Pastel on heavy gsm watercolour paper that really did NOT work with the chalks
100 × 73 cm.
by
pauldrobertson and Obi-wan the cat, Perth, Australia – pauldrobertson.com

I refuse to draw over the paw prints that Oi-wan, my cat, elegantly added.
She would never let it go if I did. She would take it outta my hide.
I drew this piece of my lovely fiance, Sinn, while she was gracious enough to stand in front of me looking gracious. Graciously. She too serves my cat.* Also graciously.

*Megalomania is a real problem and should be taken seriously, especially when it affects your cat and she tries to invade Europe.

Here is a recent text i sent her that was deformed horrifically by technology into something like it was by William S Burroughs. Go on! Get into a fight with me about it if you want! I’ll hassle your pants and question your personal hygiene!

So she has yet to read it. I am kind of terrified that she will.

I am awed and stunned by wonder and wonder again… I cannot find my breath my words are drowned in the thunder of my body’s thunderous, bloody rush. And to -
to have my arms (so wreathed and flush and boiling with desire so weak with want) hold your body hear your heart share your warmth
as you sleep; the arc of your cheek is the most beauty I have trembled before.., the sweetened exhalation of your breath
skin so real so
warm
and
oh

so soft;
it beggars fine-spun cloud-silk , the touch of any babe be they gentle yet; the lightest lacrimony of warming rain; any and all for ever and only there could be no more than your touch but
no, not the quiescence of flesh
not and never no – there is more not her skin no not
never – there is further grace held hushed beside me. raging fury of will and heat –
the gentleness of her heart, so close to mine as to frighten me.
For her it is conflagration such fierce pride and agony of ardour a desire such DESIRE (a never-seen incandescence to match my own)
Cached in a sudden stillness… a feather caress and she is become an angel of tenderness? How…? is she able to be..?
A warrior born. Her lips Sweetened honey, her mind steel milked from the most sinuous and sensuous of venoms.
Schooled. Mistress to the most lethal of lives…
Wrapped in the flesh of a wildling hart?
We know and wear loss as all do in any life. The extant tragedy of what she has lived is beyond the comprehension of a man as proud of his own survival as familiar with the madness of unending pain as I.
She beauty born from this, some form and weight of gravitas.
Her history is barely visible but tears always fascinating exhilarating that she is what and whom, what she is and still, still
In each step so tired worn and fought and such pain so worn a clutch a fist of years scores and even yet now wearing to bone to mind to scourged worn and won fought again it hurt her I know it must she remembers… she is a soul a life flaring with war death-dealers with atrocity with war war war WAR!
Her body more scar than skin (so soft so alive so soft and mine)
How can it be? Grace hums against her limbs warmed by their touch she is yet delicate… (so soft! her skin her skin! Her scars! Her skin!!)
movements svelte and boiling with latency; it is forever abeyant, utterly implicit in her, in all that she is. Coiled in her is a fell warrior. Such strength, feline yet shivered and silvered with
Fragility
(how? What is she to be this?)
I wish and wish for her hope so it hurts me with my wishes
I wish I
Wish;
I… if she could use this inferno, the frenzied oceans, the tempest worlds of will so thick in her chest
to believe
this…
if she would if she will.
I beg for her credulity I offer my hands my works my eyes believe me believe believe!

before she flooded my heart and writ hope across sorrow; before she breathed rapture and tore hope open like this like THIS I did not know I had never begun to see…
She is without equal. Without precedent. She is craving, She is lust, she is
honour.

I need her to know. She must know.

She is my life’s love

Only. And forever.
Her.

She (my fiance, Sinn, NOT MY CAT OBIWAN) is the most noble person I have ever met.

I’ve been very, very busy recently. I did this piece AND did my washing. In one day.
Now the washing I did in not dissimilar enthusiasms molders, demanding to be taken out and hung. The valance peers mournfully out of the laundry at me.
Did I tell everyone that I have a valance?
I do.
It’s green. Though not from moldering.
I do like having a valance, though I emphatically believe that men should NOT really know what one is; spending that thirty dollars and finally covering the unsightly bit of bed at the bottom was a great moment for me. I told all my friends. Many times. Took them into my room and showed them.
“Here it is,” I said. “My valance.”
“Oh.” They said.
I would like to expand my range of haberdashery, but just not quite yet. The valance is enough for me.
For now.

Paul