Marriages cruise
across my view,
those small boats
of floating odedience,
taking occasional
below-the-line knocks:
I am told, again,
about others’ sinking,
I will keep on baling.

Welcome to Ugly
your new home
in the world,
Daddy isn’t here
for his two
favourite girls,
and he never
hugs mummy,
or kisses her lips:
Ugly, the village,
in which you now live;
it sneers and snaps
on the rumour mill,
marriages kept alive
just for the kill:
welcome to Ugly
a hamlet of hate,
if you haven’t
got perfect
then it’s far too late.

I am the Bastard Prince
with my mounted portrait
showing me at my worst
as an ugly creature of spite

caught in wedded anger
and then openly exhibited
by the keen female artist,
she the re-commissioned,

with her de-construct of love,
being the all-seeing critic,
captured by what she can admit
in this oversized oil portrait.

I am the Bastard Prince.