24 August 2017

Who are these masked impostors, feathered and bejeweled?

Whose faces speak in pearls, silver lace, and gold? 

That dance about the corridors, in elegant attire;

Whose sole motive speaks: impenitent desire!

 

At first unmasked there is the fool, who knew not

And then there are the lovers, fools the lot

They are betrayed, and then they are shot

Or stood to be swaying from a hangman's knot

The feathers and pearls, the rubies and silk

Rent at the point of the red bayonet

washed crimson in blood, tears, and stinking sweat

 

These figures, in their intrigue, reveling... 

'Till discovery, at which they meet life's severing

Their faces each uniquely shocked, that they-

Who mocked the cruel before them, they fell too

And no better than a grisly invitation, come! 

And join this bloody masquerade!