Reflections On Dorian Gray VI: Tethered Leashes
by Michael Doyle

A slit-throat bloodied scarf knows its sacrilege
As Dorian's portrait holds his stains like privilege
Hiding what's done in the waters by the river bank
It offers little good to say about position and rank

Until onto another night of sadistic revelry
Played out as though the darkness is celebratory 
Prayers said politely by side of another's grave
For some, only death offers the only way to save

A telling tale of the dark things that we bring
While like lost children we play at rage and sing
There is a desperate existence that we strain to see
As we tarnish our souls beyond belief for an eternity

Life becomes burned inside the taste of a hot flame
Of words and meanings blurred to mention and defame
There becomes the illumination of his unholy name
As Dorian burns and becomes as one with the deepest flame

The cinders of life turn to coal heaped into its ash
Gone before we know it in a despicable rush of flash
Mothers have your children heed you as you warn
That some venturing out should wait until the morn

The whispered tales half-told are in form fully true
Traced in the flumes of smoke same as the raven flew
Nature will and does have so very much to answer for
In the losses from her natural causes we all deplore

Dorian drinks deeply of life's things without affliction
Except for his stumbled soul and darkest of addictions
A passion for life takes its compellingly strong toll
It keeps the monkey on Dorian's back and the devil in his soul

Religion kept in place of mostly forgotten superstition
And love's illusion proves false, not even a substitution
As he cuts the world into all of its severed pieces
While Cerberus escapes from its tethered leashes

(c) October 25, 2021  Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved