Madamme Proprietor from Dream Diary by Bardic Mechanism
This dream was full of stark black and white contrasts with splashes of color - particularly blue. It was pervaded by a sense of anxiety and impending doom, but also the sense that the aforementioned doom is still far off.
Why paint scallops and giant barnacles? What is the color-changing fog, liquid or aerogel filling the aquarium? The delivery man has no idea. Monsieur proprietor could tell you, but he does not see visitors often. Madamme proprietor is busy - there's someone behind you who needs to use the checkout.
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Tracklist
| 2. | Madamme Proprietor | 4:01 |
Lyrics
Madamme proprietor opened the doors
And when the sun shone through her windows
The patrons came in droves
She stood to meet them dressed in black and white
Behind a counter of glass and ice and light
With her two plywood dining tables
Waiting unsteadily beside
And chairs somewhere... Yes - There!
Her hands worked deftly at the cutting board
Her porcelain skin bathed by the midday sun
Her hair held by a net and tied into a bun
Her lips a tight straight line
Her mouth and tongue a flashing fillet knife
Each word cut cleanly and exactly
From the fresh sentences that just came in today
The verbiage is curt so everyone is served
Waste not, want not - they say
When the deliveryman arrived
To interrupt her service dance
The patrons arched their eyebrows
Forgiving necessary happenstance
Unknowing that the foods they sought
Were not in the delivery he brought
The sunlight found its way into
The glass aquarium he carried past the queue
The sun transforming hazy emerald green
Into azure and smoky blue
Inside, if you look close
Dead coral, giant barnacles
And scallops in their shells
But not the kind of foodstuffs
That madamme proprietor sells
These were to be consumed a different way
"He needs them for his art" she'd say
Monsieur proprietor lives upstairs
He'd only rarely descend
To witness for himself
How the madamme proprietor fares
Peeking into his window, passers-by
Would find themselves bedazzled by
A starched, pressed shirt upon his portly frame
Reflecting morning light
So one could hardly blame
That they could not perceive beyond the blinding white
Held by suspenders of dark blue and muddy red
His worn black pants unkempt and stained
There was no vantage from the street to see his unmade bed
And looking through a window gave no view towards
His fraying, gray-green socks made of a fabric coarse
Worn smooth under his heels
And torn with holes above the toes
The smells of smoke and drying paint
Are carried by the breeze, becoming faint
He does not keep his easel far
The salt and pepper ashes of a spent cigar
Belch forth a smoke that rises past
The salt and pepper 'round dry yellow lips
And there within the smoky light he sits
Studying eyes transfixed on an aquarium as he
Paints work only madamme proprietor would see
