Eye of the Day
Mata Hari was born on the Paris stage
where in 1905 she was the latest rage.
Removing her veils until naked and raw
only a breastplate kept her within the law.
On Java it had been a carnival of dances
fluid movements depicting strange romances.
Sultry gestures, exotic and hypnotic
that, in Paris, she restyled as erotic.
Her next act was as a siren and a vamp.
The men loved her, the women thought her a tramp.
Men of renown blessed her with many a Franc.
She was a star, the diva of the Left Bank.
Her fame and her freedom to travel worldwide
sparked the French and the Germans both to decide
her role in the war effort would be to spy
where, if caught in its performance, she could die.
Thus...her last act was a kiss blown to the wind
as she paid with her life for her supposed sins.
Those in government that had forced her to spy
skipped her last number and let the bullets fly.