A voluptuous cipher
Lifts her velvet lids -
Cast in crimson,
Irises dilate.
Her bosom deflates
Softly exhaling
Dust.
An enigma wreathed
In wisps of satin.
She raises wooden covers
And slips silently
From her brass-handled bed.
And like dissipating mist
Pierced by spears
Of sunlight,
She disappears
From her arched masonic
Sanctum.
Dim-lit corridors echo
With the memories
Of dead portraits.
She pauses to regard
A rotting mildewed
Arras; depicting
Conquest
And loss
Of warrior kings;
Chivalrous killers,
Her stern-visaged
Mustachioed forefathers.
Dockyard quays
Feed the flagstoned streets
With a saline breeze;
And a merchant seaman
Drunk with shore-leave.
Instinctively seeking the Wet,
He lies prone
Clogging sewage in the gutter.
Above him,
Beneath the crooked eaves
Of crumbling gables,
Something flutters.
A feral snout
Twitches.
For behind the stringent
Reek of piss
And rum
A heart yet young
And robust thumps
In rhythmic slumber.
Rheumy eyes secreted shut
Do not see
The lithe shape
Glide to the cobbles
And land
Before his hobnailed boots,
With scarcely a whisper
Of leather.
A sailor gasps.
An adoring kiss
Clasps his jugular
Necklace
And pulls.
His barrel-chest heaves
As an unbearable weight
Lies astride his soul.
A clawed torso
Writhes.
A red stripe
Smears the moonless night.
Streaks of scarlet
Are drawn from
Shreds.
Magenta ribbons
Like serpents in a stream
Join the foul conflux
Flowing.
Bobbing cabbage heads,
One with tufts
Of dirty blond curls;
Slapping against the iron grate
Filtering dross
To feculent realms
Beneath the town.
Full
She absconds
With yet another
Waistrel life
That nobody will miss.
Least of all the last
Doxy from whom he purloined
A cuddle and a cup
Of breast.
Or the captain
Of the schooner
Used to leaking crew
Everytime
A shoreline hove into view.
The carnal cryptic
Femme fatal
Belches blood
And smiles
At the twinkling lights
High above
And far
Below.
Adding your comment:
. sorry, the only way to stay (somewhat) sane is to find some errors. though that's really the only one, the writing is magnificent. It put me in mind of a book I read once that is definitely one of my favorites. creepy...i love it
