In dear Vincent’s eyes, golden sunflowers bloomed
Exchanged Dutch smog for French vistas anew
His artist life… was relatively short
Yet legacy’s list… most certainly not
Transient hands… spoke in brushstrokes’ genius
Captured life’s magic… more than appearance
Seventy-five paintings… in eighty days
Painted frantically… manic phases
Began… completed in one clear gesture
His paint, so thick... was almost a sculpture
Overpainted AND thought... in-depth., texture
Vincent cut off his ear… when abandoned
By artist housemate… whom his brother paid
Or… so we’re told and the legend now states
Vincent hoped this act would make Gauguin stay
Much like his death… questionable charade
Ironically employed… to keep safe
From his antisocial, peculiar ways
In yellow house, away from asylum
His fragile mind… an unaligned diam
He’d drink too much... become hysterical
His bright paintings, mood… antithetical
Painted his face which frightened his neighbours
Auvers-sur-Oise… turned sadly disastrous
What Vincent saw, others could not perceive
His vibrant and vivid… reality
He painted in stark, otherworldly timbres
Could Vincent see ultraviolet… linger?
Meant only for eyes… of pollinators
Intense, lucent luminous… depictions
A monochrome world had never yet seen
Such lurid and garish… natural scenes
His paintings en rapture... all our senses
Some find his work to their eyes, offensive
Vincent used his art as a therapy
Deemed God as Nature… and it, as beauty
Often sectioned… came voluntarily
Mind plagued by being… he found menacing
In his lifetime, never sold a painting
Though belief in self... was unwavering
Was both religious and painting zealot
Prophetic… as now his art’s worth millions
A man whose artist’s flare... preceded time
In starry night he, captured the divine
He tried life’s darkness... to ameliorate
Enabled through his art… heaven to taste
Night sky’s cosmic movement, immortalised
Glimpsed all eternity... through his deft eyes
Perfection from man, considered insane
A majestic mind, their doubts could not tame
Let’s bear this in mind… when too quick to judge
Divergent-minds gift… what ‘normal’ cannot
© Debbie Razey 2022 - Violet Moon Poetry
