Untitled.

The depression in my head is starting to show on my face

And I cant hide it much longer Ma

My eyes are black and its spreading to my cheeks

I think I’ve forgotten how to smile

So I paint my lips red and grin at the mirror

But I see darkness staring back at me

I think so much of death 

Soon might it possess me

My father tells me I shouldnt step out of the door

Or the virus will catch me

But how do I explain to him

That if I dont step out the door

The virus in my brain will eat me whole

I must see the great outdoors

I must hear voices beyond that which is in my head

I must see humans and places

And buy and negotiate and sing and talk

Because Ma, I am more afraid of the death of my brain 

Than the hands of the virus.

The artists’ way.

If paintings could come to life

Id step into Van Gogh’s Bank of the Oise at Auvers

Perch myself atop a faded wooden boat

and  gaze at the picturesque city that delighted Gogh’s brushes

 

If a poem could carry life

Id awaken Emily Dickison’s

“Because I could not stop for death” 

To let my feet have a brush of the quivering dews 

That orchestrated a funeral in her brain

 

Maybe I would travel back 

Many and many a year ago

To the kingdom by the sea

And meet the maiden Annabel Lee

Who with Edgar Allen Poe found love

Coveted by the winged seraphs

 

Or maybe I would meet them 

Gogh, Dickinson and Poe

And seek to know how it is 

To lay down one’s life for art

 

Gogh’d reserved mental energy 7 days

For ‘La Mousme’ 

But maybe his reserves ran out

Because they heard a gunshot one afternoon 

In the picturesque town of Auvers

A shot to the head and the dutiful fingers that painted

World famous daisies

Painted his shirt with blood

If you looked a little closer 

At The Starry Night that sit atop our mantels

You would see that it is an east facing view 

Of a mind seeking escape from an asylum 

And if you read between the lines of Dickinson’s 

 thousand and eight hundred poems

You would find that death was her closest companion

But it was poor ol Poe who spent his final hours

Conversing with spectral and imaginary objects on walls

 

Because you see 

An artist to practise his art, must sacrifice his heart

Oh and more, he lay down his sanity

 

So if I could meet them

Gogh, Dickinson and Poe

 I would ask 

If they ever saw the light again 

If words and colors overtook their senses

If the passion is worth the pain

 

I would ask them 

If death will give me a name

For it seems like the artists’ way.