Tortured Artist

The escapist dreams of kaleidoscopic hypnosis
The voyages his mind tumbles into, quite ferocious
When left idle, it’s meaningless diagnosed psychosis
Put on paper, mind-bending aptitude, praised precocious

Seeing all of the colors in nature
As he imagined them across his ceiling
There was feeling
Something that lay deep within
Wondering what all creatures’ fates were
He sat and pondered the eternal query
Thoughts were eerie
He knew not where to begin

Rain as dark as the heavens it falls from
Words as void as the dull skull that calls them
Beauty unhinged enough to appall some
An adventure on which we can all come

And when he cries out from undying pain
Lab coats all say that it’s psychosomatic
And when he sees what he cannot explain
That moonstruck man has toys in the attic

Common critics call all such forms of fantasy deranged
Without his pen and paper, our hero would be estranged
He never receives accolades for the minds he has changed
Demonstrating to average others how his is arranged

Staring through design on old wallpaper
Mind sifts through all eternity as heart beats
Iris retreats
As the pupil advances
Enjoying the thrills of this strange caper
His leash to the real world rests between fingers
As he lingers
On demented romances

Smoke that obscures still the deepest of thoughts
Portrait long tarnished by large scattered blots
Battered through age and various onslaughts
Jack-o’-lantern that still smiles as it rots

And when he dreams of fathomless ocean
Rejecting confinement of vile pastille
And when he feels incessant emotion
Who can determine what is, in fact, real?