noir de nuit

 
she cries more from the abstractive painting on a jitney than she does
from the meditative mechanics of darkwave; aberrant melodies thick
as the scars on the curator’s face.
 
valorous woman, unarmored as women tend to be, who learned  
the pristine art of weeping on the killing fields of conflagrant love,  
rapturous lovers.
 
maybe she’s not a lonely orphan, solitary & sleepy-eyed in her bed
chamber. maybe she’s the female vocalist (Gina; Lucy or Mina) on a  
solemn stage of indigo light, surrounded by the programmed cacophony
of urban drums, the steel, curare-tipped darts of rippled guitars,
electric;  electronica.
 
I’m down in the mosh pit, in a crowd of flicked cigarette lighters  –  
slight burning adorations as Zippo never intended. savages & hustlers,
Korean girls in hair of unnatural colors & ‘come-to-me’ skirts tighter
than skin.
 
when the concert ends & the revelers have diffused to the wilder streets,
I could join her in the deep blues of her melancholy. beyond the artful
makeup of the song & the music, she’s just a woman.
 
she could tell her story of a broken heart, how men took from her, then
walked away without a farewell kiss, & left her there. but she realizes
it’s hers by decree, why she was given the sexual shape & the ardor of
woman. her weeping desire: seed of tamarind, as it comes.
 
I could do lines across her, the lines of a poem, that are not pretty to read,
conceived of slashing chords & hurt  –  smeared on our raw flesh when I
hold her close, to melt away in the drips of hard passion between us  –  
 
like something that never was…
 
 
(Artist: Leon Kroll and model, 1947)