‘The thing is to think of nothing. Nothing is always in style. Always in good taste. Nothing is perfect’ – Andy Warhol to Edie Sedgwick
I laid my heart bare;
You laid your cards bare.
Had to hand it to you,
Yours was a good hand
I gave you a hand clearing up
I slipped the King of Hearts into my pocket
And followed you out of the door.
How wonderful, you said, how precious to be pure!
As simple as the Factory wall,
And free, as well, from thoughts obscure
The Thinker wears a crown of Parisian dirt
Cursed with knowledge, the eternal introvert
We, laughing, axed his marble features
And took flight
Hiding in the limelight -
You caught me reading Wilde by torchlight
Happiness is ignorance, and ignorance is bliss,
Or is it tragic to crave the abyss? Anyway
An empty vessel I became
The mussel shell on your plate
As you licked your lips, a figure of eight
I licked my finger and drew a crown around your head
Wished you were dead
Orwell said freedom can’t exist without its name;
You erased every word, mind numbed by fame
Swore, quietly as you bound us together
That I would never think again,
Primary colours clouded my brain
You poured my poems down the drain
We watched them oscillate,
orbit,
vanish.
You rewrote me in monosyllabic prose
Depetalled rose
So let’s have some wine before the gambling starts
God save the King, Thief of Hearts,
Raise your glass to the memory of eccentricity,
Let’s drink to faces untarnished by publicity,
Here’s looking at a future devoid of simplicity.
