After meeting Van Gogh

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“I dream of painting and then paint my dream”
Van Gogh’s words chase me along canals
that divide this city into history and future,
dreams undreamt & paths, no one walked,

Ten years on white canvas, bleeding,
then he chose to leave, i look for madness
but can’t find the struggle in his work, his strife
to capture life from dirty corners, Amsterdam

is put up on five million poles, hewn
in mud that is a slippery foundation, yet
it holds & we walk past the future into times
that missed some of the light it held. “what color

would you paint your dreams with–?”,  i smell
sweet scent of brittle years & ask

“do you remember how to build them–?” “No”
you say, you tried it once and coughed your lung out,
& you take my hand, maybe it’s not color

but the play of shade ‘n light that moves so fast
what made him eat his paint, drink the turpentine,
“life is woven with such fragile threads” i say,
and for a moment see him–

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Earlier this week in Amsterdam, we were visiting the Van Gogh Museum & his story moved me quite a bit… linking up with dVerse where Brian Miller tends this weeks’ Poetics bar & we’re going a bit back in time… join us when the doors open at 3pm EST