The Hampstead Heath Toad Poem by Dorothy Featherstone Porter

It was one of those
beautiful
English summer nights
when levitating
on the moonshine
of a moonlit world
was your entranced lucky
fate.

The lilac shimmer of silent
lakes.
The whisper of ghost fox
through your heartbeat.

But the toad in the hand
stank real.

Stank through his palpitating
skin.
Stank of fear.


Is the fabled hallucinogenic
touch of toads
just as Macbeth
witnessed
a hypnotising snare
of toxic apparition?

What thrilling doors of perception
open
to the musky ooze
of panting paralysed
terror?

Of course
on that silky intoxicating
night
you wanted
and will always want
the toad
to calm down
smell sweet
and give up his phantasmagorical
secrets
generously.

But the toad in the hand
protected himself.

The toad in the hand
stank real.