Death of Van Gogh

Cyanotype; the Darkness ingressing inside it

Already, Iron blueness- last Toxicity

Of art- that had ran darker than the

Paints that melded their way

Past the skull's frame into

Van Gogh's brain-

Oh yes- it had melted, then melted away

Like Crows feast on Purple Plantain

They will wait until we become empty

To nest within us-

We are empty as the Scarecrows

Of Ernst- that never wore shadow

Og form or ribcage to force a

Pecking shape of thought away-

Eons later

The art historians had announced

They had found us Caulked beneath

The blue of the Wheatfield for

Crows, the buried forms of the

Spectators, the audience

That had not been there to

To shield him from any of it.

The human form that would have

Made things more than a landscape,

With a noose.

Become

Pillars to wield the silences

Of amphitheaters before they would

Have crushed him shapes of dreams

Dark saccades of sleep beneath

Every mound the Shadows

Odilon's Caliban is burrowing.

Take a walk outside- beneath the

Purple sky- the shrill air

Would touch you to your bone.

You were the audience- that

Were asked for- you were

Made of straw, you were nothing

Be grateful for the feeling of the

Cold, without it you'd

Be as empty, as feelingless

As the painting without audience.

The things hidden in the dust

This undelivered half

Were delivered to absolution

To sunlight in the Lithograph

And so without you, or anyone

To see what it was he'd done

And so without anybody to see

And mind swarming with

Turpentine and Thujone and

Lead he took the silver handle

And shot himself dead.