lament of a lost art

Look!  Look!  Alone again.

Down into the back of the skull

Imagining and dreaming,

And beyond the edge of the frame -- darkness. 

The black night invading,

The soot from the candles darkening the varnish,

Creeping round the empty studio,

Wreathing the wooded paintings, 

Smudging out in the twilight,

Sharp knife-wounds that stab you in the groin,

So you gasp and gulp the air,

Tearing your last breath from the stars,

As the seed runs into parched sheets

And you fall into the night.

I float on the glassy surface of the still dark lake,

Lamp-black in the night, 

Silent as an echo;

A mote in your eyes.

You blink and send me spinning.

Swallowed in the vortex

I shoot through the violet depths

The unutterable silence of these waters.

A tear forms and drops.

A ripple spread out beyond the farthest horizon, beyond matter. 

Scintilla — Star!

I love you more than my eyes.

Derek Jarman, 1986