Above others, one painting I am often invited to display and explain
He points, revealing creaseless priestlike cuffs
“What about that one there?”
Descending the staircase, a sense that every step displaces
Some antient air, the valiance and vanity of this hallowed bastion
The host, longing always being most, in the latest fashions and sashes, surpassing
More than happy to practice acting, his glassy implacable accent yet betrays
Some trace of farmyard hay, the humble commencements of the self-made hidden away
A Gatsby perhaps, none asked, glamoured by flash they nodded agreeably to his patter
Self-made is not an accolade to which I could feasibly stake claim
I inherited the estate and associated acreage upon the taking of my late Father
Unaffectionately called the Drake, a man who traded daughters for court place
Who hung Blakes where nobody could see them
Hooding the angels; walling Eden, to stop the Fall from Eve;
A facsimile exceeding, she seemed real enough to seize
A strange relief, mine, at your having noticed
At throat, where applebite stows, a leaf robed in silver kept her chiefly cloaks tight about her
A sense from the portrait of the cold in the studio where she reposed in statue stasis
Unfixed, searchlight sunshine butter-coloured scraped her beauty into motley quadrants
Her pallor gleaming; her skin a tapestry of cleaned teeth which had never eaten
Light beaming through a partial glass ceiling
Sprawling corridors, endless seeming
Long as the gravel drives teasing feet in real-seeming dreams.
Alchemisland 
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