The Picassos

The Picassos

He spoke and the worlds came into existence.

Drawings go up in smoke.
The Blue Period of death and opium,
then rose infused.
Wearing the primal mask,
his magician hands work from all views.

Out in the syphilitic street,
the veiled whores in scarlet
are peripheral visions.

Bored, he takes his pencil and erases.

Women dissolve in their own tears
from a foreground of men.
Hang onto the LA County Museum walls,
dig their fingernails in, slip down,
some drown, disappear into the inky night
drinking, like goddesses of absinthe.
Others scream from the paintings,
women cut apart with scissors,
pieced back on canvas with tweezers.

And he says death is the only woman who never leaves him.