The Painted skull's last smile

IN

A PRELUDE TO A SHIFT IN MY WRINKLE OF TIME

AS..........

I stood looking at the beautiful painted skull

It's fixed sunken eyes forever staring into the void

A permanent smile etched awfully in deathly beauty

Upon a face no longer hugged and kissed by love

Yet I found such beauty there amidst the still quiet shell

On a face once caressed and gently touched by one

Who misses this lovely painted skull and still mourns

For that which was, and now is nevermore!

WHILE, IN CONTRETEMPS

I take a deep refreshing, 'welcome to a new day breath of life', stretching my body and luxuriating in life, I open my eyes to morning's delight and smile at the prospect of awaiting the grand adventures and possibilities that a new day can bring.

THE WRINKLE

Only, something else is new, a feeling that space and time has somehow shifted and I am being moved at a strange velocity and momentum, accompanied by continuous swaying and undulating motions which are foreign to my everyday rising from my restful 'asleep and awake' routine. I am moving along at a rapid pace going somewhere.

I come fully awake and aware of my surrounding. Although I am comfortably ensconced in the comfort of a satiny and soft cloud of coziness and serenity, I am no longer in my own bed. Swiftly I fly from this contented nest, to the nearby peach curtained window. Strobes of green and multicolored prisms of lights can be seen undulating betwixt the blurs of the new morning sunlight and the rapidly moving trees as the landscape whisks by without a care for my utter confusion and wonderment.

I am obviously in the compartment of a richly adorned train. Luxury can be seen in every well thought out detail of the grandeur of the train's interior. Satin pillows and silk sheets, leather sofas and faux fur on the floor. The peach colored curtains covering the window are beautifully embroidered with tiny painted skulls, which was a little bit creepy even to my taste. The bed is bolted to the floor, so are the table and lone chair, there is a small bathroom with gold trimmed accoutrements accompanying the amenities.

My own bedroom being put to shame by a chance visitation on a train of which I am not at all privy as to the reason why. I decide to go foray on an adventurous and enquiring stroll on the outer bounds of my questionable unplanned journey. For it is not to my recollection that I, at any time, had made specific plans for a demon speed train journey. For as I observe through the window, I seem to be still going full-tilt at incredible speed going where I do not recall. I do not appear to have any luggage or ticket, or even money for food or entertainment. This being not the nature of my existence to lack the independence which that nature endows to always be in control of my own finances, I think that there is trouble afoot all around me.

I open the door and tentatively step outside, to a different reality to the expectation one would have of stepping directly from luxury into the lap of comfort and ease.

All along the corridors of compartments I meander and roam and find to my surprise, only the faces of silent lifelike painted bodies with painted skulls, beautifully laid out and wonderfully silent in their still repose.

The train does not slow, nor does it stop. Right and left I traverse and find only the repetition of the same.

It then dawns on me that maybe, I too was a painted soul, trapped somewhere between the light and the dark on a train headed for parts unknown. Redirecting my attention to the interior decoration of the catapulting and hurtling train, I realize that the luxury is overstated and repeated everywhere. The irony of silks and satins and the lovely purple hues and shades of royalty adorn the walls and floors.

The still and lovely painted forms are entrapped in a beauty of which they cannot in absolute truth, either see or hear. Blank eyes, sightless, grinning mouths motionless as death, a cruel trick of nature that is wished upon no soul.

If this is my final destination and my final life's journey, I want to restart my existence and opt for motion and music and dance towards day's end.

So, I retrace my steps to my comfortable bed of clouds and joyous serenity. I find the mirror that warps and taunts. For I now realize, that I had been unknowingly staring at myself within the heart of the treacherous mirror. That painted skull was but my own reflection, staring back at me.

THE WRINKLE IS NO MORE

The mirror warps and shifts, and the wrinkle of time evanesces somewhere within the careening speed of the wraithlike train. The real me stands staring. I bid a cheery 'howdy do', for my spirit does now soar on wings of hope and reassurance that all may be well after all.

Have I been given a second chance to right the wrongs that I have done, and somehow hurtle myself towards a chance for a better tomorrow and a happier yesterday.

AND SO, YET AGAIN

Here I stand, facing my mortality with grace

The speeding train seemingly unaware of the turmoil

Raging within her depths for control of an unfinished song

Which face will triumph in the end

Only the runaway train will determine

The battle for survival of a soul

Purely depends on the momentum

And trajectory of a fiendishly oblique

Slanting, angled and circuitous demon train

The wrinkle somehow seems incomplete

Should this train halt it's hell bound

And deadly speed

Allowing me to shed my painted outer shell

Then I shall have won!

N.A.