The Dead Syphilitics Society
Alexandra Isacson
Gauguin shuffles spirit feet,
takes the dead peoples bus
to the dead models brothel.
The women gob on make-up,
tease hair, polish nails,
lace up corsets and boots.
Theyre going to the Getty Museum for Vincents birthday.
The painters and models will lecture on:
Coping with Syphilis in the Post Impressionist Deconstructionist Afterlife
paid for by The National Endowment for the Arts.
The elders of the Dead Psychiatric Society will show:
Freud, Jung, and Adler.
On the way,
they pass around a bottle of absinthe that Lautrec stashed,
take turns drawing sketches of each other,
wear party hats and flash missing tooth smiles.
Gauguin brings up van Goghs ear,
Now you can grow them on a mouses back.
One of the whores says:
You can do all sorts of things on your back,
and rubs her hand up and down Lautrecs leg.
I was his Model Resting.
The drunken Syphilitics Society lecture sitting down
beneath a bank of van Goghs Irises,
while munching appetizers and sipping drinks.
The Dead Psychiatric Society is whispering nasty things
about the painters escorts,
while discreetly snorting coke up their spirit noses,
taking copious notes.
Some whore is lasciviously licking frosting off Freuds face
with her spirit tongue,
and brushes her velvet feather hat against Adler.
Freud clears his throat while
Jung talks about his paper he is preparing:
Seven Sermons to the Dead in Denial.
Adler talks about his progeny authors.
Freud gives out enough cocaine scripts to last until the next lecture.
After its all over, the dead shuffle out,
shake spirit hands and get on the bus.
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