Vincent
Alexandra Isacson

Like a wave of absinthe
van Gogh spills out on canvas.

A minister,
who keeps pregnant Sorrow,
painted lady, who disappears
back into the streets.

Weeps when Gauguin leaves—
gives a relic of himself
to some nameless whore.
Turbaned with bandage—
he is the Man with a Pipe.

In the Saint Remy mental asylum
paints Irises, auctioned off
Sotheby’s New York
Fifty-three million dollars
hangs in the Getty Museum.

Now, one of the richest dead men
a saint who took vows of poverty
and wrote:

“Painting and fucking are not
compatible; it weakens the brain.
Which is a bloody nuisance.”

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