The Painting

The painting sat in an old junk shop

At the far end of The Strand,

It caught my eye and it made me stop

Though the subject wasn’t grand.

A woman stood in a window frame

And she stared out at the street,

The pavement there was of cobblestones

And the whole thing was, well, neat!

The basic thing that had caught my eye

Was the woman’s face, I know,

I didn’t think she had sat for it

But it looked like Billie Jo.

The likeness there was remarkable

In the lips, that sullen pout,

The hooded eyes that had looked so wise,

Overall, it knocked me out.

I bought the painting and took it home

And I showed my Billie Jo,

She couldn’t believe the likeness, and

I said, ‘I told you so.’

‘You’re sure that you didn’t sit for this,

I find it rather strange?’

The look on her face said something else,

Like guilt, but rearranged.

‘I don’t want to talk about the thing,

You shouldn’t have brought it home,

The look of that woman’s creepy,

I’d have left it well alone.’

‘It’s almost as if you have a twin,’

I said to Billie Jo,

‘There may be some things about you, girl,

You don’t want me to know.’

She shrugged, and she walked away just then

So I hung it on the wall,

She made me pull it down and hang it

Somewhere in the hall,

She didn’t care just where, she said

But she didn’t want to see,

The face of that strange woman, she said,

‘Looking back at me.’

The footsteps came on that very night

And they padded in the hall,

We woke and we lay awake in dread

And Billie began to bawl.

‘She’s come, I know that she's come for me,

When I thought I’d put her down,

The day that she rode that coal black hearse,

And was buried in the ground.’

I said that she’d best come clean with me

And she told about her twin,

‘I didn’t tell you before, because she

Frightened me out of my skin.

She used to say that she hated me

And would somehow bring me harm,

I caught her poisoning fizzy drinks

When we lived down on the farm.’

‘We had a fight in the cattle yard

That was one of her designs,

She kicked at me and she fell back hard,

Impaled on the baler tines.

She coughed up blood and she looked at me

And she spat, with her final breath,

‘You’ll not escape, I’ll open the gates

Of hell, to do you death.’’

‘She must have posed for that picture

In the week before she died,

And you have brought her on home to me,

I could swear that the picture sighed.’

I took it away the following day

And I burnt it in the well,

As the fire devoured the woman’s face,

It shrieked, from the gates of hell.

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Linda Marie Van Tassell]

I return from a long hiatus and am overjoyed to see new work from you. It's been a long while, but you never disappoint. Your narrative poems are always a pleasure! I feel as if one half is a known reality, while the other is half fantasy. Such a wonder you are!

[A Soap Mess Stories]

Came back to read some more stories. Good one.

[T.S. Sky]

Very well written, should be published in a book. Awesome read.

[Avinash]

Evil sibling story kind of amuse me as they always fight for their identities separate from each other and often end up at opposite poles.

[Coyote Poetry]

A very interesting story told my friend. I like the finding of the painting and the story shared. I did like the ending to the amazing poetry my friend
Coyote