“Beauty is truth
Truth is beauty”
But the truth is the truth
The truth is not pretty
There are grimy faces
And tears
So many tears
There is poverty
Addiction
Rape
Murder
War

A writer must only write of beauty
Oh, yes
I shall pen sonnets
Of sparrows and nightingales
Roses and a crown of thorns.
It is merely the mule man’s burden
To carry the weight of the world
Upon his soul
Silently absorbing the horror
The light
Goodness and a frozen night
With no chance to scream his throat raw

Yet he may write
Of travesties and boundaries
Misery
Shall we blindly march on?
Blatantly ignoring the truth of the world
Lost in our utopias
Our flowers
Our true love’s kisses

Oh, the Victorian woe
As they mock concern
Feign affection for the world…
If I were to write of beauty
I would be lost.
If I were to insistently scrawl images
Of entwined lovers and boundless pastures,
I would be veiling the truth
And forsaking the world.