Spectacle of beard and owlish spectacles,
bulbous nose, domed head, ungainly gait –
the magnet draws me in, then flips –
his impish, portly presence –
strange jilt, this jolt of finding
out: despite the intrigues of the almost-us,
we do not want
to meet ourselves,
we do not want
it, despite the intrigues of the almost-us.
Strange guilt this golden finding –
my impish, portly presence –
the magnet flips, then draws me in –
bulbous nose, domed head, ungainly gait,
spectacle of beard and owlish spectacles.
In 1848 and 1849, the landscape painter and nonsense poet Edward Lear travelled through Albania and Greece, in search of vivid landscapes for his watercolour sketches. His journals and lithographs were later published as one of the most celebrated travel books of the 19th century: Journals of a Landscape Painter in Albania, &c. (1851).
Michael Loveday lives in Hertfordshire, England. He is a poet and fiction writer, and author of two books and two chapbooks. His debut poetry pamphlet He Said/She Said was published by HappenStance Press (2011). His craft guide Unlocking the Novella-in-Flash: from Blank Page to Finished Manuscript (Ad Hoc Fiction, 2022), won a Best Indie Book Award and the 2024 Independent Press Award for Writing and Publishing. Website: https://michaelloveday.com