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.