"Sinister giant black butterflies
Eclipse the blazing disk of sun.
Like a sealed-up book of wizard's spells
The horizon sleeps--secretly.

From dank forgotten depths of Lethe
A scent floats up, to murder memory.
Sinister giant black butterflies
Eclipse the blazing disk of sun.

And from heaven downward dropping
To the earth in leaden circles,
Invisible, the monstrous swarm
Descends upon the hearts of men,
Sinister giant black butterflies."
-"Night", translated from Arnold Schoenberg's German poem

If you haven't heard the "Sprechstimme" music he wrote that uses this poem, I recommend you download it; it's a rather unique piece.

With regards to this piece, I tried to paint what I saw in my mind's eye while reading the poem; I think I did pretty well. My camera kind of sucks, though; I spent about 8 hours charging the batteries yesterday, and had to try to get the best shot I could of the painting in 5 minutes because the camera had eaten through most of the juice. Stupid camera.