Some shitty poetry

An Ode to Beardsley

The Death of Arthur
Your earliest work
And one of your most mainstream
And yet, there are still elements that will come later:
Claustrophobic forests,
Frail, androgynous men,
Women, powerful columns of black,
And that skewed japonisme perspective
That would become more obvious
As you tired of the project.

Salome
Your masterwork
“The ascetic heart of early Christianity
Beats against the sensual throb of Paganism.”
Men and women swathed in Orientalist robes,
Gender indeterminable,
Floating in deserts of blank white sand
As the woman in the moon gazes down
Upon the vengeful princess
Demanding the head of John the Baptist
And kissing his warm, dead lips.
Your perversity was at its absolute height,
Hidden in the technique of your drawings
And that veil makes it that much more grotesque.

The Yellow Book
Women, free from the confines of men
Read
And walk
(Alone
At night)
And love each other
And dress themselves before mirrors
Lit by gaslight lamps.
The implication is clear
And the audience was appalled.

The Savoy
Your most irreverent
Trading the blocks of black and white
For textures of all kinds:
Dotted,
Striped,
Strands of hair,
All suggesting the world of the fin de siecle
Married to the decadence of Versailles,
Of an antiquated Greece that never existed.

The Rape of the Lock
Your contemporary masterpiece,
Of the most delicate of embroidering
And focus not the exploits
Of the Baron's foolish love,
But on the beautiful garden
And muted expressions
And the dresses (in a show of your
Disdain for reality) of a style at least
Fifty years after the poem's writing.

Lysistrata
Your glorious return to Japanese influence
Gauzy lingerie and coiffed hair of Versailles
And swollen elephantine penises of Shunga
Even here, the women do not need the men:
One rips off her dress
And the
Eyes
Travel
Down
The embroidering.

Volpone
Your last project
A move towards neo-classical beauty
Rather than the impudent women of your past.
Light wash on your drawings
Giving them a fuzzy look and perspective.
The blurred visions an unfortunate coincidence
With your death.