canvases recognized your coup de
pinceau, as the easel teetered.
an energy field so kinetic--its excitability
still cannot restrain the subject matter.
as you bit down ******* your pipe,
squeezing paint directly from a tube on
to the canvas, it lumped light years.
just as you slow-cooked your hand over
a flame, to know how a flame feels.
wore the blood-wheat beard of dusk, to
be fired as a preacher.
went coal-faced, cool & damp as the soul
of a potato.
learned to draw without drawing, like
answering a knock on wood.
watched the belly of a ******* swell
with stones & rubbed it as your own.
you knew not Vincent, as they didn't--
how could thirty-seven years of merged
light know?
how could the bullet in your belly know,
how could the crows over the field know?
how could the ear to the wall of the
Yellow House know--the same sound the
sunflowers you cut knew?
the ones you went into a vase with--the
housewarming that unsettled Gaughan.
the artist colony of two, its more than
complete history.
the taste of paint & turpentine,
withdrawal from coup de pinceau.
baptized in the frigid waters of an
asylum, so your senses could deliberate
on a verdict.
unanimous as the bandage around your
head, Theo!!!
hiding the ear you handed another
*******, a ****** shell to listen to.
suddenly you came pouring in from
everywhere.