Skip to main content

My last duchess scrambled


Saturday, September 17, 2011


My last duchess scrambled

Look, my name and my skill yet ranked flush with my lady’s white smile.  Like a fool, I had hope and yet she was not mine.  All ladies are alike. I shall clear mine away and be done with her presence.  Begone!  
I have learned my lesson.  Officious though it may be, look, I am busily starting again.  A new wife.  I am drawn to her smile like fruit flies to cherries.  ‘Sir’, she called me, and I had hope that my munificence would elicit joy.  Although since starting, I must admit, and she worked her smile to please, my happiness was disallowed, and such smiling never quite hit the spot.  She could not meet my eyes.
Her face, though fair, came alive in the laps of others.  She stands as easily as she rides, and is impressed by whatever gifts are bestowed.  I thanked the duchess and I thought I made myself glance up smiling.  I am pleased and never save the thanks from speech. Such times together were a rarity, a gift.  Oh just presence please stoop to ask if such truth disgusts.  In speech, I am avowed, I draw my will thus; the blame was entirely mine, despite the Duchess’s courtesy.  
Although my name is nine-hundred years old, I am as a child.  I sit contemplating Adolf’s worst excesses.  The pictures of Innsbruck stopping my heart in my breast.  I wandered around the terrace all one afternoon, trying to tame the fears and passions rising up in my throat.  I durst not speak my thought.  But I choose to make a clean breast of it.  My hands did the work.  I wrote this piece, though it makes me blush that I could not before.  I added a clause to my will: a codicil, I repeat my desires.  
Glad was the day I broke cover.  A warrant giving notice for my arrest.  I faint, but the wall offers no favour.  I squat, half-mast, soon to be cast out, without the least excuse, an iron bracelet locking my wrist.  I cast a glance to the orchard, alive but the scaffold stands ever proud, as the curtain on my life.  I stop and ask. ‘Sir, t’was it I?’  ‘T’was ever thus!’, came the reply.  

 My last duchess scrambled: Look, my name and my skill yet ranked flush with my lady’s white smile. Like a fool, I had hope and yet she was not mine. All la...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wonderful Copenhagen - well, yes

'Copenhagen is Wonderful' http://gu.com/p/36m48 , well, yes it is.  But it isn't the whole of Denmark and the Guardian article does not tell the whole story - and nor does it pretend to.  Even so, why do I feel like sighing every time the Guardian posts another example of Scandiphilia on its website?  First, there is the obsession with Danish drama, like Forbrydelsen (The Killing) and Borgen - neither of which I have ever seen, as they tend to be shown on Sunday evenings when, like many Danes (and Brits), I am working at home to get ready for Monday morning.  So, yes, Ms Strongman, while there is a greater emphasis in Denmark on work-life balance, and Danish business meetings frequently start with 'jeg går klokken 3.30, jeg skal hente børn', there is also a significant amount of work that is done outside of those hours - hence the increasing importance of 'hjemmearbejdsplads'.  Then there is the love affair with Nordic cuisine, which, aside from horror stori...
Post a Comment
Read more

Rejection

Thank you very much for the mails letting me know that my application for the position of Project Assistant has not been successful. In fact, it must have been so unsuccessful that you wrote to me three times to tell me so: on 17th and 29th March, and on 13th April. This seems somewhat over the top, but I presume you have your reasons.  You also encourage me to sign up for the job agent, which bearing in mind the above, seems a little futile. As you seem to enjoy writing to me so much would it be too much to ask for the next mail to include some feedback and critique so that should I take up your suggestion of signing up for the job agent, you might then only have to write me one email, thus saving all of us some time.
Post a Comment
Read more

Waiting

We are at the hospital.  Waiting for the drop to finish dripping medicine into my son.  Waiting for the doctor to come back with the results.  We are waiting for the nurse to tell us we're done and can go home.  Waiting for the medicine to work. We are waiting for him to get better.  I wonder what we'll all do with ourselves when we can stop waiting?
Post a Comment
Read more