Shoot it if it rhymes

Question to an artist who killed himself

For a moment and a half,
you cling.
Fingertips digging the precipice
of my skull
and as I close my eyes I see a kid
drooling in the ecstatic oblivion of madness.

What is it that you seek,
you ask me.
Through trillions of chafed sun-sets
robbing cake-shops

for crumbs with burnt edges
slanting, sleeting rain boiling

on raw burnt tin sheets
and the smell of singed flesh?

Masked trapeze.

Springing up from the safety net

the Big Top

ringmasters with cigarette-holders

a mile long

and pointed, pronged tails.

Why is it that you paint your face,

you ask me.

With white and vermillion

and a grin with curling corners

and the skull of a mouse for a nose?

Why is it that you

paint?