Thoughts On Dorian Gray
by Michael Doyle

Textured as it is in prescience
Are those things outside of science
Among these is the legend of Dorian Gray
Of which there is much yet to say

Images that stick through flesh like a knife
Sliced cleanly through the heart of life
Young Dorian finds his way to London Town
Gray yet garish, it would unsettle a clown

Not everything is made better with tea
His walk through memories do not seek sympathy
Like sketches on an easel, cold and without pity
It lays the scene when death becomes the party

Introduced as he is to the ways of wanton sin
As they say, let the bacchanalian games begin
Closed doors hide the way to forgotten scenes
The stuff of bad memories and worse dreams

The more one looks on the more that can be seen
The artist takes a peek deep inside a human's being
The Hellfire Club awaits the seeker's open door
These are the ways of darkness and then something more

Nailing oneself to the Devil's altar, so they say
Would be the price taking the soul of Dorian Gray
There's no more elegant a philosopher than folly
Cheers! Drink up young man with frolic's trim of jolly

People die it seems through the drag of commonsense
As they lose themselves in distracted bits of pretense
One lost moment sucked out of life, one at a time
This truth is the most diabolical of half-missed crimes

These lessons burn hard in the hottest fleck of flame
Those pleasures that exist beyond all of shame
In Victorian Days of unspoiled young and graceless beauty
Young Dorian reaches far beyond his half believed duty

Heeding the call of the Devil's altar, he reaches
Learning from all of the sermons that vanity teaches
To remain young forever is the deal that's made
The Devil's jest passes for what he calls a fair trade

(c) October 5, 2021  Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved

Second Halloween poem of the season.