In which the Scholar Attempts a Novel Format
(Artwork: Tumultuous Arrangement, or Torture of Body and Mind. Acrylic on canvas. © The Scholar, Apr 2017)
I seldom delve into poetry, for I feel that verbal juxtaposition is rather more efficacious as it is nestled within the confines of a strict and reasonable grammatical structure. However, I was so infuriated during a certain excursion last week that I could find no other way to express my ire than through free-verse stylings, much in the manner of Walt Whitman. I simply thought I would share this with my admirers, for it is so charged with emotion as to leave me heaving for breath upon its consideration. I have no doubt it will have the same effect on all who behold it:
Bottomless indignation. Infinite injustice.
Literal scum of the earth.
Stench of a thousand unseen fish corpses rotting in the waves.
Encroaching, horrid seawater.
Sand in my food, in my shoes, in my ears, in the folds of my cravat.
Sand between my toes, abrading the skin raw.
Raw skin, exposed tender flesh before its time, destroyed.
Manservant vanished, crowd indifferent, lifeguard deaf.
Trapped in a sea of sand with beaches of asphalt and seawater.
Sand, drowning influence, drying touch.
Manservant nowhere to be seen.
Throat hoarse from screaming.
Throat hoarse from breathing sand.
Children passing, children cruel.
Blast them. Blast them all to Tartarus.
Sentences malformed, sentences lost in the fervor of thought.
Manservant absent, sand in food, sand in toes.
Suffering eternal, pain eternal.
Surrounded by people, alone.
Throat bloodied from sand.
Throat bloodied from screaming.
Sweat, oil, white on nose.
My skin ever redder, hers ever whiter.
Skin burnt, skin untouchable.
Dragged away on burning skin.
Manservant returned, manservant scolded.
