Illuminating Hell

Clattering hooves
on cobble stone streets
disappear into
night's waiting mouth
leaving silence to reign
over the street of the ripper.
He has laid claim
this night
to one small block
of old London
and one body of flesh
of young Marie,
professional of the trade.

If I were a policeman
or even
a concerned citizen,
perhaps a frightened denizen
or barrister on loan,
I would tell what I've seen
four times before
this new and darkened night.
But I was an artist
in need of a muse
until I stumbled
blindly and drunkenly
into that putrid alley.

I saw things
I could not have described
until then,
images that would not
flee my mind
even after I painted them
over and over again.
Feral strokes
with brushes battered and torn,
colors given to me
by dark gods
to illumine scenes
straight from hell.

I tried to stay away,
to tell the authorities,
to save the pulchritudinous girls
who were my friends,
my confidants,
my solace,
my companions,
to staunch the flow of blood
down my city streets.

Yet every evening
I watched,
waited for him to go out,
waited for him to choose,
to satiate,
to inspire me.
When he didn't kill,
I didn't create,
drying up inside
like my unused paint.
Evenings passed unrefreshed
and I wondered,
had he given up?
Were the wounded finally safe
and the streets quiet again?

I followed him tonight
in desperation,
convinced at first
he was only out for a walk
but then his pace slowed,
each step deliberate
and I saw Maria
plying her trade,
invincible and phlegmatic.
She had made
a good night's wages
before my muse
entered her life.
Through a buckling window
I watched in horror,
unable to turn away,
my mind reposited every slash,
every scream, every drop
of precious blood
so that later
when the white heat overcame me
I could commit it to canvas.

My eyes closed
near the end.
Having lain with Maria
only last night
I recoiled
at each strike against her,
feeling it in my bones,
tasting it in my bile.
My mind swirled
with the painting I hadn't started
yet it was already finished.
Silence had crept in,
evading my brutalized senses.
When I opened my eyes again,
terror ripped
the breath from my lungs.

He was staring at me.
Smiling.
Bloody weapon
like an appendage
drip, drip, dripping onto the floor.
Then he chuckled
from deep in his throat
where words were not allowed.
I was sure I was dead,
the ripper's first male victim.
He left the building,
outside he passed by me
not sparing a glance and said
"Be sure to remember my good side, painter,"
and the black night
swallowed him up.

He had known about me all along.
My cleverness removed,
I found I could not paint.
His final killing
remains a lost masterpiece,
my mind as blank
as raw slate.
I told the authorities all I knew,
months after,
by then, too late.
Now I sit in a cell
for withholding knowledge
while the ripper roams free.
A laugh bellows outside
in the distance
and my bowels tighten.