Back to the Drawing Board

An acrostic poem exploring the theme of perfectionism and the halo effect playing a struggling artisan like a fiddle.

Deftly taking the dainty dip pen to a dance on the board,
Ravishing the portrait will be, or so did it promise the artisan to be. Until
Ailing got to it like a dark horse propelling over a hill.
When did the copy turn to a double-edged sword?
It is not my fault, lied the artisan, not feeling guilty of the portrait’s ruin.
Never-mind. I will go back to square one, he said sounding glum,
Gauging its eyes out that stick out like a sore thumb.

Blinded by the contrived halo that was hurled at his mind,
Otherwise, his knack of art with ink would be ignored by mankind.
Am I worthy of drawing a self portrait with my own begrimed hands?
Repeated the artisan, maintaining eye contact with the eyeless phantom.
Do it again, perfection ordered, and erase even my foil the size of an atom.

Continuously redrawing the portrait did the artisan no good,
Yet he pushed himself, by perfection’s ground he stood,
Causing him to fix the already easy-on-the-eye form over and over,
Losing the dip pen’s blood just as he was losing his sanity. An
Ending, the portrait did not reach, unlike the artisan’s harsh mentality.