Uncanny Violet Grows

Violet is a temporary queen on an ephemeral throne
She draws each breath as if her glass slippers might crack
With her silent mousemen guards all lurking
And her pumpkin coach dreams proved fugitive
Violet waits for someone romantic and volatile
She casts desideratas and figs from her balcony each morning
While a sad painter endeavours to capture her essence 
Violet wears her daily masks with panache
Underneath, she is restless and bored

Violet knows the cutlers’ secrets and the dressmakers’ fears 
She hears all their whispers as clearly as chiming bells
Her futile talents sometimes overwhelm her
But her faux nonchalance carries her onwards
Violet knows they are planning her wedded demise
She dreams of a man bold enough to just come and get her
Passionate enough to rip off her garters and corset 
But disappointment advises she compromise
Violet really just wants to be cherished

Zephyr is bringing change

He appears like an impossible ship in the middle of Winter
Promising sunstorms and jonquil flavoured ice fountains
He carries love in a phial and freedom in a sail
Violet sees him and loses all trace of herself
She throws parties and funerals for the end of her sorrow
While Zephyr watches on with desire in his elegant fingers
She is quite unlike anything he’d bargained for
He watches the way she summons her rainbows
And determines to make her smile

Demelza is waiting behind screens

When her position as Spare to her sister was first declared
Demelza found a seer whose hands were magnetic
Predicting a blemish in her doe eyed ascension
Gifting her a once and singular use artifact
Now she sees Zephyr’s gaze linger on Violet’s choice pillows
Feels the abyss in her soul let loose its dancing revenants 
Laces the surrogate’s absinthe with treasured oleander
Jealous eyes smirking at royal flesh doomed
Temporary queens are bound for the grave

Violet enters a chamber of mermaids, treachery and kittens
Feels the ephemeral crown dissolving on her unicorn horn
Knows she should have packed her seasonal suitcase
Smiles at the fairy godmother come to fetch her
There are days a girl ought to stay in bed and forget about politics
Let the Pope play badminton with the unpopular treasurer
Let the jester determine their questionable futures
Let nettle soup invade the whole kingdom
Let them all go to hell while she dies

Violet exits, curtains drawn

Demelza sits, a faux queen on a papier-mâché glass throne
Blind to how her husband sees her as a spoilt soiled dove
Unknowing that her sister’s corpse comes between them
Usurpers and children are rarely welcome at court
Zephyr has pre paid her funeral, bought her dress pre-poisoned
Three ladies in waiting hastily lace up her unpretty fate
Served with a bitter almond tea cake for one
Zephyr rolls his eyes at her brief yet histrionic death
Sails his widower’s treasure ship into the sun

Sirens are singing up storms

Out at sea, strange gales are raising kaleidoscopic mythologies
Sirens circle the ship, gothic faces all greenly shimmering
Seeking hardcore plunder for their white fields of bone
Zephyr plugs his ears with flowers, but to no avail
Voices of honeyblood ruin wrap themselves round his throat
Circumstances are demanding his acquiescence 
This is quite unlike anything he’d bargained for
Yielding to the knowledge he will never go home
His desiderata falls overboard, he is gone

Beneath the waves, glass crowns perch wistfully on white bone skulls
Baby sirens play with gold coins and conquistadores knuckles
Rainbow fish swim fancifully between missionary ribs
Through Zephyr’s laced fingers a lone uncanny violet grows
Rare treasure springing from the devotion of a temporary Queen 
Sensing love, the lissom Siren spies it with inky black eyes
Soft in her terror, she hones in on the violet’s mourning aura
Plucks the bloom, threads it into her seaweed hair
Waltzes off into the colder depths, oblivious