Thoughts On Dorian Gray, Part II, III and IV
by Michael Doyle

II.

Conjuring tales and hallucination
Serve up as the Devil's illustration
It's a triumph of base deceit
Quietly play on a foggy London street

Too many things are better left unsaid
Where this an extraordinary sense of dread
It's all there is in the telling of a name
If there's anyone, Dorian Gray, is to blame

There is something in her purest measure
That whispers the blend of her pleasure
Played upon a world of hoped for fairy tale
That is the morbid story that is scarred as well

The gossiping class would deny truth of love
As if they had only a passing knowledge of above
The only thing to do is to yield to temptation
That lures like forbidden opiate ridden in contemplation

Regrets given like bitter, scattered ashes
Casting spells like curses at witches' masses
Unrequited love as tear is bled from eyes
A slap of surprise flinches at the season's lies

III.

Tender hearts lost in suicide
The price of belief and wounded pride
On the news, that she would not Dorian's wife
Innocently pure, beautiful Cybele took her life

A brother grieves at her broken loss
Bearing the burden of his tainted cross
He would wish to make Dorian feel his pain
But a wounded soul's effort is in vain

The young lord would show no mercy
The thought of fault wears like heresy
What is past is past and is all but done
From each such experience, strength is won

The advice given is to see with deference
The lost of an innocent's life brings experience
Heartless in its perspective on emotion
A blind-eyed dismissal of another's devotion

Tears lost at vanity's cost is next to nothing
A stiff drink and on to greater pleasures is something
The doctor's orders stipulate getting lost in drink
To be a man of will perched on his final brink

IV.

Blood stains on a wicked man's hand
He holds the reins by which he commands
Parting inch from inch from innocent's way
The infested maggot rot is set in play

Smashed on the creak of an oaken floor
The vagrancies of grief are too numerous to ignore
The Devil says every experience is of value
But there will be another tune when he calls his due

Don't believe every word by the Devil conceived
Even the Devil knows he's not to be believed
As patron to all that's evil, he hints his suggestion
That a little Hell should be raised without hesitation

Raising as his toast to unlevel by intoxication
He lives for bring another innocent's inebriation
Playing out a bit of baited kiss of temptation
Until she gives way to her fatal twist of damnation

Inch by inch traced deeper kiss by seductive kiss
Will her innocence really something anyone will miss?
A mother sees her daughter as she comes of age
Until she too is taken, ravished on that same stage

It seems that not all young and seemingly beautiful
Comes to that something which might be wonderful
Particularly where there are no limits known
In that place when conventions of morality are overgrown

(c) October 11, 2021  Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved