63 Days in Arles

The Yellow House exploded
into a frenzy of colours
unplanted time bombs
Van Gogh's 36 burst like wild flames
embers on a dying night
a constellation of madness and passion
the crimson thirst of an undying fantasy
Gauguin's 21 punched a hole
in the patch of time
until his student was blinded with immense light
After a point, they ceased to paint
finding voices in their own
Self-styled chaos
They couldn't gauge the truth about their love:
even their masterpieces had borrowed a face or two from each other
love was timeless and violence
was only a brush stroke
on a unified canvas of an eternal promise
They fought like true poets
who could enter one another
one summer evening
and dive into their trenches
measure depth
They could love like two poets love
The skin and smell of their first incomplete book together
They could celebrate the mirror
in their eyes and smile at their cracks
Their love would never have a date
A time
An address
A sky


Or even the sea
Their love would spill out of the canvas
yet
They fought like true lovers
One with cruel words that broke bones
Other with a razor blade and
an urge to kill
A severed left ear wasn't a sign
of self-mutilation but helpless love seeking refuge
surrendering to the whims of
a broken dream
That would end with a gunshot
in a mental asylum.
Pastel silence pervades
above two empty chairs in a museum, after two centuries
while somewhere over Arles
The sky is blooming
with a new burst of colour
the two of them abandoned once