The Painter Girl
As I was led through caves that twist
Beneath the profane holy grounds,
Through pagan tunnels that resound,
With the howls
Of morals aging.
There I saw the craven mute
Whose words could woo the sculptures,
And as I wandered slovenly
Through the haunts of lustful vultures,
Upon a whim I fell in love
With the girl whose paintings weep,
Within the sulphurous parlours.
Wrapped in fumes of throbbing dark,
Peering through an emerald lens,
At creatures in the skins of men,
Locked in lips
Of meek oblivion.
The painter girl, with moonlit eyes,
Feels gazes fall about her,
As oily tongues, they promise worlds,
Her senses come to doubt her.
She sees seduction in a glass,
Which grasps with marble fingers,
And with eyes aflame,
Invites her.
Conceptions blaze upon the roof,
And on hot coals across the floor,
Through the packs of clowns and whores,
Where the painter girl
Lies crying.
As the nightmare hosts, they joust with horns,
To the parlour’s bloodless rumbling beat,
The twitching painter girl, denied,
Beholds the coils around her feet,
Which bleed upon baptised regrets,
As courtiers reap their earthly debts,
And one and all
Stand nearly naked.
Beneath the profane holy grounds,
Through pagan tunnels that resound,
With the howls
Of morals aging.
There I saw the craven mute
Whose words could woo the sculptures,
And as I wandered slovenly
Through the haunts of lustful vultures,
Upon a whim I fell in love
With the girl whose paintings weep,
Within the sulphurous parlours.
Wrapped in fumes of throbbing dark,
Peering through an emerald lens,
At creatures in the skins of men,
Locked in lips
Of meek oblivion.
The painter girl, with moonlit eyes,
Feels gazes fall about her,
As oily tongues, they promise worlds,
Her senses come to doubt her.
She sees seduction in a glass,
Which grasps with marble fingers,
And with eyes aflame,
Invites her.
Conceptions blaze upon the roof,
And on hot coals across the floor,
Through the packs of clowns and whores,
Where the painter girl
Lies crying.
As the nightmare hosts, they joust with horns,
To the parlour’s bloodless rumbling beat,
The twitching painter girl, denied,
Beholds the coils around her feet,
Which bleed upon baptised regrets,
As courtiers reap their earthly debts,
And one and all
Stand nearly naked.
* * *
Perhaps a more controlled effort than last month's hellish jig through the nuances of mortal sanity... Those who know me well, or at all, will have noticed the emergence of one of my most acute personal gripes, but it really is poor form for me to influence your own interpretation. So I shall henceforth surrender this to the public domain and say no more about it...
...other than the fact that I will invariably return to it, dissect it, reassemble it, and generally render it unrecognisable. After all, to quote the great Robert Allen Zimmerman, "He not busy being born, is busy dying."
'Til next time, comrades!
Jamie
