Sick Art
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Walter Richard Sickert: Le Lit de cuivre, c.1906
Walter Sickert, Artist
Jack the Ripper's Bedroom, Walter Sickert
Francis Thompson, Poet.
"Sick Art"
I walk the streets
still and quiet
I do not lie
I do not betray
what the heart belies
pickled kidneys
I am a ghost
of my former self
ears lent to hear
the sweet music
of the sounds so fraught
caught up in the act
of loving unnatural
tendencies kissed
I whispered into
those same ears
saucy secrets
if only their eyes
could speak instead
they just fluttered
like butterflies
towards a haunting
long dream,
they were tired,
and needing sleep,
I addressed
their undressed stories
drunk on redrum
letters scribed to taunt
the hungry Peelers
I was a challenge
in those days
enticing the imbeciles
to find
and feel something
just,
as I did
in those quick
moments of passion
intoxicated and ravenous
with the sensation
of winning at
something
I am beyond
reproach, incorrigible
I cannot stop
I walk the streets
still and quiet
I do not lie
they search
for me, still
they, well positioned
audience seated,
unmoved and sedentary -
scry electric through
glass onions,
never see the sting
of what clues left so forcefully
artistically remnant
still seeping
through the blue lit
cobblestones
dried all the veins
by then I knew all
the Bobbies most by name
Enlightened,
I smiled as I passed
I was calling -
it a night, after serving
the community,
it had been viscously easy
working with dim Light
I'd toiled quickly
and efficiently
it was a messy job
but someone had to do it
for the life of me
I had been busy at work
no one suspected
the flounce of a skirt
I walked the streets
just like them
under cover of darkness
I carried my tools
whoring
my nurse’s apron
I smiled as I passed
the bob cats nodding, cretinous toms
left my art out in the open
my signature stylized
to be found by the rats
I love bombed
I gave "Her" -
a new bonnet, as a gift,
as if placing it on her head
as a crown, I had annointed her
with unconditional trust -
of course, everything arrives
at an untimely, usually,
transactional cost;
a prayer
and the sign
of the cross
let us not forget
Love -
got that bit over quickly
when all was said and done
ne'er a
genuflection
and without many
a new friend,
they had all been lonely
in a loveless place
so there she
had finally found me
as instructed
she disrobed
her life
and folded it
neatly and impressed it
before me
see through the window
through the curtain space
I covered for her
so no one could see
her unblemished nakedness
the fear on her face
on the alter,
that cheap
wooden chair
with small ceremony
she placed the cloth of
her life a small fabric
I gifted her again
some last dignity and grace
I escorted her genteelly
tittering to bed
she lay down
her sweet head
and wondered if
there was love
in the taking
of a baby
never mind
gutting
her entire life
I stroked her fair neck
Sickert couldn’t deliver
the flourish of my art
I knew exactly
the way to a woman’s heart,
her internal workings
her mind, her fears
what she inevitably
longed for
I opened her gates
to heaven
and delivered
a little death
yet heaven forbid, I digress,
"He" was on their cards;
let’s not forget the
handsome homeless
poet nearby
murdering all his darlings
He could have been
my lover
my friend
well educated
as priest medically
disciplined
Now he was meant
for notoriety
by schools,
religious superiors,
dignitaries,
much greater men -
not many women
read him back then,
granted he could
write beautifully
his beatitudes to his
well-bleached peaceful end,
some considered him
Lord have mercy,
a God send
Given
and freely granted
I take puzzles
and break them
into pieces at an
expensive price
female bodies
are indeed a work of art
different women
on display always
beautiful in my head
my motives to
the very end
of my daze
I never myself
once betrayed
I held lives
and secrets
in my hands
not all women gossip
and at their peril
they never suspected me
once
they thought
in that final moment
they’d discovered a
crime of passion
of the heart
‘twas more than that
which was to be noticed
my sick art
imprinted in the minds
and dreams of unknowns
for centuries burying
the mystery puzzle
in timeless daze
I placed an advertisement
in foreign pages to be read,
my parting gift
as if to a dear friend
not absent, loyal
to the very last
unknown
unbittered end
in mind
tandem -
“M.E.C.P. Last wish of M.E.W.
Have not betrayed.”
(LadyLabyrinth / 2021)
"Incurable"
And if my heart be scarred and burned,
The safer, I, for all I learned;
The calmer, I, to see it true
That ways of love are never new-
The love that sets you daft and dazed
Is every love that ever blazed;
The happier, I, to fathom this:
A kiss is every other kiss.
The reckless vow, the lovely name,
When Helen walked, were spoke the same;
The weighted breast, the grinding woe,
When Phaon fled, were ever so.
Oh, it is sure as it is sad
That any lad is every lad,
And what's a girl, to dare implore
Her dear be hers forevermore?
Though he be tried and he be bold,
And swearing death should he be cold,
He'll run the path the others went....
But you, my sweet, are different.
(Dorothy Parker)
viscous
vicious
Copyright © Lady Labyrinth | Year Posted 2021
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