Lance Olsen - Head in Flames

That poem by Heinrich Heine commencing: This is awful weather .

A joyjig.

How your dying mother tucked her bony hands against her bony cheek and stared stubbornly across the room at what the next life offered since this one had failed her so miserably.

Fishermen know the sea is dangerous, the storm terrible , I replied to de Groux outside the exhibition, yet they never find these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore .

Allah Allah oxen free.

Sink their ships bring down their planes the Sheik coaching over Chocomels and curry-flavored Tijgernootjes.

The idea of yellowness.

Theo doggystyling his ex against the terrace’s balustrade before she was his ex, breakfast table behind them, sun thrilling his bare shoulder blades.

Approaching the doorstep of his fate.

The high-pitched color.

Theo waving merrily at the young couple several terraces over that happened to catch sight of them. Perhaps they were on their honeymoon.

Your mouth dry.

My father always believing in his own self-righteousness.

The quartet sharing an outrageous moment.

Come to me you think that’s it come to me .

Your mouth dry.

Theodoor van Gogh is such a naughty boy.

The Sword of Unified Belief you signed your letter and then you moved to your farewell poem.

The light within him was black.

Again.

A child playing by himself among trash bags in the alley.

Look: I am reaching out my hand to shake Gauguin’s for the first time.

And, afterward, coffee and a platter of melon slices, grapes, strawberries at the umbrellaed table overlooking the shimmering infinity.

You.

It appears I have tried to kill myself, Monsieur Vincent responds in a tone that suggests he is every bit as taken aback by this fact as the next man.

Theo’s ex in front of him, demanding: Who the fuck did you shag THIS time? WHO?

So this is my final word

Riddled with bullets

Baptized in blood

As I had hoped.

I’m glad I haven’t learned how to paint, he explaining to Gauguin’s back, the master inspecting Monsieur Vincent’s sunflowers. Think of what I might have lost.

The scarlet bung of a quotation bobs to the surface of Theo’s memory.

You a poet a Renaissance man who suspected?

Look: the photograph of me sitting with Bernard at a lone table on the banks of the river, empty road punctuated with a few leafless trees and a grungy inn to my left. Bernard’s bearded face looking over my shoulder at the camera.

I desire to go to hell and not heaven, for in the former place I shall enjoy the company of popes, kings, and princes, while in the latter only beggars, monks, and apostles .

Your teachers smiling down at you.

Of me, however, there survives only this trace: a black top hat, a black-coated back, a pair of legs protruding from a stool.

Who said that?

Amused.

My voice declaring: I am thirsty. I want my pipe .

Rise and shine or there’ll be no time for breakfast, Theo singsonged softly, and Lieuwe responded from deep beneath his quilt-and-pillow barricade: You are sooooo uncool, Dad. Seriously .

How does it feel?

Monsieur Vincent swaying over Gauguin’s bed at three in the morning, noticing the niceties of his face in the char-coal-and-cinder gloom.

Pasticceria Bruno on LaGuardia Place in the Village: the one with bulbous fruit and vegetable marzipans that emptied your eyes with elation each time you eased your teeth into them.

The corner of her lip graping.

What the hell’s the matter with you? Gauguin growling into nightblur. Go back to BED!

Bananas. Oranges.

Stand up Mohammed Bouyeri .

And next poor Doctor Gachet’s drained ash-blue eyes are above me, busying being interested in the bandages he is pressing to my chest.

Children don’t grow up — our bodies get bigger and our minds get torn up .

Parse that sentence conjugate that verb .

A glass of green fairy, please.

Our minds or our hearts?

But they never imagined what you were capable of did they.

It is May. It is 1888. Monsieur Vincent is working at his easel, dreaming of nesting an artist’s commune in his small yellow house with the green door and green blinds in Arles.

N.Y.U. students, musicians, chess players, solitary readers, drug dealers, dog walkers, hoola-hoopers, pot smokers, unicyclists, drunkards, sword swallowers, and homeless men and women pigeoning around the fountain in Washington Square.

They had their impressions but the thought of you wasn’t among them.

Artists bonding like brothers in Monsieur Vincent’s abode in Monsieur Vincent’s imagination, sharing ideas, expenses, and profits from the collective sale of their works.

Scotches in the Dove one floor below street level, a heavy rain spilling outside, spattering through the open French windows in the well at their backs.

How your sister became a stranger in the break of a heart.

An experiment in existing.

Red brocade, ornate gold moldings, frilly pillows and matching teacups knolled with snack mix.

Your soul in this ragged sheet made of skin.

An experiment in writing our own lives.

Theo doesn’t remember what he and his ex spoke about over those drinks.

Send all the psychiatrists you want—

Challenging, stimulating, supporting: we would be wild.

Theo doesn’t care.

Send all the psychiatrists you want but you will never be able to understand.

Intent on fabricating the opposite of wallpaper.

Rise and shine or—

You are here to live out loud.

Intent on fabricating various methods of stirring one in the midst of one’s somnolence.

And then you hear Arcade Fire and are reminded why you listen to music in the first place.

Your existence a shout.

Are we still perhaps in the process of experiencing Sunday? I ask.

Une Année Sans Lumière. In the Backseat . Those songs.

This thing called a person remaining always larger than reason.

The Japanese draw quickly. Like a lightning strike.

Curious suckerfish, someone once describing critics and producers as.

For the hypocrites I have one final word Wish DEATH or hold your tongue and sit .

Would you take a deep breath for me? Doctor Gachet, I believe, requesting.

It is what it is, Ayaan saying. I am what I am.

It’s easy your father saying you get respect by earning respect and you earn respect by-

I would, as it turned out, not.

We can shoot the whole thing in a day, Theo proclaiming, pulling out his pocket calendar, gauging. How does July 26th work for you?

Death always being a believer’s only way home.

I want to say these human figures surrounding me are large and full of poetry.

But your name can’t be associated with the project, Ayaan said. It’s too dangerous by half.

Watching your thoughts appear on the notepad as Allah speaks them through you.

An experiment in rejoicing open hearts and opens minds.

Bullshit, Theo replied. I’ve been threatened by Jews, Christians, and Social Democrats. No one shoots the village idiot.