Portrait by the Artist
Charcoal drawing of the charmer beside the book of poems, written by the artist, but never shown to the temptress she: who dictates her dreams, who parades, escorted, through her paintings, who dances, partnered, between the lines in her journal, who swims through Bacchan sacrifices to this Artemis, this Diana of the night, day, and the inbetweens.
nest in the tree, four little ravens and a mother, never saw the fox, flash of tiger's pride on the floor,
the artist sits back, watches the matinee, sips her wine the fiery blood from without.
focused on the eldest moonlight flyer, fire with legs circles the tree. the maiden bird recently deflowered of down, the jewels of her sacrifices scattered beneath her, sees the flash, the glimmer, the eyes in the bush.
the artist picks through the pile draws out a fountain pen with red stains, silver and dangerous. the heathen eagle doesn't attract her attention. she traces the name carved there ever so lightly, and opens its flow anew. the dark red of life spills onto pale canvas, leaving stains jaggedly horizontal there. she looks up, to better gauge the light, the raven is staring back. aloof, frightened, dignified, and in those seconds,
the artist sees in the arched beak the athenian curve of a human nose, in the pleading currants for sight the steady gaze from dark sea blue eyes, from the orderly ruffled feathers the memory of carefree windblown black locks all from the one, that the poet so writes of, the painter so draws. and she picks up the inked blade moves slow, barely rippling in the slight breeze, her eyes narrow with the red haze of she who chases, not the observer, approaching the thief of fables, he looks away from the black feathered meal, only to see his silver white doom.
cunning orange head lays silent on the ground, mother preens from the branch above her nursery. the artist picks up her weapon