Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Donall Dempsey Oct 2015
THE GENTLEMAN OF SHALLOT

Come Spring...

I paint my little room
all yellow

fill it with
daffodils & jonquils

drag in a giant
mirror

(left in the back yard)      

so large

it takes up
all the wall

giving the illusion
of another room

as if my room
were now not so

small.

Sometime the trompe d'oeil
fools even me

& I walk into
the imaginary room.

'Ouch! '
my reflection shouts!

Come Spring...
...came you!

(totally unexpected)      

& my playing with
perspective

hath you enthralled.

I'd catch you
catching your
reflection observing you

observing
the mirror couple

as they
mimiced us

watching our every
more

you thought it so
sensual

or could pretend to be
at a small ****

when it was only
us

again

&

again.

Bodies of flesh & blood
bodies of glass.

You breathe
upon the mirror

tracing our names
with a fingertip

fragile words
made of breath

'...this love...will last...! '

*

When we break
up

the mirror
stayed intact

except for a jagged
lightning crack

& now it was I
who watched

like a gentleman of Shallot

the couple
in the mirror

(the ghosts of
memory)      

making love

bodies of flesh
& blood

bodies

of

glass.
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2017
islam is really buying into an ideological
warfare
       of creating a historiogical narrative
for former crusader nations...
           the history? it's way gone, past,
in the dust... but islam is probing
        this need to settle old qualms in a modern
narrative...
    i can't actually add to a history
           these days, but i can take up a banner
of historiology, or so i am told...
   and yes, certain words aren't exactly
the standard bearers of who easily you can
rap them...
            you really need to pause and catch
the nuance... or the naiveness in which they're use...
   when i use the word historiological
i think of the past as having necessarily happened,
and in need to happen again, on the basis
of someone else telling me: you have to
inherit this.
            it's no wonder that islam attacks former
crusader nations... france esp.,
          what with adhemar, bishop of le puy,
urban ii grand speech lauching the ***** into
a tight spot... tancred de hauteville...
                 bohemond...
        radulph of caen merely annotated the deeds done
and the words said...
      robert, duke of normandy, and his daughter
adela, quick to **** at Urban's tongue... the truth...
   Islam is really reassigning us with
a historiology, not a history we might be prone
to forget, or be ashamed by...
   it's not doing what the word histiorology is defined by,
not this unearthing of graves, and their deseceration...
you really want to wake up the Nazgûl?!
seriously?
   sure, i can be your necromancer... we can have
total obliteration... just speak enough ****** constriction
to germans, and then point them at the target,
and you'll get a crossbow shock of the event...
     Islam really is warming us up for something,
they're nibbling at us, they're trying to
  really give us the "spark", it's not a case whether i'm
correct in thinking this... it's only that i feel it...
i can taste it... i can stomach it...
     such lovely names, those old crusaders...
Tancred...
                     mind you: peter the hermit's child
crusade...
                       if they came from north of Persia
they'd be drafted as Mameluks...
       le throng! if only there were always
the french incission to state that...
   le throng! you just can't leave youth culture
settle into the urban environment,
you really seem to want that... get pockets
of culture coming from the youth...
     it can't ever be grime from east or south london...
    me? i'm trapped in a library, i actually
built of myself... apparent;y 1 in 10 people don't
own a single book in england...
         the brothers Godfrey, Eustace & Baldwin...
   oh lookie lookie... you're tickling the beast
so just, any minute now and it will awake once more...
    and be cited as having said:
   walking up to me knee in blood and
slaughtered corpse... Harod looks pale the minute
past...
               Tancred... dubbed te Panzer sulphur snout...
are there more gentlemen of my stature on
their way?
        that's me: don't know who's the possessor
of a ***** and who of a juiced up ****...
   but i can bet the niqab does wonders...
   so much anonymity, you don't even need
  internet pseudonym names, no jackx666
or rogerxtra... you just don the ninja and, ooh!
ooh! everything's so flimsy! so airy! flutters
of a butterfly!
               that ***** king in the kingdom of heaven
movie did have a name: baldwin iv...
   and he was a *****...
         you'd accidently sneeze into his face
and his nose would fall off...
   true story, or i'm drunk...
           but my: this wine i made, this homemade
wine? it does the trick!
                 baldwin iv died aged twenty four...
lucky sod, kurt cobain of the medieval ages...
    oi oi... wait wait... ZENGI!
  zengi the heavy drinker! buddy!
fully name? imad ed-din zengi. ah, zengi zengi,
zengi... what tales i have for you...
      i'd tell them, and you'd turn out to be in full
disclosure trying to fake sober...
                        ibn al-athir also wrote something,
does it deserve more a toast or mere chronicler?
the latter will know.
fatimids and sunni caliphs...
              Balak, the dream-inspiration for
Fulcher of Chartres...
Antioch, Tyre, Edessa...
  and that old feverish fox known as the lesser
Barbarossa: Reynald de Châtillon...
         don't know...
   as an ethnic bias, i am of the people that remained
bound to a home near the Baltic sea...
  we also fought crusaders...
the knights templar, die ritter von deutsche haus
beispiel sankte mariam in yerusalem...
       which makes my history a bit different
to the current history...
i have other myths... with
Jagiello... and grand-komtur Brzęczyszczykiewicz...
but you know... hmm... let's go crazy
and pop a pill or two... blues for the upper
and reds for the downer...
what a unique occasion! are you sure
we're not sailing on a gondola in the water-alleys
of Venice singing some obscure folk-song, hmm?!
by now i look like the stańczyk (grand court
jester) in one of jan matejko's paintings,
laughing my *** off as to denote: that i am,
quiet righly: the most amused. ha ha.
Sioux! sioux! pruss! pruss!
     and the crucifix really is a profanity of
the tetragrammaton, that came back,
morphed, as if touching a philosophers stone,
and turned out to be an acronym n.e.w.s.:
north, east, west... south...
   the minute the tetragrammaton touched
the ✝ it came back as n.e.w.s.
      and that really is the most dignifying
Balaam equal compliment i can give...
      but you know, just seeing how Islam is really
inviting former crusader nations to have a fight...
   and i'm spotting this, coming from a region
that also had crusades riddle it...
    but it's true... the crusades around the Baltic coast
never get any coverage these days...
  i guess you can't really make momentum
from a reigion where it's natural resource hidden
in the ground is salt... rather than oil...
    then again, lying about,
reading the book crusades by terry jones
& alan ereira... didn't really make me think much...
   when it comes to the two splinters off
res in: res cogitans,
  i can only think of re-       i.e. reflex
   and re-    i.e. reflection...
     and the tongue these days is so ******* saggy....
i'd take more pleasure eating a bagpipe of haggis
than listen to current rhetoric...
    it's a sickness though, this demand Islam
is making, that once Israel has been established
we forget our cosmopolitan cocktails and engage in
a holy war...
                  but it is the narrative, we're almost expected
to feed into a crusader culture...
      but once again, i'm using a tongue that once
did wield crusading pomp, and i have an
underlining perspective of being on the receiving end
of crusades of the baltic states...
     i really should be jumping for joy right now...
   but given the schooling system in england,
or i suppose the whole of western europe,
i'm part of the schattenvolk...
                how the Lithuanians were so and so...
how the Poles were so and so...
    how i could almost try to seek out the same
linguistic pride of modern Silesians in ancient yore
of Pruß, but come against nothing but the Kashubian
denote...
**** me! so it really was worthwhile keeping
my native tongue, and exploring my ethnicity
and history like a ****-pants 16 year old girl
on a trip in the guise of tourism?!
  oh applause! this is better than milking old ladies
like Liberache might for a fur coat
or a gold-plated toilet!
     ooh... you rascal you...
                 can i please not sound gay now?
i hate how the concept of personnae can creep into
your psyche and give you, the most obliterating
narrative techniques imaginable...
                        but if you ask me...
Islam will not wage war against nationas that did not
succumb to the rhetoric of pope Urban Deux...
        i mean... can you really imagine a terrorist
attack in Poland?
             given that Poland experienced it's own taste
of crusades?
                 well... if it does happen... that really will
wake up something... it certainly won't be multiculturalism....
perhaps this really is merely a **** into the wind...
         my, all this can come out sleep-walking by
simply lying in bed and reading a history book?
             it's a good thing i assimilated on the basis
of merely using the tongue, rather than tapping into
past history of the people, past grievances, past prides,
past symbolism... i just use the language...
    i don't expect to really revolve around being an
adamant west ham supporter...
i just know that i'm Polish in the english language...
   and Islam doesn't really attack
      those who've have the better share of grievances...
whether in the 20th century context,
of going way back, when Israel was about...
             and reading a history book...
   wriggling toward a status of fame is absurd...
     i like the idea of: gently passing by like foam on
top of a cup of cappuccino...
                      someone said froth:
i'm exfoliating with this that and the other guess work
of vocab...
               well... that's that...
        worth noting the many more easily impressionable
young men out there...
                that would rather chop a head
of a person of their assimilated culture, and subsequently
not retain their native tongue,
   and then not play: smack the ******!
    layering over what their ethnicity clearly speaks,
although with a borrowed tongue...
       which is why a slang variation of language
has to emerge...
                it's not a case of slang representing
prior footing, and current footing, but cleansing
prior footing, as current footing, with only
a melting *** to be sure of...
         on the objective basis that's the right thing
to do... you really want to eat a good curry
at the end of the day...
  but sometimes you need someone to say:
me a shallot prior a carrot in that melting *** of spice...
        the feeling is not mutual...
    would i ever eat sand to sharpen my teeth
for a cannibalistic grin?
                         i'm quiet content with merely
dabbling in poached lamb... but if another mein teil
scenario arises... it'll probably come west of the Odra
river.
Donall Dempsey Oct 2023
THE GENTLEMAN OF SHALLOT

Come Spring...

I paint my little room
all yellow

fill it with
daffodils & jonquils

drag in a giant
mirror

(left in the back yard)      

so large

it takes up
all the wall

giving the illusion
of another room

as if my room
were now not so

small.

Sometime the trompe l'œil,
fools even me

& I walk into
the imaginary room.

'Ouch! '
my reflection shouts!

Come Spring...
...came you!

(totally unexpected)      

& my playing with
perspective

hath you enthralled.

I'd catch you
catching your
reflection observing you

observing
the mirror couple

as they
mimicked us

watching our every
move

you thought it so
sensual

or could pretend to be
at a small ****

when it was only
us

again

&

again.

Bodies of flesh & blood
bodies of glass.

You breathe
upon the mirror

tracing our names
with a fingertip

fragile words
made of breath

'...this love...will last...! '

*

When we break
up

the mirror
stayed intact

except for a jagged
lightning crack

& now it was I
who watched

like a gentleman of Shallot

the couple
in the mirror

(the ghosts of
memory)      

making love

bodies of flesh
& blood

bodies

of

glass.
E A Bookish Feb 2016
Bougainvilleas line the house, dedicated, stoic sentinels
Ivy has replaced mortar as the only thing keeping the walls from crumbling
The windows have no glass,
But the rain is kept at bay by the gossamer webs of kind spiders.
Inside there is no furniture – only paper tomes
She sits on a pile of high school textbooks
Her table, stacks of hard cover crime novels
Her bed, a nest of magazines

There is no fridge or pantry – she doesn’t eat
But she is not starving
She devours books, has become fat on them
A varied diet: science and science fiction,
Fantasy, history, politics, philosophy
And to nourish her soul – poetry.

She doesn’t remember her name
But it doesn’t matter
She is Beowulf, Boudicca, Odysseus
Dorian Grey, the Lady of Shallot,
She is both Hero and Leander  

She never leaves,
But she knows that the world is turning
The sparrows in the gable tell her so
And she doesn’t need it, no

She smiles, cries, and falls in love over and over
With the turn of each page
Her fingers have transformed into ink stains
She has lived a thousand and one lives
She holds them all inside her
She makes them live, and they keep her alive -

This is a dream that I once had.
Zaahr H Sep 2015
May the moth not care,
Towards the light.
May the flower refuse to blossom,
In springtime.
May the rise of a full moon,
Not urge the wolf to howl.
May the smell of fresh blood,
Not make the lion prowl.

May the moon not,
Direct the tides.
May the Lady of Shallot,
Not look at the Knight.
May I not be afraid,
Of a long forgotten feel.
May the sight of you not rekindle,
The old fire, my hearts ordeal.
Acora Apr 2021
The way I expressed it didn’t fully
Make sense to my dearest
Who only likes men.
I’ve never prescribed to the scrutiny
Eyes of jocks eyeing us as they do ****.
I used to see red as a fad that
had past and a warning that I’m
Not desired;
Nor will be, no matter my try.
But I’m realizing now,
Want is deeper than thou who have
wanted me only in theory.
Fruity or trans, and the girlfriend
I have, each is queer and there’s something more in it:
Queers see women the same way
they view art pieces;
So I’ve always been Venus and Ophelia,
The Lady of Shallot— not some
acquiescent cool-girl
who’ll answer your questions of
***** hair and fair children.
Where a woman I knew
sees a woman as through
some man’s eyes focused on her *******—
I cut a fringe for the change,
And remain soft in shape
For these are a lover’s desires:
Wear your identity on your sleeve,
In the curve of your arm, on the scent of your hair and upon the pendant at your neck.
Like the romantics do in literature;
After de-centering men,
You can finally be free.
Inspired by the monologue found at https://youtu.be/0o4heKCLeTs

Nelumbo nucifera, or lotus flower— liberation from attachment.
Mark McIntosh Mar 2015
drain full of peelings
broken plunger & unwashed dishes
drops sprinkle from the sky
yesterday hail
leached peas and golfballs cracked
hitting windows
perhaps reflection
back to the hills
to find freshness somehow
crusts too old to chew the grains
birds quiet in the autumnal wash
preparing for another outing of art
therapy.
ginger, shallot, chilli & chicken
rice later
something for the blood which
pumps & beats & never stops
till words release and a
semblance of peace arrives
Daisy King Jan 2015
Ophelia enters, playing the lute
to share a song that she wrote
about being sick to death of being good
but keeps hitting the wrong note.

The Lady of Shallot is mute.
She has been since she failed to float
but she etched her song into the wood
that made up her grave and her boat.
Donall Dempsey Apr 2019
ALWAYS THE SAME DREAM

"PING!" goes the microwave.
"PING!" goes the yet-again-Internet.

The Lady of Shallot
deletes Lancelot

from her facebook
friends.

She pokes Tennyson but Tennyson
doesn't like to be poked.

The world and its shadows
stream through her BT provider.

A post informs her that
"Popty Ping!" is Welsh

for microwave.
She clicks Like.

Doesn't remember when she
last interfaced with the real

world
the big bad world

that huffs and puffs
outside the frosted glass.

She posts a new status:
"Agoraphobics are people too!"

What was Tennyson thinking of?
She didn't ask to be created!

A woman made from "words
words...words. . .words!"

"The curse has come upon me!"
She has run out of Lil-Lets.

"Chop shallots & simmer
lightly in butter, then. . ."

the Youtube video
instructs her.

She finishes yet another
bottle of cheap plonk.

It's so hard to be
a fictional character

in a modern world
that's gone digital.

She thinks of Googling herself
but then thinks twice of it.

She falls asleep on the couch.

The cat perches on top of her head.

In her dream she is
forever floating...floating

"On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky"

It's always the same dream.
Not only giving a fictional character a modern life but having had her have to deal with all things modern and yes....cruel as it may seem autocorrected.

And yes I guess she at least knew who she was or where she stood as a fictional character but by being autocorrected by a whim into a real life world and all its attendant miseries she probably thought it had been better when she had been purely a creature of words. I hate autocorrect as I wish to be the one saying what I am going to be saying and not a machine second guessing me....I could never turn it off on my phone and had to endure it.
Donall Dempsey Apr 2016
ALWAYS THE SAME DREAM

"PING!" goes the microwave.
"PING!" goes the yet-again-Internet.

The Lady of Shallot
deletes Lancelot

from her facebook
friends.

She pokes Tennyson but Tennyson
doesn't like to be poked.

The world and its shadows
stream through her BT provider.

A post informs her that
"Popty Ping!" is Welsh

for microwave.
She clicks Like.

Doesn't remember when she
last interfaced with the real

world
the big bad world

that huffs and puffs
outside the frosted glass.

She posts a new status:
"Agoraphobics are people too!"

What was Tennyson thinking of?
She didn't ask to be created!

A woman made from "words
words...words. . .words!"

"The curse has come upon me!"
She has run out of Lil-Lets.

"Chop shallots & simmer
lightly in butter, then. . ."

the Youtube video
instructs her.

She finishes yet another
bottle of cheap plonk.

It's so hard to be
a fictional character

in a modern world
that's gone digital.

She thinks of Googling herself
but then thinks twice of it.

She falls asleep on the couch.

The cat perches on top of her head.

In her dream she is
always floating...floating

"On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky"

It's always the same dream.
Mateuš Conrad Apr 2021
what should, could... what one would otherwise
do-not-do...
when language policing is so enforced
that i just... have to... punctuate a stutter or
at least suppose so on
a racial slur, a slurp-up stricken by ice,
and cold... and if lambs had elbows...
this modus operandi of post-colonial peoples
this crucifixion self-laceration
hard-on... which i want a taste of:
bad person, forever... murderer...
since there was no censor at work
around an added G: for giggle's worth...
and an existent R - although in english
there's no trill of it... no thrill, of it so...
nay bovver...
'aggis neeps 'n' tatties...
      otherwise the swede of the suede
is a bit like digesting blue & shoe...
once upon a time two bottles of wine
and i'd be off my rockers in
a little town in Essex where the women
are as fine as nuns and
sooner a cow-*****-******* for milk than...
Juan a-hey-presto... stand... night...
unbearable...
the less *** i've had the more
this... one-armed gambit does... the more...
of the trickery...
not overloading on the use
of a definite article...
but... it's so much easier to curl a hand
into a makeshift ******...
solipsistic *** lives... of... mostly men...
a bit like... regressing / seeing double...
homosexual ***-lives in literature from
the 20th century...
******* literature from the 20th century...
heterosexual antics of men
in the 21st century...
almost a: gleich scheiße,
           anders deckel...
                dekiel.... almost a loan word...
           living in close proximity of: zee schwaben
haben saschisch... aben aben...
perhaps the grammatical
juxtaposing is akin to ancient
Latin, my concern for: anders deckel
or deckel anders...
   same ****, different cover... cover's different...
overstating a fact with
a... conjunction or is it, is, the it...
preposition of... the it is is... Beckett's last
lunch... an hour of sunshine...
keep all chalky 'andy...
beside the apostrophe and the hyphen-conjugate...
glue's not glue:
blue is blue...
green is green...
but there's also... grue...
which is not... y'ella...

          a bluegreen: present grew:
for not yellow...

and i will... entertain... language policing...
over... slurring... past punctuation markers...
like... every time i see a choc-sensation...
no offense - you want the manure skin analogy...
because choc is counter-productive block...
well... let me get on my one remaining
good knee and play tongue the custard
for a Malcolm Noble...

     i would just hate to appease...
it's so ******* boring i'm turning into a boorish
**** of apathy...
by some lineage of argumentation
i've heard the lazy etymological
"argument" that...
from the Caucus... a ****-asian male...
the argument: Paul's a pole...
a pole a Paul's Paul...
            what's missing in... less than germ-
-anic...
                   like it's so simply
Slav(e)...

         less a ****** show & tell a whitey
clad in a bleached ghost necking-tie...
off-on-the-offensive...
   i.e. attack...
      there's a klaus nigge...
      a deutsche photographer...
there's... nigh-ger-ia...
            there's also a Nigh-Ger...
  giggle glutton... gargle... growing pains
in both groin... und gut...

cages i see cages i see tongues in iron
maidens i see souls in hell
and thoughts in limbo...

sound capture... i want to scoop some letters
as almost dead:

  ж = зъ = ż...
    imagine my disbelief at the lack of
orthographical aesthetic...
it only took a dot above the Z
to encourage...

perhaps in braille
perhaps in katakana:

         ⠛⠛⠗

         but letters as atoms of sound...
or methane...
ta-
         ma-
                      -ah
                                   -e contra -eh:
the tetragrammaton my vowel
catcher...
         no surprise of a fire...

hence the surd... like an apostrophe...
extending the saxon
spelling of words into compounds
in the field of chemistry...
a herr adams that wealth of the nations
shamed
jean-paul sartre... lived with his mother
because...

i'll have to leave it to stutter...
overtly punctuated...
no, no surprises...
it's a slur like it might be allowed
for urbanites
and listening to wap folk...
but no: wrap it up
on the horizon... already excluded...
so back to no drawing board...

spikes-up mein jerky chin of a Lee
and says: it's n'ah ah... LEAN...
****** my tongue is harsh but
not towing some unfathomable tie-up...
it's byzantine bilingual
but not... schizoid-teasing-afro-affluence...
like me taking a stab
at living in... h'almighty: Ghana...
visit... Raw-Andy... the Rwandese... plumber...

whereas the romantic affairs
of men are mostly... linear...
the romantic affairs of women
are... overbearingly... cyclic... thus...
what thus?

i'm strapped to a gimmick
and a pseudo expression of lingo...
i'm spineless... death-core....

replenishing the walking abortion(s)...
this ****-job of a man
this scrap heap of egg
and nullifying shells...
like this gargantuan homosexual
**** would never begin
or end with a flower-eater
quest for...
              a drunkard's ****, side...

there aren't enough hours in a day
to want to... beside having to...
listen to bbc radio 3...
once upon a time there was
me guilty of a radio 4 escapade...
but... where there's a t.v.
i'm pretty sure there's no fire-
                           -place....

like the old addition of curating
an attic space: might it be an "also"
cave... without ridicule...
underappreciated...
undermined... this tongue that
does the waggling...
like slurp majestic of floral pattern
*****... well...
i'm tired of the sort of freedom
thus, presented...

here comes the bundle... the bulge...
heaving criss-cross and X's
at the ha ha: stubble pin-point...
yahoo fro Idaho...
this whittle sort
of green patch of land 'n'
h'america..

    my yours truly...
       delving into shelved
secrecies of gluck-winding-back...
clock... there's the admiral...
the hour of our wait...
                the ice creasing a shallot being sliced...
the agony of the wait... the agony
of a yawn... the elongated

tears over an onion...
         if i could claim ownership
for a woman to deposit her
scrutiny of mortality...

yes, this shadow,
yes: this noon...
yes this dwarf of me in shadow grit
drifting toward an apart...

onions for the peel...
i tend to forget what and where
was... "fun"...
i'll hardly want to be left
having inherited
some variation of bias
with either children
or a grandiosity of grand-
   (angwy prefix lady said
so: sock 'em in)

        here's too, a forward...leisurerly
issued: from an Ottoman outpost...
i'm a bad man...
thought language police...
i'm a bad man...
i was inherently bad...
i'm bad i'm bad
i'm terribly... horridly...  anaemic... so...
self-lacerate moi...

cages in their 'eds...
language like afghan
******'s plenty..

better target practice with
those khaki attired
mustard clad foe...
to hell with the **-**-hoes...
i forget what's inclined by stressing
the dynamic of beta...
alpha resources...

as the crucified man said:
if i am not the alpha...
i'm not going to be
the BETA-BUCK-DELUX...

i'll be... last... omega.. "junction"...
yes... i'll be that... just that..
omega malph.
Donall Dempsey Apr 2019
ALWAYS THE SAME DREAM

"PING!" goes the microwave.
"PING!" goes the yet-again-Internet.

The Lady of Shallot
deletes Lancelot

from her facebook
friends.

She pokes Tennyson but Tennyson
doesn't like to be poked.

The world and its shadows
stream through her BT provider.

A post informs her that
"Popty Ping!" is Welsh

for microwave.
She clicks Like.

Doesn't remember when she
last interfaced with the real

world
the big bad world

that huffs and puffs
outside the frosted glass.

She posts a new status:
"Agoraphobics are people too!"

What was Tennyson thinking of?
She didn't ask to be created!

A woman made from "words
words...words. . .words!"

"The curse has come upon me!"
She has run out of Lil-Lets.

"Chop shallots & simmer
lightly in butter, then. . ."

the Youtube video
instructs her.

She finishes yet another
bottle of cheap plonk.

It's so hard to be
a fictional character

in a modern world
that's gone digital.

She thinks of Googling herself
but then thinks twice of it.

She falls asleep on the couch.

The cat perches on top of her head.

In her dream she is
forever floating...floating

"On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky"

It's always the same dream.
Donall Dempsey Apr 2019
"...TREMBLE IN THE WATER CHILLY..."

the loneliness
manifests itself
as a creature

that prowls around her
tiny room
caged within her brain

even the loneliness
feels lonely
trapped inside itself

she reaches out
to touch the image
the mirror offers her

a self
made of glass
she her own - stranger

she watches her hand
pass through
the mirror's surface

"I'm the Lady of Shallot!"
she thought of...to...her  self
"...the poem made real..."

pills scatter
across a ***** floor
the mirror eating her
She had tried to **** herself many times....she called herself a "failed suicide-ist" and this was one of the times she lived to tell the tale. Alas there would come a time when she succeeded. She said that the feeling would overcome her rather than a clear decision....that the feeling made the decision for her... the world would shrink down to a nothingness and that in this great darkness...death was the only door and that she was so grateful that it opened for her. She was always so angry with the people who saved her.


***


The Lady of Shalott (1832)

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

Part I

On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And thro' the field the road runs by
       To many-tower'd Camelot;
The yellow-leaved waterlily
The green-sheathed daffodilly
Tremble in the water chilly
       Round about Shalott.
kirk Oct 2023
Would you tell me something, please don't keep me in suspense
I don't mean any upset, or make anyone feel tense
Usually I'm not bothered, I'll stay sitting on the fence
But for once, I just thought, I'd offer my two cents

I'm curious if you're aware, we're driven up the wall
Every time that you decide, to slow down to a crawl
Your almost paralytic, and you're never on the ball
We've seen slow moving objects, but you easily beat them all

Perhaps you are not conscious, and you aren't even awake?
Have you run out of petrol, have your pads seized on the brake?
There's nothing left in Staniforths, you've taken too much cake
Don't even get me started, on that stupid noise you make

I thought it was the Bisto Kids, who's come to join the party
The gravy's done, but just hold on, you need to be a smarty
We all know you will be first, because you're arty-farty
Your goal is a supper bowl, that's usually quite hearty

Let me tell you something, and I'll try to be precise
It's just a little peice of mind, a small piece of advice
Never hold your horses, if your sinking through thin ice
You'd only come a cropper, when it's us you sacrifice

You have this annoying habit, of just getting in the way
It's not even on occasion, because it happens every day
Do you have two broken ankles, are your feet stuck in set clay?
What exactly is the problem, what is causing the delay?

I suspect you may have parkinsons, or you're riddled with senility
Or are you attempting feebly, to Insult my sensibility?
Jesus Christ you've come too far, with inactive inability
The result of which is certainly, an impending liability

Why are you pacing back and forth, it's a cross contamination.
The last supper comes to mind, cos there is no explanation
If you scrutinise, I feel betrayed, with your food examination
You're like a giant tortoise, on a lazy stay vacation

We can't get to the cupboards, we can't open any door
The sideboard is a waste of time, your blocking every drawer
Sandwichs are on the move, crumbs fall down on the floor
Place your bread on porcelain, that's what the plates are for

Do I have to grow carbuncles, while I stand about and wait?
We don't need a running commentary, of what's on the buffet plate
It takes the **** at ten o'clock, when you stared out at eight
A Standing Charge should be enforced, set at the highest rate

Six eggs in a basket, what's in the cooking ***?
Tomatoes on a flat bread, thats a lovely fresh shallot
Potatoes with warm butter on, we're hoping they stay hot
I think I better call the Doc, and he will say Great Scott

Maybe you can't help yourself, and this is not your fault
But come on now it don't seem fair, when it causes a revolt
Is there any reason, why you're grinding to a halt?
You need a ******* cattle ****, or a massive lightning bolt

There doesn't seem much point to this, when everything's so slow?
You seem to be oblivious, and you don't even know
Will you collect two hundred pounds, somehow I don't think so
A Monopoly on standing still, cos you never will pass go

An arcade with all the classics, is where you ort to be
Then you could indulgence yourself, in a forgone guarantee
Mommy quick, I just can’t wait, give me a 50p
I know it will be challenging, to a very high degree

First there will be Pac-man, in a geriatric aider
Power pills will be no good, if your a ghostly masquerader
Donkey Kong will wait to long, for the dithering crusader
But your stuck and you've become, the ultimate Space Invader

Around the world in 80 days, there simply is no chance
***** Fog would just say no, without a second glance
You always appear stationary, and you're usually in a trance
If we started off from Dover, we would never get to France

The balloon would just come crashing down, because the airs gone cold
Rheumatism would set in, as Mr fog turned old
Poor Phileas would lose his hair, his head would just be bald
You'd make him wait, you'd seal his fate, his youth would be annulled

You've mastered the pure artform, of the dawdling Dilly-Dally
Good job your not a *******, in a seedy dark back ally!
I wouldn't dare to enter you. . . in our local summer rally
You'd only stop to analyse, the foliage in the valley

Don't hang around indefinitely, because we're all getting thinner
A hot meal would be nice, instead of a cold dinner
Be courteous to others, and we're onto a sure winner
It isn't very popular, when it's you that is the sinner

I sat here waiting patiently, so what's it all about?
Sunday launch took far too long, oh come on you old trout
You cannot reach a bean or pea, or a single brussel spout
**** this **** I'm off to bed, I'll ****** go without

Why are you so meticulous, cos it causes so much friction
To be frank when your a guest, it's not your jurisdiction
Its utterly ridiculous, but I will stand by my conviction
Please vacate the area, and get out my ******* kitchen

Stop hovering around the hob, and by the feeding trough
Your slower than a garden snail, your like a wingless moth
If I wasn't such a gentle soul, I'd tell you to *******
Perhaps your part Banana slug, and the slowest Three-Toed Sloth
This is about someone who is slow and always in the way
Donall Dempsey Apr 2018
ALWAYS THE SAME DREAM

"PING!" goes the microwave.
"PING!" goes the yet-again-Internet.

The Lady of Shallot
deletes Lancelot

from her facebook
friends.

She pokes Tennyson but Tennyson
doesn't like to be poked.

The world and its shadows
stream through her BT provider.

A post informs her that
"Popty Ping!" is Welsh

for microwave.
She clicks Like.

Doesn't remember when she
last interfaced with the real

world
the big bad world

that huffs and puffs
outside the frosted glass.

She posts a new status:
"Agoraphobics are people too!"

What was Tennyson thinking of?
She didn't ask to be created!

A woman made from "words
words...words. . .words!"

"The curse has come upon me!"
She has run out of Lil-Lets.

"Chop shallots & simmer
lightly in butter, then. . ."

the Youtube video
instructs her.

She finishes yet another
bottle of cheap plonk.

It's so hard to be
a fictional character

in a modern world
that's gone digital.

She thinks of Googling herself
but then thinks twice of it.

She falls asleep on the couch.

The cat perches on top of her head.

In her dream she is
forever floating...floating

"On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky"

It's always the same dream.
Donall Dempsey Jun 2022
HALF SICK WITH SHADOWS

The Lady of Shallot
sat on my sofa and sobbed

begging me for
poetical asylum

despite Patel's crackdown
on poetry refugees.

I made her a nice
cup of Earl Grey tea

slice of lemon
no sugar.

I enquired of her
"But why me?"

"You have loved me
all your life

letting me live
inside your head

free to roam
around your mind

any old time
no questions asked.

I thought of you as
you thought of me.

We are of one mind now
...are we not?"

She explained her name was Elaine
and had been a time traveller and that

when her 'mirror' cracked
(as she called her machine)

Tennyson trapped her
in that poem of his

words to the left of her
words to the right of her

into the volume
of his verse

she found herself
all of a sudden.

God how she hated
dead Victorian poets.

And it was all a pack of lies
and Lance a Lot was a ****.

She had constantly turned down
his incessant facebook friend requests.

And as for facebook
that was just a big yuk.

Oh and she hated shallots
( and green onions )

although she thought
Booker T. and the MG's

groovy and such fun
to dance to.

"Tennyson was so morose
and such a class 1 bore."

But now she had broken free
and had come to me.

No more teens mad at  me
for having to learn me off by heart.

I fixed her 'mirror.
It was only cracked.

She could have escaped
at any time but I hadn't

the heart
to tell her that.

Fixed her up with a new
facebook page LoS777.

And in a twinkling she
had vanished into where ever?

"I'll leave a door open
always in my mind!"

I shouted to the shadows
and the nothingness.

The willows whitened.
The aspens quivered.
Harrison Buloke Sep 2019
Meeting minutes of the p-brane

The thought that three thimble thumbs thatch this thorny threat, surely superimpose suede surfaces; such summoned suits shall share sheepishly short shoes. Should sharp, shimmering, shallot shapes ship shaking shin splints, splurge splashed splinter. Spray specially spun sparkling springs spanning space, spreading sparks sprung splendidly.
Donall Dempsey Jun 2021
HALF SICK WITH SHADOWS



The Lady of Shallot
sat on my sofa and sobbed

begging me for
poetical asylum

despite Patel's crackdown
on poetry refugees.

I made her a nice
cup of Earl Grey tea

slice of lemon
no sugar.

I enquired of her
"But why me?"

"You have loved me
all your life

letting me live
inside your head

free to roam
around your mind

any old time
no questions asked.

I thought of you as
you thought of me.

We are of one mind now
...are we not?"

She explained her name was Elaine
and had been a time traveller and that

when her 'mirror' cracked
(as she called her machine)

Tennyson trapped her
in that poem of his

words to the left of her
words to the right of her

into the volume
of his verse

she found herself
all of a sudden.

God how she hated
dead Victorian poets.

And it was all a pack of lies
and Lance a Lot was a ****.

She had constantly turned down
his incessant facebook friend requests.

And as for facebook
that was just a big yuk.

Oh and she hated shallots
( and green onions )

although she thought
Booker T. and the MG's

groovy and such fun
to dance to.

"Tennyson was so morose
and such a class 1 bore."

But now she had broken free
and had come to me.

No more teens made at me
for having to learn me off by heart.

I fixed her 'mirror.
It was only cracked.

She could have escaped
at any time but I hadn't

the heart
to tell her that.

Fixed her up with a new
facebook page LoS777.

And in a twinkling she
had vanished into where ever?

"I'll leave a door open
always in my mind!"

I shouted to the shadows
and the nothingness.

The willows whitened.
The aspens quivered.
Qualyxian Quest Nov 2020
Some unusual things have happened
But I yearn for ordinary

Not for me meant to be
O! Mother Mary!

Tennyson's idle tears
The Lady of Shallot

When you have a tan
What is it you've got?

          Not a lot.
Donall Dempsey Apr 2020
ALWAYS THE SAME DREAM

"PING!" goes the microwave.
"PING!" goes the yet-again-Internet.

The Lady of Shallot
deletes Lancelot

from her facebook
friends.

She pokes Tennyson but Tennyson
doesn't like to be poked.

The world and its shadows
stream through her BT provider.

A post informs her that
"Popty Ping!" is Welsh

for microwave.
She clicks Like.

Doesn't remember when she
last interfaced with the real

world
the big bad world

that huffs and puffs
outside the frosted glass.

She posts a new status:
"Agoraphobics are people too!"

What was Tennyson thinking of?
She didn't ask to be created!

A woman made from "words
words...words. . .words!"

"The curse has come upon me!"
She has run out of Lil-Lets.

"Chop shallots & simmer
lightly in butter, then. . ."

the Youtube video
instructs her.

She finishes yet another
bottle of cheap plonk.

It's so hard to be
a fictional character

in a modern world
that's gone digital.

She thinks of Googling herself
but then thinks twice of it.

She falls asleep on the couch.

The cat perches on top of her head.

In her dream she is
forever floating...floating

"On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky"

It's always the same dream.

— The End —