When Vincent stumbled home that night through a drizzle of rain ~
what was going on inside that teeming, torturous brain?
Did he blaspheme heaven with every profanity and curse?
Or did he gaze in awe at the stars of his exploding universe,
and try to make of their blue and yellow light a poultice for his pain?
Today I’m thankful for the stars and the words of Vincent Van Gogh
(I hold these in high esteem)
For my part I know nothing of any certainty
but the sight of stars makes me dream.
His life came to a ruinous end
Plummeted into insanity
The red-bearded painter
With his self-hatred, despair and desperation for understanding
He drank yellow paint thinking it would make him happy
Locked up in a mental asylum that would shatter any person’s self-belief
Deceived Vincent cut his earlobe in an unforeseen calamity
But he channelled the awful torment into beauty
Immaculate and sublime
To find ecstasy in the ordinary
And in transforming the banal into a magical masterpiece
The Starry Night, Sunflowers, Self-Portrait, The Potato Eaters, Wheatfield with Crows, Irises, The Bedroom in Arles
Each a genius’s masterstroke into Eternity
A jumble of love, sorrow and rage
Painting the canvas in bold strokes as his heart and mind burst into flames
The King of colour, a whisper into the future unheard in his times
He died in a rut with voices all over his mind.
So, he picked up the gun
And the bullet went straight into his golden heart
Wonder how many colours lost their lives on that day?
Dew drops grace green grasses
Soothing like my pearly power shower
I choose the right outfit for an orange day
Under the fruit bowl by Vincent Van Gogh
Breakfast bar stool welcomes hungry hips
Honey dew melon kisses lips
Pray meditate talk to God and myself
Water plants feed perky pets sweep steps
Thunderous thud at the French door
Blue genes deliver the paper boy
Who always smells like molasses
Busy red rush for beige boisterous bus
Cool car pool to trendy train that passes
Helium houses that empty again of masses
Spied by sharp eyed animals of prey
Early bird flight climb sky
By Water Lily Lake
Sun is a ball of fire rolling uphill
A wise bald eagle relaxes on top of the world
His seat red, white, blue flag’s pole by the mill
Sun rays in his face
Tattoo him as silhouette Smokey gray
Misunderstood genius losing his eyesight, child's finger painting.
an asylum's garden~irises full of life without tragedy
all is a whirl a swirl a curl - a wondrous whorl world entwined sublime
~ iris blue ~ initially purple ~ protanopia confuse ~
from beyond his
vibrant palette
that bore all his
lifelong scars
is what I see
beneath his sky
and myriad
of stars
a scene of shades
and silhouettes
formed by the
yellow light
that hints at
The Last Supper
at that café
in the night?
I heard…
he was higher than the starry sky he painted
a genius’ stroke with a sable red brush
dipped in white opium dust
of pain hidden from the mirror’s occupant
agony twisted darker than the starry canvas
concealed behind glistening constellations of doubt
to live or die
the artist painted Vincent’s Sky
I know…
the piercing pain of abandoned nights
allegations echoing the deeds of a sinner
bearing track marks on rawboned arms
chained to opium’s ether
blinding sodium vapor stars
broken asphalt lulling my dreams
to live or die
straining to enter
Vincent’s Sky
Vincent was misunderstood as a child, but that was okay.
He sat down with his ideas, and painted out his heart.
He is so strange, some said, thinking he was insane or worse.
A beautiful soul, he decided to reach them through his art.
Never appreciated in a monetary way, during his lifetime,
He painted his sadness onto canvases with flowers, clouds and trees.
There was nothing Vincent liked better than to set up his easel
And listen to his inner thoughts, as he created in a summer breeze.
He threw ragged men in ragged clothes into his insistent canvases.
They did not know the blues he was using were going to become them.
He had an eye for things that others could never see, a beautiful soul.
His striving to be like others fringed on insanity, said his cousin, Jim.
Vincent would be surprised and possibly amused to know his legacy.
The paintings he was obsessed to create his way are now selling.
Not for hundreds, but millions of dollars, which would amuse him now.
His soul for others to see, his story now gracefully, poetically telling.
We visited a Vincent Van Gogh exhibit—he happens to be a favorite of ours—and as we stood mesmerized in the shade of his sunflowers and the shadow of stars I was struck by the pain, the suffering and the sorrow in this brilliant artist’s mind…and the joy he has given to others by the art he left behind.
And it made me think, as I observed in his art the different methods he’d employ, at the relationship there is between one’s suffering and one’s joy.
And it reminded me of something I’ve wondered since I first saw his paintings as a boy…If he hadn’t felt all that sorrow…could he have painted all that joy?
For aren’t we all a mixture of our sunshine and our rain…of every joy we’ve ever felt combined with every pain?
And even though in his lifetime not many people did he reach…
over the years that is exactly what Vincent’s paintings teach…
That our joys…our sorrows…what we feel and how we act is how we are defined…and if we’re lucky when we’re gone…we leave a little joy behind.
Vincent always makes me think like this (did I mention he’s a favorite of ours) as I stand in the and the shade of all his sunflowers and the shadow of his stars
To Vincent... who will never know
The love I feel and cannot show
Of kaleidoscopes on linen snow
To Vincent... shaded as a fool
Whose isolation fractured rules
With genius crowned delusional
To Vincent... socially denied
Whose brilliance is immortalized
By majesty viewed through his eyes
To Vincent... dubbed an albatross
Who dwelled in dreams of splendor lost
Whose vision held a fatal cost
To Vincent... bathed in spectral light
Whose palette moved him to vast heights
Whose epic is A Starry Night
Here lies a true genius Vincent Van Gogh
Severed his left ear why we'll never know
Sight of the swirl stars always drew him dream
Behind asylum bars view morning beam
4/13/2019
ART Vincent Van Gogh
An Afinity of Yellow
The moon is slowly engaging the afternoon sun
and the crows fly randomly o’er the fields
where wheatfields bloom with hues
of radiant energy and bright patches
of yellow imitating the sun
and Vincent, the Artist applies on the canvas
a black stroke here and a black stroke there
before the crows disperse and disappear
his Wheatfields with Crows he would create
he steps back to observe but his mind
is uneasy his affinity for the bright color yellow
is enhancing his depressed manic state
and he must strife for completion
before it’s too late for his mind and his soul
will be lost to his inevitable fate
but the Van Gogh legend must carry on
that he must fall and rise again
to seek out the night and to paint the stars
by the river Rhone
then repose himself at the Night Cafe
an absinthe to create a sensation
of a light burning bright in his brain
to paint on the morrow and borrow
what goodness will come his way
but the days grow short he can only hope
for a promising sign that he can cope
Celebration of Art Contest
Sponsored by Kim Rodrigues
April 28, 2017
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