behind the red portal doors the insistent ghost tend to her garden of occidental conceit...layered greenness draped with white roses, heavily scented, lightly virtuous, easily bruised...
the ghost poet looks out his window at the darkening of this jade canopy, elusive words clinging to torn pages...
the ghost artist hoards the hours of light, shifting images in pale grey strokes on another fresh canvas...
the ghost pianist lingers on notes that cry out for a sultry voice, a faithful orchestra, the lover who turns his back when the music begins to fade...
the ghost of the muses visits upon them all, at the vanquished hour, when the snow roses float in the moonlight and the portal doors creak open slightly to let in the river breeze...
the poet is lying fitfully on his nest of tangled lines, the pianist trembles in a mild state of satie fever, the painter in fragile sleep still dreams in flashes of luminous hues...
the gardener ghost drifts through her vernal nightscape, fading in and out of the dawning mist, entangled in the reaching branches...
'behind the red portal doors' by g.verster, 2008
