Red and Pink, the Little Mephisto, by Charles Tarlton

Red and Pink: the Little Mephisto, by James McNeill Whistler (USA), 1884.

Red and Pink, the Little Mephisto
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MEPHISTOPHELES: That I shall wait on Faustus whilst he lives, so he will buy my service with his soul.   -Dr. Faustus, by Christopher Marlowe

The close observer will notice the image in the cascade of red paint above and slightly to the right of the reclining girl.  There’s a face in the fabric of the painting like Christ’s in the shroud of Turin; it hovers ghostlike over Little Mephisto, I can see the image of a woman’s eye and a gray shoulder, it could be a draft of Little Evelyn or one of his self portraits painted roughly over.  The girl on the divan in a pink dress sprawls invitingly behind her cheeky fan, her face also a mask.  The thick red of the divan seems likely to have been brushed over something else, a kneeling figure, I like to imagine, pleading before the darkened angel obliterated in the wall of red.  

the surfeit of red
defies interpretation
as if fire had spilled
from the sky, red rain falling
in a crimson silken sheet

a fallen angel  
would trade you a moment’s bliss 
for your soul.  Devil
in a pink dress, slovenly 
beckoning and seductive

slick work quickly done
as if it was too hot to touch
partly a picture
he tried to erase, but look! 
even her stockings are red

Charles Tarlton

Charles Tarlton: "I am a retired professor who has been writing poetry full time since 2010. I am especially addicted to emphasis and have published ekphrastic tanka prose in KYSO Flash, Haibun Today, Atlas Poetic, Contemporary Haibun Online, Review American, Ekphrastic Review, and Fiction International."