Hey all you creative writers at Lincoln uni!

I've posted two versions of my Ted Hughes ending - the first is the one I read out in class (with rhythm but no rhyme) and the second is a re-write (with rhyme but no rhythm as a suggested exercise from Phil). I found the second really hard to write - rhyme comes naturally with rhythm for me! I actually think there might be some rhythm in there at times - oops! See what you think!

Reality Smirked (Original)

I have always been a gullible man,

a man built of trust and faith.

My eyes show me things

that my heart will believe

and my head rarely has any say.

So when I stumbled across hell

and a strange monkey man

with a grin and a limp and a gasp,

I let out a roar to shatter the still

and accepted the matter as fact.

Thus I gagged and I shuddered,

I moaned and I cried

through a sea of ruin and death,

and the monkey man laughed all the more as I did

as we stood in that mass, tangled grave.

So I fell to my knees

and begged to the Lord

to show me what it was I should do.

Then he opened my eyes

as a voice announced ‘cut!’

and reality smirked in my face.

The corpses arose

one by one till the last,

and my monkey man wriggled with glee,

while I was left standing perplexed and in shock,

ashamed that illusion had won.

Later I stood in the perfume of tea,

a cup clutched tight in my hand,

watching actors and frauds

mill about without masks

on a set built to trick and elude.

As I drained the last dregs

my monkey man spoke

and asked where it was I should be.

I was escorted from there

with a sigh of relief and one hell of a story to tell. 

Reality Smirked (Re-write)

I’m a gullible man

built of faith and trust.

My eyes show me things and my heart clings;

believe them I must.

So when I fell into hell

and a monkey man flailed

towards me with a grin and a gasp,

I threw back my head and wailed.

I gagged, shuddered, moaned and cried.

Ruin and death engulfed me like a wave.

The monkey man laughed

in that tangled grave.

I begged to the Lord

‘Show me what to do!’

Bodies cushioned my knees as I sent up my pleas.

Then He opened my eyes to see what was true.

Reality smirked.

I stood perplexed

as corpses began to rise and stagger.

Illusion the victor, I the vexed.

In the perfume of tea I watched the frauds,

their masks shed,

mill about in a set built to elude;

the sour tricks my mind misread.

I was escorted from there

with a vast sigh of relief

and a bitter smile at the story I’d gained;

a tale born of naive belief.