Gold rises first~
sunflowers flaring,
their ragged halos trembling
like small suns caught mid-breath.
They lean toward the room
as if listening for daylight,
as if remembering
the warm dust of noon.
Beside them, dusk u
n
f
u
r
l
s~
irises in violet folds,
midnight pooled at their throats,
blue ink gathering
where shadow meets stem.
They stand in cool defiance,
a quiet evening hum
held in their narrow leaves.
Together they make an entrance~
heat braided with shadow,
a dialectic of color
held in one trembling vase,
where joy and sorrow
glow side by side
in strokes that pulse
with Van Gogh’s heart and soul.
Van Gogh’s chair sits patiently
with the stubborn dignity
of something that has held
more weight than wood should bear.
Its legs splay slightly,
as if tired from listening
to the long monologues
of a man who painted
as though the world
were always on fire.
A pipe rests on the seat~
a small, domestic witness
to his restless hours,
the way he paced the room
searching for a color
that could tell the truth.
The straw seat glows
with a worn, sunlit patience,
a quiet counterpoint
to the fevered strokes
he left on every wall.
And the room around it
leans in,
holding its breath,
as if the chair
might speak at last
and tell us
what he carried
when he sat down
and let the world
fall away.
THE VAN GONE MUSEUM
A gleaming, extravagant building.
Filled with jewels of art.
The brainless herd pile in at
their allotted time slot. No thoughts
Zombie tourists flock into the Van
Gogh museum. It doesn’t matter
how many nationalities are there.
Everyone does the same.
Observers drone from one gallery
to another.
Their eyes not even focusing on the
painstaking art.
The portraits and landscapes stare
back at the viewer in
disbelief and disgust.
Please comprehend what I am.
The constant shutter of a camera
can be heard but not the slightest
intellectual thought can be even
fathomed amongst them.
Those photos they taken cannot
even echo the detail of the brush stroke
or slight colour difference.
They are a false facsimile at best.
The painting now a lifeless corpse.
A digital copy is what remains on a
seldom used SD card.
Never to be looked upon again.
A gravity trudges the cattle toward
the famous sunflowers ; not for
artistic merit but for bragging
rights and social media selfies
Although Van Gogh is long dead, it
seems apparent his legacy, his art,
his life’s work is now
Van Gone….
Ludwig van Beethoven
raised music to summit of art with heart’s rhythm interwoven.
Despite failed romance and stressful hearing affliction
composed mesmeric melody of dexterous perfection.
[Afrikaans Poem with English Translation]
Ek onthou jou toe die spiese naby my was,
En die swaarde het uit my bloed gedrink.
Maar ek wou die swaarde soen,
Soos hulle gegrom het soos jou helder glimlag.
Ek is dronk van die rooiwyn van jou liefde,
So van so 'n dronkaard.
Moenie die hart vra oor die geheim van my hart nie,
Want liefde binne ons... kan nie met die tong uitgespreek word nie.
English Translation
I remember you when the spears were near me,
and the swords drank from my blood.
But I wanted to kiss the swords,
as they wave like your bright smile.
I am drunk on the red wine of your love,
so from such a drunkard.
Don't ask the heart about the secret of my love,
because love within us... cannot be expressed with the tongue.
* Dear PoetrySoup members. I wrote an Afrikaans poem and I understand that many of you do not understand the Afrikaans language and I wrote the English Translation of this poem. Enjoy reading my poem.
The sky staggers
in s
p
i
r
a
l
s of sleepless blue,
a celestial storm stitched from sapphire and sorrow,
where stars swell, simmering seeds of unstable light
trembling like thoughts too vast to be contained.
Above the village, night kneels in restless reverence.
Roofs rest in rigid resignation,
windows dim as quiet witnesses to cosmic unrest,
while the steeple stretches upward like a hesitant prayer
that never quite reaches its answer.
A cypress rises, black, brooding, blade-like
a funereal flame fixed in the soil of silence,
cutting through the composition like grief given form,
binding earth to the fevered heavens above.
The wind is unseen yet insinuated,
a wandering whisper weaving through the whorled sky,
stirring stars into spinning, shimmering syntax,
as though the night itself has lost grammatical control.
Nothing here is still.
Everything leans light lurches, darkness deepens, distance dissolves.
The world holds together on tension alone,
as though the painter captured not a landscape,
but the moment reality began to tremble.
Ludwig van Beethoven
raised music to realm of art with heart’s rhythm interwoven.
Despite failed romance and stressful hearing affliction
composed fervent music of dexterous perfection.
Batten down the hatches!
Bar the doors!
For the storm looms above
boiling hot with natures wrath.
Stand tall men! Do not waiver!
Or run like the cowards you are
leaving me to tarry through the storm
wrecked by waves and rain
till I'm nothing but
splintered battered wood.
Halloween night has a curious sky tonight
As if Van Gogh used his paint brush with all his might
It reminds me of his famous painting Starry night
Even the cat is staring at it. It is artistic all right!
Long ago in a fine art show,
I saw, in a wheat field, an old black crow.
I asked, "Where did Vincent van Gogh?"
The bird blinked and said, "He was Hell bent.
Some say he was Heaven sent.
Who knows where Vincent van Went?"
It's no great mystery I impart -
that Van Gogh had two eyes for art,
and yet its a fact that you'll hold dear
as I reveal the fate of his left ear.
It's still listening today,
on a secret project for the CIA.
there's a distance I cannot escape
lines are drawn
maps know where they crease
exuberance adds flourish to the page
it leaves by my hand
and I let it go
in its place are hooks to the ground
no matter the sky's expanse
I'm too timid to do more than see
the risk of the revelation -
to be peripheral
just a vantage point
instead of someone who matters
clusters tend to blind the eyes
overwhelm and hypnotise
I appreciate how that occurs
temporarily reality blurs
daisies fade and daisies wilt
though Earth remains on its same tilt
constant vase sometimes contains bliss
I'm temporal and aware of this
I watch as time demonstrates this fate
there is no sense asking time to wait
nor comfort in letting time past conflate
with our present or future state
each burst of joy that bloomed in view
was gift in moment and threat in lieu
yet yin and yang cannot accrue
and balance is the resting hue
I'm temporal in the schemes and storms
constants are not truthful forms
though Earth remains it can't contain
daisies if there are no rains
temporarily we pause or rush
I appreciate calm in the hush
overwhelm there taught to rest
clusters tended will manifest
A good Samaritan
plunges pity for the wounds of a troubled soul
rather than
leaping forward
without compassions heart-whole
Unguard!
Thereof
agapë's role—
Love
A good Samaritan
plunges pity for the wounds of a troubled soul
Love
in need of breeze
beyond the noise,
seconds slither
through veined currents,
smothering the light within,
as silence forgets
the syllables of stillness
turning the sky
into a sea of electric blue ~
waves carrying
the weight of quiet grief,
restless ripples
pushing...pulling...
toward the swirls
of love
etched beneath
the midnight sun…
and if tomorrow I f a d e
intrinsic ink phase,
remember me as the dusk
that defied
treacherous tremors of dark ~
I gathered sparks
from spiraling stars
as constellations
shattered and crashed
against shivering skin
within this sleepless home,
carving a sapphire silhouette
of solitude ~
a poet drowning
in a demented dream
in the heart of
an unnamed village,
no soul of dawn longed to see,
unaware of heaven
hidden beneath
brush-bruised strokes,
where only a
feeler’s eyes
could trace the
fine feathers
f l o a t i n g through
the finesse
of a forlorn life…
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