Literary Afflictions

Behold, woe am I, and thus censored duly,
Apologies to Cassandra, from yours very truly,
That I should criticise his petite mistake
While myself do much worse errors make.

Yet alas I ne’er burned scholastic night oil,
For my juvenile years were spent at forced toil,
Within bondage Dickensian, carving cuckoos for clocks,
Deep in a cellar, aside old Gravesend Docks.

Much later in life, with slavery abolished,
I was adopted by nuns and my education polished
Until I was able to recite the A, B, and C’s,
In languages various while down on my knees,
Fingering a rosary, before an altar austere,
My catechisms literary, rather than at prayer.

And ‘twas there discovered, by those learned sisters,
As they wrung despairing hands into layers of blisters,
That by a handicap congenital I was for certain smitten,
With dyslexia permeating all spoken or written.

Thus ‘tis a dilemma when words one can spell
Are committed to parchment, and all goes to hell;
But I soldier on, for what it is worth,
To wrestle this affliction of being dyslexial bince sirth.