If you have not read "Part I" of this poem, please do now by clicking here. One wouldn't want to digest the entree prior to the appetizer so carefully plated.

THE PORTRAIT PAINTING

Adieu, adieu! to history's winds do we,
Bid farewell to history's sprawling tree.
For a new tree grows now called The Present,
One you'll find was scarce more pleasant,
Than the past our hero was sore victim to,
Nay, this present was but a present to few.
Like a true soldier's faith did he march on,
And still from social circles was withdrawn,
To the point where awkward silence lied,
In every council and tête-à-tête he tried.
For the past had no mercy, nor the future would,
Have such charity for but a boy misunderstood.
Leaving school early he soon became,
Nothing more than a tradesmen of pity and shame,

The seasons of life so soon changed for,
The best of our subject's time spent yore.
For he fell in love for a time first and last,
From which time he forgot his entire past.
His childhood was a memory vague at best,
To recall a fond memory he was pressed.
But when love knocks on one's iron door,
And that fist belongs to one they adore,
One's past becomes nothing but idle fiction,
To be condemned to a novel crucifixion.
And one's future then dost become,
A fountain of dreams that dost flow from,
A spring of imagination so long ago sprung,
When our subject was so innocent and young.

Here an internal conflict did boil and brew,
And there his resentment grew and grew,
For the life for himself he had so actively built,
So the loathing and spirits doused his guilt.
But when he would peer into his true love's eye,
He saw a faith and solace if he were to defy,
Would haunt and linger each and every thought,
That he thought when he should have fought,
Against his disdain and against his fears,
That would up till now rule his years.
On one hand; submission. The other; dreams.
He grew to tolerate a life of extremes.
To the horizon he searched for a way out,
To his dreams, to his wants; he craved route.

The course became clear, the direction ahead,
Was to be one of a path often tread,
By those with minds and bodies strong,
So to this group our subject did not belong.
With his reckless abandon and parent's pride,
Nay! only in his true love could he confide,
That his one true passion was far from trade,
Ay! it was a passion in which most often played,
Those with money and power and idle of both,
Both of which our subject hadn't the growth,
So from a different launching pad must he,
Sculpt the shape of the newfangled tree.
He took a step back and thought once and for all,
That nothing could stop him, storm nor squall.

Now his relationships were on the mend,
With his father, brother, foe and friend.
And his mother continued to show support,
And with his true love did he so cavort.
But as all youths learn when of age they grow,
That there is more to life's ebb and flow,
Like jobs, cars, money earned and spent
No matter where the spender says it went.
The fog of reality crept in more each dawn,
Like the due of fidelity on one's lawn.
This well orchestrated dance did he so view,
But something told him that he knew,
A healthier alternative to the status-quo,
One where creativity could freely flow.

After reading the classics, books upon books,
Of mad scientists and buccaneer crooks,
Our subject took to the pen and to the write,
And in taking to such indulgence ignite,
A second true love that he'd give his all,
So many poems and fictions he did scrawl.
With each poem and each fiction penned,
He would less, and even less, comprehend,
The way the world worked outside his doors,
The riots, the politics, the future and wars.
His writing, his woman. His booze by his side,
This man, still young, tried to in vain divide,
His imagination that was so early sprung,
From the fellow inhabitants he was among.

Part III will soon follow, if you are interested, in my mind's hollow...