I saw the throbbing neon glow of garish white lights,
Illuminating her gaunt feverish face,
Repulsively anaemic and pale,
Repugnantly vacant and ghostly,
Beads of weary sweat dripping down her sallow tortured brow,
Childlike soft cheeks laden with exotic imported makeup and opulent perfume,
Silhouettes of midsummer eve twilight reflecting off the rattling gothic window pane,
Surgically sterilised chains dangling eerily from the damp stone castle ceiling,
Her bony fingers twitching with sadistic ecstasy,
Her scarred bloody lips quivering with morbid delight,
The emaciated limbs of her skeleton puppet gyrating and flailing hysterically,
And grotesque puddles of sour urine and protoplasmic vomit lingering underneath the antique marble archway –
I saw engorged eyeballs floating in eerie jars of mysterious technicolour fluid,
Immaculately polished floorboards creaking insidiously underfoot,
Ancient manuscripts of primitive anatomical studies littered upon her regal mahogany desk,
And distant soundwaves of clinking champagne glasses and benign conversation invasively penetrating her seductive lair –
I saw a stone cauldron of simmering virgin tears,
Test tubes of luminescent potions and petri dishes of satanic elixir,
The harrowing glint of savage sadomasochistic lust in her piercing glare,
Her luxurious collection of jagged emerald crystals and blood-red rubies,
Sapphire bejewelled tiaras and lumps of pure untarnished diamond,
An ominous ancestral portrait of incestuous lovers cloaked in grim formal attire hanging above the battered raging fireplace,
Her sprawling charcoal sketches of cracked skulls and isolated kneecaps,
And an old weathered chest with dark secrets locked within –
I saw virginal innocent chambermaids metamorphosed by her cruel hands into lifeless mannequins drenched in jissom and lapis lazuli paint,
The heads of taxidermic orangutans gushing silent screeches of gut-wrenching terror,
Hovering clouds of phosphorescent purple mist ensnared within a myriad of magical glass jars and crates,
Ragged leather-bound books of evil witchcraft and insidious sorcery,
And a sardonic grin of cannibalistic yearning slowly creeping onto her malformed haunting face –
Poem by Stamos Mardou