Large Fierce Mammal

This poem has been marinating for a while. It came to be from observing the self inflicted misery of several people – two in particular – and is presented here by special request from Mrs. LFM. I can deny her nothing.

Suffice it to say that we’ve all met people who bring ugliness into the world because they feel the happiness of others exists for the express purpose of highlighting shortcomings in the lives of the less fortunate.

And so I present, on this auspicious Day 13 …

Joan

By LFM

It’s said that beauty’s just skin deep,
While ugly’s to the bone,
But what’s outside shines from within,
Read on, and learn of Joan.

She was seven kinds of ugly
In her body, soul, and mind.
She looked no better from the front
Than looked at from behind.

Where a woman’s face should be,
She wore a hateful scowl,
A face from twisted mating of
Butt ugly with an Owl.

A trollish lump to gaze upon,
With sullen, baleful glare,
While others brighten where they go,
She casts a shadow there.

Women who are happier,
And men with pretty wives,
She loves when bad things happen to
Upend their pretty lives.

Now, strange as it may sound to say,
The harpy’s not alone.
Romance finds root in sourest soil,
And so it did for Joan.

There came a new young barrister
To practice in the town.
He hired Joan to help with files
And take dictation down.

She drove him to appointments
And she helped him with his life,
Until one day he asked of her
If she would be his wife.

You’d think this would have changed her
For the better, but not so.
She did say yes, she planned the day,
And couldn’t wait to go.

You’d think that such as she might carry
Happiness from there,
When Fate grants title such as
Mrs. Barrister to wear.

But sad to say, it isn’t such.
Joan hates her life the more.
You see, there’s something in it now
More hurtful than before.

Though married to a barrister,
With all that it conveys,
The money and the social place
Lift not her darksome days.

You see, her husband’s uglier
By twice as much as she.
A thing so odd I can’t believe
It ever came to be.

But worst of all, her years of spite
Earned karmic sting for that –
The only one who’d marry her
Is blinder than a Bat.