By Jan Price

                              Panel l. The Inspiration

London – East End;

a barefoot lad slips

into midnight fog

without a splash. He smells

between known and unknown

stench on the streets and turns

full tilt into black cabbage alley.

Through the door slit

he hands her a copper

with the master’s note

for salt. He returns

sporting a blackmailer’s smile

snatches his boodle and leaves

the master and Hyde to grapple

between good and evil.

Panel II.  The Breakdown

It began with a neuron niggle

a social withdrawal a closing

of curtains and a swill of bitter brew.

Then in a black-eyed night a figment lied

up a truth-storm swore that all was gone –

every soul had been judged and allotted

not a cot or bed had recovered.

He slipped beneath

that ‘Do Not Enter’ door

and there amidst his dark denials

gorging them with Dorian desires

smirked his incarcerated twin.

Welcome! it sniggered between gulps.

Evil is soulless but his soul was still his.

Panel III.  The Recovery

He woke on the floor a cross of pale sun

streaming between drapes below shades.

For a fragment of time his desires slept light

their names waiting be called.

But this day unarmoured he dragged himself up

whooshed wide the black velvet gap

but before he could close-flap the scene

to block out an undeserved warmth

a tranquil of frost gifted his sight.

In that cleansing white a blood-stained deer

its hoof caught. Its pain his.

Rejecting his demons

he rose slashing the barbs

leaving hoof prints to melt in the sun.

Image by Galen Crout