There in the dark is los lobos rococo,
taking your virtue by force,
breaking your heart with his ruby red lips,
is a teary-eyed man on a horse.
The birthday girl smiles for two or three seconds,
her heart knows the lay of the land,
she’s there at the place where the roads come together,
holding your bones in her hand.
She’s via con dios, this heartless valkyrie,
she cries for the heart of the moon,
she’s wrapped in a layer of blue cotton candy,
a sweetly delicious cocoon.
She blew out her candles, her lips blurred by speaking
the language of earthly delight,
‘I think I’ll go down to the city of neon,
and stare at the monsters tonight’.
Masquerade, party, confetti, fluorescent,
we capture the essence of fear,
he’s there at the well of la coeur sympathetic,
cupping his hand to his ear.
Death nods his head as he rides into ‘Vegas,
rhinestone, byzantium, dove,
‘there’, you said, pointing to some kind of symbol of hope,
in the sky up above.
Raindancing girls bring us broken umbrellas,
inventing the cream-clotted clouds,
I’d dance to the rhythm of birdsong euphoric and strange,
but I can’t stand the crowds.
Clamped to the table are two twisted objects,
one for the happy event,
the other, as average as any combustible icon
the heart could invent.
Hiss, serpent, apple tree, garden, inferno,
the Lightbringer tempting the girls,
oh what ridiculous lies they compel us to tell,
for the beauty of pearls.
Gold interstellar, machine sentimental,
the galaxy starting to burn,
half-way to paradise, pose for the camera,
your cheekbones like roses, and turn...
Calcified bones float forgotten inside you,
sonar umbilical ping,
languid monotonous whalesonged familiar,
a bird born to soar on the wing.
You shine with a metronome tungsten albedo,
painting your prey on the walls,
skull for the voodoo, we suffer the pincushion magic
of powerless dolls.
Valentine limbo, go out through the window,
we’ll gravy the stargazer pie,
if you won’t romanticize love’s little sinister gestures,
then neither will I.
You open your mouth for the pink efflorescence,
a baby bird singing for cake,
moonstone, sarcophagus, pink hippopotamus,
eyes turning soft and opaque.
Crucible, fire, the devil’s elixir,
you drink ‘til your limits are known,
swoon from the heavy industrial presence
of Lucifer’s musty cologne.
Peacock, albino, the ghost in the rainbow,
the opposite side of the moon,
sitting alone in a room you’ve forgotten,
sipping your soup from a spoon.
Two-headed horses bear beauty to heaven,
they’re hula-hoop, hip swivel, chrome,
clicking your heels on the yellow brick road,
you’ll FedEx your body parts home.
Grey apparitions, contorted magicians,
a mumble of words cast a spell,
you brick yourself in to a windowless tower,
in your own lurid version of hell.
mt forest
September 3 2016
#455
This painting was done from a photograph I took of a life guard house on a beach in New Zealand in 2011. I did two paintings of two different houses. New Zealand was fantastic. The landscape is breath-takingly beautiful.