A series of paintings inspired, in part, by the piece of poetry below first shown to me by my good friend and consociate D.C.R.. He wrote a number of poems himself but I was never able to pry one out of him. He took it upon himself to “turn to vapour” in July 2015.
Folly, depravity, greed, mortal sin
Invade our souls and rack our flesh; we feed
Our gentle guilt, gracious regrets, that breed
Like vermin glutting on beggars skin…
On evils cushion poised, His Majesty,
Satan thrice – Great, lulls our charmed soul, until
He turns to vapour what was once our will:
Rich one, transmuted by his alchemy
He holds the strings that move us, limb by limb!
We yield, enthralled to things repugnant, base
Each day, toward Hell, with slow unhurried pace,
We sink uncowed, through shadows, stinking, grim.
Like some lewd rake with his old worn-out whore,
Nibbling her suffering teats, we seize our sly
Delight, that, like an orange – withered, dry –
We squeeze and press for juice that is no more
Our brains team with a race of Fiends, who frolic
thick as a million gut-worms, with each breath,
Our lungs drink deep, suck down a stream of Death –
Dim – lit to low moaned whispers melancholic.
