An Unbridled Mimic

Violet hopes pined
when I neglected them,
souring in my afterthoughts.
Miniature tragedies
souring my sweet perspective.

Violet pities the way I cry.
“Have faith” says she,
and pities the way I try.
As I do, whilst I watch
lovers grow, and die,
from the idealistic soil
of my ever wistful mind.

I am the lonely harpsichord
(the lover’s heart flattened beneath an unrequited heel).
I am the volatile guitar
(the poet, unbridled and instinctive, manipulating hearts).
I am the plaintive oboe
(the daughter’s bittersweet tears of pity).
I watch the soloist
and play poor mimicry of her audacity.
It is not me whom I emulate so well.

But I try, I try, I try;
whispered cuisines are mine to find,
painfully archaic.
I taste them-
feel them aloud for the first time,
and they are mine
To collect and process
until they are mere remnants-
watered down, battered and stripped,
to a tangible, coherent form I can express.

Imagination is as real as anything I’ve found,
and fiction by far more satisfying.
It succeeds where reality fails
in quenching my vocal cravings.
Imagination lives with passion in my violet, violet head.