Marionettes

Many marionettes
Dripping from your fingers
Grinning mesmerized
The foolish ones they linger
Dancing to your time
Rattling to your metronome
Painted and gilded
Lamed to the bone
All your parlour games
Spellbinding patterns in their brains
Sucking your cheroot
Worshipping your photograph
Like a peepshow prostitute
A voyeuristic phonograph
Masked grotesques
Performing pirouettes
Shadowing silhouettes
Ghastly rictus smiles
Sickly in the gaslight
Finally extinguishing memories of a past life
You sold your soul so long ago
Paid in silver, let the candle blow
And on your own with your reflection
You spread the cards, but you never find the fool
Spinning your web, your ectoplasmic ball of gloss
Handing around your sweetly poisoned candy floss
To the dolls of your desire
Come hither, come higher, stand closer to my fire
Surrender
Surrender to the kiss of the abyss