Despatches from the Edge

His suffering spews onto the canvass.

Heart-stopping reds, ochres, oranges

seared through the centre with eye-bright magentas.

Breath-taking lines crossed expressing a life lived in hard-edged extremis.

Wretched up from his soul,

it hangs in isolation

decorating chambers' hall.

And beneath, acceptability snakes through blinking architraves

opening and shutting as the briefs, gowned and wigged in black and white,

circumnavigate the truth,

tie it up in knots of pink to make a case.

They file into court,

join men from unfamiliar lands

kept tidily apart 

by architect plan,

by carved edge

of box, bench and stand.

And in the dock: a solitary man.

 The privileged whigs 

own priceless originals

kept in the dark 

(their value quadruples).

The jurors take pride in

paper-thin copies of Greats;

flayed nerves caged

against the flock of suburban wall

Selves defined in these extreme endeavours of another.

In print, the human tragedy reduced to rant:

"EVIL MONSTER

BRUTAL  MURDER HORROR"

Shockwaves from this demonising tirade

force distances the size of deserts.

Dissassociation to disguise

a dirty little truth:

who's in this picture?

But we deny

any link or tie

and hang this monster out to dry.