The carriage alighted outside
his well-appointed townhouse,
whereupon the elegantly attired
Duc de Charlatan stepped forth
jauntily as the carriage door opened;
Yet within the blink of an eye
his aristocratic frame froze,
as if struck by some sudden palsy,
Awash with incredulity
the Duke’s visage barely managed
to utter the refrain,
” I say,you there fellow! be about
your business or else!”
his carved italianate walking stick
pointing accusingly at the object of his ire,
a person prostrate on the ground,
their frame interjected geometrically
twixt the carriage’s door and the front
door to the Duc de Charlatan’s habitation;
Two footmen were despatched with
immediate haste to confront what
seemed to be layers of still-bound
ragged cloth,
” Be on your way or we shall summon
the Constable!”
The directness of their invective
whilst assuaging his excellency’s ire,
had little effect on the person
remaining prostrate on the footpath;
” Why don’t you move silly fellow ?
before I tread on you!” exclaimed the Duke,
Having ascertained the scene for a while,
the Footmen were prompted,
by conscience perhaps,
to inform his excellency
that the person on the ground
was in fact deceased;
” Such churlish effrontery to persons
of higher standing, incommoding one’s
carefully planned morning!”
extemporised the Duke,
to which a passing neighbour nodded sagely,
as they stepped over the cadaver.
The ‘high and mighty’ duke seems to be expecting even a corpse to be subservient to him … so used is he to his whims and vanity! What an irony that his callous behaviour is far from hurting the corpse! A wonderful write dear poet Louis Kasatkin!
The callousness of the elite towards the suffering and deaths of the underprivileged,is brought out convincingly in the portrait of the royal buffoon.
The Duke is a familiar figure in the poems of the present poet
Here the callousness the Duke is brought out through his treatment of the corpse of a poor ragged homeless man on street showing how different the world of the aristocrat is from that of the miserable poor
the whole point of the insight of the story is the gap between rich and the poor…the aristocrats and the poorest noble…the uncountable rapture of the classy and disregard on humanity.