POETRY AND PAINTING

I write poems the way Van Gogh painted paintings
the last two years of his life. Wild, frenzied, crazy,
incredible, unique masterpieces that only his inner
genius could appreciate. Theo tried, but with few
successes. Self-portraits after self-portraits, the
potato eaters, a chair somewhat skewed, an old
man in sorrow, madness on his palette, yellow, blue,
and aquamarine--mixed up, all together in blends
and ways only a genius could create by scores.
Or was his madness the result only of a gift no
other artist had? Maybe my words and phrases
are phases only craziness can open. Maybe Van
Gogh did not know how to be ordinary, a ferry from
the sky, a mystical message he could not hear but
only feel. Cypress trees, sunflowers galore, paint
more he said. So many cannot see, the glory of
the stars that are ours only if we are blind to the
mundane but open to unorthodoxy he alone
perceived. Van Gogh poured himself on his can-
vases that Theo could not sell, paintings by the
hundreds that now hang on walls around the world
so those who eschew society’s mores are free
and unafraid to know Van Gogh and how he
understood the universe as no one else ever will.
Poetry and painting, you see, are one in the same.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks