At Eternity’s Gate
Verse on Van Gogh
Come,
warm with me by
the fire of time:
I’ll teach you
the art of
summoning
a memory
soaked in blood.
Brittle veins
will revolt,
and so will all
the skin as choppy
as the infinite sea —
they’ve known
a lot of heat.
Mellow them first
with the touch
of a heart
ticking away to
the grand zero.
Do not take these
cries of soul for
creaks of joints,
sobs for coughs,
flooded eyes for
life brimmed over.
If my cage reeks of
coffin wood and solitude,
learn to ignore,
love it and move on.
While I stick these
voodoo pins deep
in my mind’s
callous walls,
let me know if
you hear the heavens
howling out in hurt,
for I was first its
favoured seed,
once sucked at and
forever abandoned.
Before crushing
myself into
a stain between
the finger and thumb
of birth and death,
allow me to
show you how
my mouth first smiled.
*A tribute to Sorrowing Old Man (also titled At Eternity’s Gate), the painting by Vincent van Gogh.
