‘Toad gives a lecture’ by Rishi Dastidar

 
Toad gives a lecture

I vaulted the proscenium arch last night,
a one-act show-stopper of my own stealing,
featuring a throne of cool wrapped in chocolate
velvet, the devastating transparency of Wilde
translated by a firebrand Marxist with a fondness
for the glottal stop, and a servant whose trousers
fall down. That the room actually saw me as Toad
of Hall (not Hull), wearing a neoprene shellsuit,
toting a MacBook Pro, semi-digested pop
neuroscience and case studies of other people’s
brilliance flecked with a cheery misdirection
and curdling bonhomie, what of it? She laughed and
laughed and laughed and gave me the cheque
and asked, when can you come back?
 
 
Rishi Dastidar works as a copywriter for an advertising agency in London. A member of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen, he was a runner-up in the 2011 Cardiff International Poetry Competition, and has featured in the 2012 anthologies Lung Jazz and Adventures in Form.