She’s a frail thing
very thin
very old
stooped over
and slow moving
but nestled there among the wrinkles
through her crunched up little face
her eyes still shine.

– matt at shadow of iris

Dreams on my right
dreams on my left
doors all around
behind each and every
a cataclysm awaits
yet through only one
total catastrophe
and a worthy chance
at redemption.

– matt at shadow of iris

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Until you begin to speak
there will be no words.

The rumbling of clouds
as I am cast out
and lain
prone across a bed
an unyielding coma
from which I see out of
but no one can see in;
the mind open
but every muscle turned off;
you’re not so far
that I couldn’t reach you
but freedom is denied
as my body fights me,
biology a prison
every command
a hollow echoe
in an unresponsive machine;
the greater pain
than any other
is not being able to save you
as they call upon you
and I’m not there.

Until you begin to sing
there will be no song.

– matt at shadow of iris

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An iconic silhouette
panniered
and conically corseted
court dresses
of exquisite silk
and gentle patterns;
two ladies that have stolen away
into the early morning mist.

Powdered white faces
white as china
soft as cream
under fashionable wigs
dusted with flour
worn high in a roll
with rouge lips
carefully crafted
to convey
just the proper amount
of sensuality;
their warm hands had clasped
and their eyes had met
with such force
that words had been an excess.

They had thought the flowers
so beautiful
pink roses, scented with delirium
amaryllis, sweet enough to eat
cherry blossoms in full bloom
and irises, potent with message,
a gift of substantial meaning
from one tender heart
to another.

They had thought the flowers
so beautiful, that is
until the bugs had begun
to creep out
buzzing flies with bulbous eyes
and sticky tongues
that flit out licking everything,
droning bees that bobbled about
and grew angry quickly
when you swiped at them,
whining mosquitoes
that left just a drop of blood
on your skin
after they had pierced it,
and creepy crawling things
long and slender
with a thousand legs
each touch a prick
as they scurried up your arm
and onto your back
where they paused to listen
to the growing din
of insect noise,
a murmuring that said
to every organism
rhythm, form, and duration
varied expressions of thriving life
formed around
limits of an inward order
phantoms breaking free
from last year’s rain.

– matt at shadow of iris

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[Inspired by the work of Ray Caesar.]

In time
these poems
will give way
to stories
and those stories
to longer narratives.

– matt at shadow of iris

A crow in a hanging cage
shifts its weight uneasily
and drinks a little water
while looking down below
at a petite cloying girl
sitting on a plush divan;
outwardly
she is innocence personified
dull and boring –
but the crow sees
where others eyes fail
he knows from outside in
she wears long sleek claw tipped
gloves of vermillion
that stretch into
a plush dress of silk
that glimmers
and is complete with a tail
that gently swishes
back and forth
back and forth,
then
there is the matching red cat mask
from which the femme fatale
winks
and let’s the crow know
just what she intends.

Uneven progress
towards political
instability
threatens to unravel
and then implode
as a new crisis provokes
a purge of allies
leaving old enemies
near to the hearts of the people
and the atmosphere
fatally
poisoned.

– matt at shadow of iris

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[First verse inspired by the work of Ray Caesar.]

I wake up every morning
planning to write a thousand poems
by the time the day is done
I feel lucky
if I’ve penned
but one.

– matt at shadow of iris

They asked him to paint the virgin Mary
along with her small child
instead he painted the king’s lover
on a throne, she’d never have
with an heir, she’d never bear.

She sits there calmly
on the Queen’s chair,
a jewel encrusted crown
upon her hair plucked forehead
and an ermine-lined cloak
resting gently upon her shoulders;
the laces that hold
the upper two halves of her dress together
have been loosened
so that one side falls away
to expose a single, full
and perfectly rounded
breast
more erotic, than tender
more seductive, than maternal
a magnetic lunar globe
that pulls all eyes
in.

The boy that sits on her lap
could careless
about his mother’s nipple
but sits already
with the weight of kings
upon his shoulders;
there is a detached air
about this naked rotund prince
as he points with disintrest
below his mother’s waste
to something hidden there
under the folds of her dress;
he can follow the golden chain
far back
and understands
his own
carnal origins.

Both the virgin and her babe
are white as snow
against a background
of endless cherubim and seraphim
some so cold and so blue
you can feel the ice on their breath
and others so hot and so red
that surely they seethe from within;
small sensual angels
in the flesh
shimmering and smooth
profane.

The virgin herself is so beautiful
that a thousand words
could never
ever
do her justice,
she is as delicate as a porcelain doll
and yet as lithe and poised
as a swan gliding across still water.

So thin as to barely be seen,
a veil surounds her oval face
and has been pushed back
to offer an invitation;
but for now she demurs
her wide eyes staring downwards
nearly closed
at a spot not near
but someplace far, far away.

This is how she will tempt you
when you step in closer
and closer
to gently lift her chin
and without thought
let her lips
meet your own.

– matt at shadow of iris

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[The enemies of King Charles VII of France likely poisoned Agnès Sorel with mercury years before Jean Fouquet even began his beautiful painting of her contained in the Melun Diptych.]

The phone rang at one thirty
in the morning
and it was a man
from Malebolge
he said
stop singing
your hurting my ears
I told him I would try
but I would fail
that’s it’s just one of those things
you know
he hung up on me
and I haven’t heard from him
since.

– matt at shadow of iris

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[All art is derivative.]

Childhood memories
I thought I had lost
beyond the veil of time
come back to save me
while everything else
burns down
my present world
a scorched black forest
with smoking fire
still on the horizon.

A hobo and a vagabond
my rescuer is ready for a journey
she’s bundled all our things
and thrown a bindle stick over her shoulder
where as once I used to hold her
gently to me
now she’s hefted me up
and holds me like a babe
while I cling to her
on our midnight journey
and wait for all the badness
to fade into the background
faraway from us.

– matt at shadow of iris

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[Inspired by the work of Esao Andrews.]