The Victorian Portrait Company
by Phen Weston

We hang our shame on the wall

For the world to thoughtfully dissect,

 
A distorted family masterpiece of ill will,

Bitterness and venom coloured sepia,
 
Is this post-mortem photography?

A thousand autumns of disrelished taboo?
 
Each moment fractured,fragmented,

Arranged epoch, Frozen forever,
 
But this is no Disney fairy tale!

There’s is no happily ever after!
 
Antipathy, each carte de visite
Is
opposition to who we have become,
 
We hold our place and hold our time,

Defined repugnance framed In rapport,
 
And who will ever know or judge

When they too adorn walls religiously,
 
Each household their own daguerreotype,

Their own archetypal family hanging tree,
 
Can such emotions be digitally restored

Or are we a new kind of American dream?

First published in Nothing But The Rain: A Collection of Poems

 
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