helenvalentina

Oscar Wilde in New York (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard.
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word.
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!
(from The Ballad of Reading Gaol)

Oscar

We kill the truth before it speaks
In jest it hides in vain
Society is crueller still
In ways we cannot name
And brilliance is no true reward
Instead it takes the blame

Dear Oscar’s difference from the start
Man born before his time
Would better live in modern age
Embrace him in his prime
And ask of him for his true love
No reason, cause nor rhyme

Our cruel response to what’s unique
Is shame upon our kind
In loss he’s wreathed, his beauteous words
Still linger, and remind
Such bitter loss injustice gives
For those we leave behind

In Reading Gaol he spent his days
Still writing of his world
And from society’s embrace
He cruelly was thus hurled
Before the flags of his own kind
Could ever be unfurled

I fond believe was Oscar born
In this more open day and age
Then ever more of brilliant work
We’d see upon our stage
Instead our loss is written cold
In history’s shameful page.

(c) Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved

For mindlovemisery’s prompt on literary idols – see http://mindlovemisery.wordpress.com

I could only choose the incomparable Oscar Wilde and wrote an ode to both him and in the form/as an homage to one of his most famous and heartbreaking poems.