Poem : Rachel and Vincent

Blood-flowers soaked in darkness
Glisten with Translucent pedals
Standing beautifully dead in a cold crystal vase with thick murky water
Giving life to Vincent’s dingy room
His bandaged ear now swarms with flies
And burns as a constant reminder of his obsession
An obsession of love that overtook his sensibility
His reality, for what reality ever really is
Rachel sits submerged in stillness
Nothing she hears, nothing she sees
But the moment
Absinthe drips from her drunken lips
As she drops the soft sheet that surrounds her
Like a shawl it gave little protection from the passion of Vincent’s paint brush
She could see his eyes were glazed over with quiet calm madness
Like portholes into his inner most thoughts
She could feel his stare slowly comb over her light freckled skin
Like water flowing over her body
He covered everything that was her
Like the slightest breeze in the springtime
His eyes touch her red wavy hair softly lying on her shoulders
His gaze lost in her beauty as she now lies on the bed before him
Her smooth stomach perfectly cast shadows from its muscled exterior
As she turns toward him ready for Vincent to begin
And the Absinthe is now warming her mind
Loosening what little inhibitions she had left
As she watches her lover paint madly
Trying to capture what he sees just before him
Reaching out and grabbing dust filled sunbeams that peak from the curtain-less window
Sunbeams that sparkle like the finest blue crystal in the eyes of his lover
And now Rachel is forever caught in the woven threads of his canvas
And the Absinthe flows through her body
As the bottle lies empty on the floor

Artwork By Jason E. Hodges