He burdens his palette with a murky rustic hue,
of pied pastel colours – rose, beige and blue.
Chiaroscuro light envelopes an evening of retreat,
as a millennia of faces illume from glowing halos.
Silhouettes are redundant in this puppet show escapade,
and Dr. Caligari conceals his cruel masquerade.
Residing dust of skin and bone radiate his numb love,
for pleasures of the heart made him lose all sense of time.

Charred bracken taints the breeze; claggy, thick, and foul,
as pervasive silver fingers branch through weeping clouds.
A sacred force of nature carries Judgement Day ahead,
redolent of the renaissance and romance of conviction.
Sea nymphs rode the waves at the Destruction of Tyre,
and Sodom and Gomorrah fashioned flame within the pyre.
Debt is long and arduous with depression under wing,
so suicide calls his nephew, and Bedlam, his sibling.

Oh, to dance once more on this chalk-white residue,
as broken smiles disguise shards beneath his feet.
Palpitations flurry forward as dormant fortunes yield,
and birds return to serenade these heavy summer fields.
Blood, sweat and tear, stained heavily on his canvas,
his masterpiece imagined – born of spite and damnation.
Colour will return to this pallid, ashen landscape,
but for now the artiste rests and cleans his palette dry.