cool blue shadow

of smouldering cinders

of passionate mysterious eyes

presents a bouquet of purple perfumed flowers

whose lips speak in satiny mauve tones

brings her the head of Medusa

he holds in his hands

dripping blood into a basket of pomegranates

& golden apples of the sun

fiery stallions neigh & snort loudly

dreaming of pulling the sun

stamped with delicate butterflies

all to no avail

she averts her eyes

gets up from the table

in search of someone & something else



A seminary student

with patience & compassion

talks to the Mad Reclusive Monk

to cheer him up

to get him out of his shell

fears the wounds go too deep-



Lewis Carroll sits sipping sips of tea

before returning to the hunt

of the sly slippery Snark

quotes Zen koans

of caterpillars slugs & bats-



Under the cover of night

Gabrielle Rossetti claws through graveyard soil

in desperation

to steal his manuscript of verses back

placed by his lover's coffin

in a moment of manic posing

of romantic mindless madness-



Classicist & Neo-Classicist

paint pious Biblical scenes

scenes of ancient Greece & Rome

sad melancholic scenes

scenes of jubilation

all in exacting details

painting the rich & kings

Queens Dukes & Earls

into these scenes

Nobles & the Medici

standing round about

in a stable in Bethlehem

weeping outside the tomb of the Nazarene

on Golgotha kneeling at the cross

writing thousand page long novels

of pseudo-realism

parceled out in chapters

at a dollar a line

in a popular newspaper

the longer the better

giving the public what they want

paying heed to their supportive

& complaining letters

for poor sweet little Nell

little Doritt or Oliver Twist

of pity & too easily spilt tears

of the superficial sentimentalist -

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