How Great Thou Art

It’s all self-portrait
Our inner self we painting,
All made up
The affairs, trains on platforms,
Love letters, bruised fruit in bowls,
Self-portrait is all we are?

In the hexagon of mirrors of the art gallery cafe
I could see from six different angles the way
Your nipples looked through that thin red cotton top.
Eggshell writs clutched a portfolio case
Lipstick on the tip of the porcelain cigarette,
Spoke of lovers smoked in small rooms.

Slender was our first conversation
Which drew mascara under your mystery.
I wanted to suck the lisp from your tongue
Before even knowing your name,
Imagined you were called Trieste
Cheekbones set sail in a paper boat.

“Gloria, as in Gaynor and the Patti Smith song”
Her voice trailed to a nicotine whisper.

And I got this crazy feeling that I'm gonna make her mine

Lust In-excelcis, thesis in anticipation,
Crackle of promise lapped the sun dial.
 
Looking through my stained glass skin
Your verdaille eyes reflected poetic song,  
An eighteen sided (muse)ology to design.
Brutalism was the delicacy of beauty.

A cunning linguist
You made my tongue flop
As diseased dogs in the mid-day sun.

You drew me as the Marquis of Sadness
Beard bushed, before Britpop made them fashionable.
I fucked you, and I loved you to love me to fuck you,
But you always ate breakfast alone
Fed midnight cats scraps from your balcony.
 
Delirium landscapes permeated diesel skies
There was no room for love in the sick city.
Life still, all surface no feeling,
In frightening Fahrenheit.  

When I saw you at the bar
Draped around Mr Potato Head,
Same chiselled features as your Father,
It was over before it ever really began.

The tender trap you held me,
Collecting spiders and sunlight in a jar.
The branch trembles,
Long after the bird has flown.

It’s all self-portrait
Our inner self we painting,
All made up
Trieste
Gloria
Paintbrushes at dawn
Self- portrait is all we are?