Portrait in Black Velvet

Portrait in Black Velvet - Danny O'Keefe

Come with me now into a piece of velvet

And a plastic painter's daring dance of death

We'll journey very far into the surface

Those not used to diving hold your breath

The lady of my dreams paints scars of velvet

On the mirror are the words she chose to speak

And there the heavy hands that hang suspended

Wrote: The Easter undertaker's laughter breaks

Painter she cried it's mourning

She stared like a saint undone

Painter she cried it's morning

And we cannot find the sun

I offered her my cap and tiny shovel

Saying surely this will hide you from the sun

I obtained it from a banker in depression

He was a memory from 1931

She butchers up her meat in careful quarters

Knowing the prize at stake is very high

And she builds a worn cliché into climax

Knowing she will barely get by

Painter she cried it's mourning

She stared like a saint undone

Painter she cried it's morning

And we cannot find the sun

Lady return my dream

It wasn't free it's not for sale

Lady return my dream

And let me go on with the telling of my tale

Her gentle voice cried quietly to thank me

It's nothing the hollow answer said

I let her ride the railroad line to Nowhere

And left the lost survivor on her bed

Painter look it's mourning

She stared like a saint undone

Painter look it's morning

And we cannot find the sun

Lady return my dream

It wasn't free it held my life

The portrait ends in a scream

Two hearts held together with a knife