Pickman's Model Revisited

Hey all, I enjoy the rich imagery used by H.P. Lovecraft in his many stories. One of my favorite stories is Pickman's Model. The story takes the reader through many scenes via the narrator's retelling of a night out with the painter Richard Upton Pickman. I wanted to explore a scene not described but mentioned in the story. Here I explore the narrator coming to the Art Club and wondering if he'll see Pickman.

I hope you enjoy!

In the Painting

The white door
to the Boston Art Club
awaits my hand
as I await my breath to return.

Bracing for what
seeing what
hopefully isn't
inside.

Opening the door
I can breath again
as the club is filled with the usual members
empty in their mundane attire
sighing through their banal conversation
over humdrum artworks.

Joining them
I sip the dry wine
nibble on the flat pastries
observing the latest paintings
from the club "artists".

Across the club
I spy a painting splashed red
crimson flung wildly
as if capturing a crime of passion.

Drawn to it
viscous blobs
dripping splatters
like the aftermath
of a true artist's visions
Pickman.

Flashes of what I found in his studio
race through my mind
replacing the mundane with
primal horror.

Pickman's art wasn't just visual
it engaged every sense.
You heard the cracking of bone as the things fed
the sloshing of their biting into flesh
the smell of rot leaking off their moldy hides.

Near the window
I hear a faint scurrying
a faint squealing
move around the corner to another room.
A man in a long coat and hat follows.

Following him
the room is darker than the rest of the club
the paintings more muted
he moves like shadow sliding through a moonlit alley.

The scurrying gets louder
a soft whine, a quiet squeal
the man stops at a painting
observing it
his face almost pressing into it.

Hello?
I say
as the man turns
revealing the face of Pickman
the artist
whose brush would vomit nightmares
whose canvas was a gateway to madness.

He smiles
not at me
but behind me.

I follow his glare
seeing
crouching in the corner
hearing
the snapping of limbs
smelling
the decay of ages
it is the creature from his photograph
devouring the gnawed left overs of a club member.

I look back to Pickman
his smile
gleeful
his camera in hand
and behind him

his latest painting

the creature feeding


on me.


My senses return
the drab world rushes back to me
as I truly see the man in the long coat and hat
another club member whose name escapes me.

No Pickman
no windows into the macabre
only a normal life
surrounded by normal people.

I leave the club.

I will return in a few weeks
to see who is at the Art Club.

I hope you enjoyed that. Feel free to comment and share. I'm using this blog to practice and play so if there is a story you'd like me to explore/play with let me know in the comments.

Have a great evening and be careful at your next art club! :)