the size of a tennis court in the grimy Albion complex
had a row of fram windows tall, with a low-walled view
above an array of skips of a distant Canary Wharf
or rather the top half, looming in sultry cloud.
II
I demanded she cut an acrylic painting on the floor in half, never to be forgiven but it hangs now over the head of my bed with monsters caged to red by a liminal doorway in blue.
III
Was she Helen of Troy? or a Druid Priestess? being from time to time of an incredible beauty yet able to age in an instant to the shamanic ancient and I was inwardly terrified and asked why does sex always have to get in the way of things, eyeing her sad sofa.
My parting kiss on her starchy cheek was not very well received, if at all. Thus began an Arthurian Quest or a mission to rescue Helen of Troy... or, one day, who would rescue who?
III
Later, on a visit to my conservatory studio she did ask me: where is your book? I said I was a pure perfectionist and still working on my books, even after offers of publication: the net? Was this the visit she berated me for putting her on a pedestal, a Madonna in a way? but I had to see the real girl who might have fits of creative fury. I had, sadly, been at the same event...
nota bene
If I experienced the 'furor poeticus' Helen experienced the 'furor artisticus' and could be working at great speed with acrylics of course, not oils ========================= April 2016. First published by and written for www.sundialzen.com
Final 12 impromptu lines written online on a hot July 4th in 2019. Helen was about her total purity... and another 10 lines added in late November 2019
