‘A Portrait’ by Duncan Bennett

Words fail me – even as I stand before her, absorbing her beauty and marvelling at the cold intensity of her gaze.

I can’t describe her presence. There are words – they rise quickly to my lips – but before this heavenly apparition their portent seems as rudimentary as stone, and I worry my mastery of language is too poor to attempt even the feeblest articulation of her grace.

However, in truth, I know I’m spellbound, and realise that only by conveying something of her allure will I be able to exorcise my infatuation and free myself of her thrall.

And so …

… her hair – a fine, lustrous, ebony-black which promises the texture of spun satin – is both long and full and frames her face perfectly; its loose tresses caressing the line of her high, finely sculpted cheekbones before falling in a cascade of curls about her slender shoulders.

Her face is just so dramatically beautiful: a beauty that I wager even the most passionately enthused artist could never aspire to paint, sculpt, depict nor design.  The delicate features are at once both angelically child-like, and remarkably sensuous.

Her eyes are immediately entrancing; they are hypnotically deep, yet from their dark fathoms emanates a bright, powder-blue lustre. But, though they betray a yielding temperament and vital intelligence, I fear they are perhaps too waxed and haunted to be properly described as vibrant.

If her eyes offer a window to her soul, then her mouth reveals the pathway to her heart: it describes a perfectly formed bow; rich, yielding and inviting though, as I can’t imagine it has ever been kissed, would, perhaps, seem far more readily given to hushed whispers than passion.  Their fullness contrasts vividly with the ivory-white pallor of the flesh upon which they are so delicately stencilled for, though unpainted, they are yet possessed of a deep, naturally blossoming, cherry-red flush.

However, for one whose features are so exquisitely endowed and classically composed, her expression is one of fast held – and seemingly long suppressed – anxiety; the pain of life is clearly etched upon a slightly gathered brow, and mistrust – so potent that it is almost offensive – draws a hard line upon a jaw too firm for familiarity.  Likewise, the eyes are held just slightly too focused, just slightly too alert to ever – one might imagine – evoke a passionate concordance with the world they observe.

Sonorous and languid; attentive yet unmoving; she gazes forlornly through a vivid dream of long, un-slept centuries.

Her blood no longer flows – but sleeps, cold and still in her veins.

She has no name.

She is a vampire, imprisoned within an impassioned canvas.

Meet the Author

Duncan Bennett is a West Lothian based poet, writer and photographer who enjoys a wide range of subjects but has a penchant for horror writing and street photography in particular. He can be reached at duncan.bennett121@gmail.com