In The Green Hour

The devil arrives in a bottle of melted emeralds,
he thieves the heart from Ellen’s eyes and turns them to glass.
He fixes her in the waking swoon
of lonely people in the City of Light
vacuous, boneless and pallid green in Degas’ slippery oils
so that she can no longer move through time.


The devil sees the hooked nose and receding brow
of Van Gogh’s spectre as he sits in a corner booth
the worm eating into his wood.
Vincente stirs emerald to opal
bitter phospherence to milky opalescence
chemistry to alchemy, madness to genius,
genius to madness and back again.


Opposite the Dutchman, Toulouse-Lautrec hunches
in stunted sorrow as he chases an opaline fairy
through the slots of oblivion. Henri bears gifts of iced sugar drops
in the vain hope that she will make him whole again.


And Picasso


Picasso sees the devil enter the libertines and coquettes of this Belle Epoque
and he paints them as if he can see all shades of green sadness from all sides.
Curled up, isolated, folded in on themselves, his unknowing sitters
are like limp dresses still warm with the shapes of their recently discarded wearers