Trapped Rake by Emily Bilman
“A Rake’s Progress”, Plate 7, 1763
Was the white-wigged actor prompting
his text while he supported the rake’s wife
as she fainted on the prison floor
his papers dwindling beside him?
The prisoner gazed nowhere
with blank obstructed eyes
that failed to see as if a virtual
screen protected him from all
his debts while corruption, personified
by the warden, armed by a key
and a large ledger, justified
his imprisonment and extortion.
He benefited from victimisation
despite his syphilitic indifference.
Trapped between two wives
and a beggar of alms, the prisoner
was tense like a mistreated wild dog
unable to roam. His right hand
was stretched in dire protest.
The left spelled rigid resignation.
In the microcosm of the world-stage,
a woman infused smelling salts
to the fainted wife with one closed fist
while another almost slapped her
to wake her to the ministry of the world
while all the while the actor’s
angel-pennon’s attire watched
the prisoners from above.
Dr. Emily Bilman is a widely published poet who teaches poetry in her Stanza group in Geneva. Her three poetry books, A Woman By A Well (2015), Resilience (2015), and The Threshold of Broken Waters (2018) were published by Troubador, UK and Modern Ekphrasis by Peter Lang in 2013. Her thesis is entitled The Psychodynamics of Poetry. She blogs on http://www.emiliebilman.wix.com/emily-bilman