SIMON PARKER
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Ingres and Delacroix share a coffee

​In a drawing room
in which no one can draw
black liquid rises to the brink

of the fine bone china
a silent accompaniment
to your trembling hands
tinkling saucer against cup
thin lips strain but cannot drink
your rage splutters flecks of phlegm
“Drawing, sir, drawing is honour”
an uncontrolled wave surges
“Drawing, sir, drawing is honesty!”
dark spillings stain your shirt
the limit of reason unleashed
“I, sir, I would not slaughter
horses or slay concubines.”
words falter
thought phrases disintegrate
“Line no violence knows colour Romanticism’s screech bounds drama let go line, sir, line.”
rage and shame taint your skin
the room shrinks
eyes narrow to the spectacle
nobody sees
history’s recording angel
slam the door












© Simon Parker
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  • Home
  • Blog
  • Theatre
    • Aching Parts
    • Take me to where the arrows no longer fall
    • The Right Kind of Violence
    • Own Goal
    • Mooring
    • Yellow Fever
    • Just Like Flies
    • Snap
    • Home
    • Vex
  • Fictions
    • Gross
    • The 7.22
    • For Those Who Trespass
    • Karaoke
    • We Only Notice When It's Gone
    • This is a story that I am going to make a story out of
    • Les Anglais en Vacances
    • She
    • La Comedie Humaine
  • POETRY
    • Eve
    • Via Dolorosa
    • a disappearing
    • Unfolding
    • Street Scene
    • Said and done
    • Ingres and Delacroix share a coffee
    • If you follow the silk road
    • In him we trust
    • n.b. for Barney
    • Who Can Erase The Traces?
  • LIVEWORKS
    • Watching Coriolanus at the National Theatre
    • Watching Phaedra at the National Theatre
    • Notes from a wanderer
  • News
  • Contact