Lance Olsen - Head in Flames

Another day paling into itself through my unvast nonpalace.

Rather, it is his body flinching for him.

This morning is a holy privilege. Embrace it.

Call it another day.

Firecrackers crackling to life inside Theo’s school desk as he cat-grinned.

Because it isn’t what comes out of your mouth that counts.

Gulls lifting over a seaside town.

Somewhere in the world it is a holi—

It’s never that.

Plummeting.

The fierce desire to always be here.

Because it never ends with words.

A telegram , Monsieur Ravoux announcing at some point during the duringness.

There is nothing bluer.

Everything you ever wanted sitting in front of you on the road.

Although Monsieur Vincent is less than entirely clear about the strict context of the announcement: has one been sent, imagined, received?

Breathing.

If you can call that sitting.

Like wild harpy’s hair: the magpie’s nest in the tall acacia.

Look: he’s—

The way—

Two dark gray marbled eggs.

Breathing.

Leave us.

Monsieur Vincent promises he will have to think about this later.

The ninth with a jolt in his neck.

Look at his soul leap.

No, you may not paint my—

Startled by its copious transgressions.

Dear Theo: Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. — Your unmoored captain

Reaching up shakily to finger the gargling he has become.

You standing in the bike lane, admiring your invention.

But now Monsieur Vincent has other concerns. He must, for instance, attempt to determine who seems to be holding his hand.

Theo laughs aloud on his bike: the cute coed with the heart-shaped ass: where—

The seconds arresting around you.

If in fact it is anyone at all.

— no, something else, what, I don’t, a charcoal beach beneath a charcoal sky, what’s, yes, maybe in the—

Pride’s passing flush.

More paint: this is always one answer to many questions a man might pose.

Theo lowering, lowering, lowering his chin to chest.

And then plunking your gun into your pocket and turning your attention to the other thing.

Yes: it’s lovely, this sensation.

— in the middle of a raucous silence—

Come and drink my fucking coffee you fucks.

Or Sien’s body—

— open my mouth, to do what, launch my voice, what voice, into the—

After that particular outing, you never spoke with your sister again.

Or Sien’s body convexed against mine in the night, licorice singe of absinthe on our breaths, without end.

Eyelids half drawn.

She became the stranger she had always been.

The steady pressure indicating the presence of more than an uncomplicated acquaintance.

Swaying.

Remember these smells. Remember those places.

And one day Monsieur Vincent took it into his head to frame some of his canvases and paint the frames both to expand and disrupt their viewer’s sense of perspective and closure.

Listening to the music of himself.

Tangier. Fez.

An orange slice’s blatant tang.

The concept of arms progressively disappointing him.

Another mother.

Isn’t it…? Perhaps not.

Theo lying methodically back in the bike lane against his will.

The little boy paying attention to his world for the first time.

Although it is the night.

Arms extending above his head.

He will always remember this.

Air unexpectedly excited with baking bread. Breakfast below.

Right leg straight. Left knee crooked.

Another father.

You wait and you wait, and then Monday is here before you know it.

— my boy beside me, I—

Blindfolds.

The anarchist artist is not—

An evening in Casablanca: playing football on the beach with your new friends.

And, next:

— my boy beside me, in the car, yes, top down, speeding through spring—

Under a magnificent magenta sunset.

This new voice among voices.

— rain spilling—

Who could ever forget it?

The poetry of complexity , someone once—

Makak.

Me.

— in the process of being left behind—

Nip of the sea in our sinuses as we feinted, dodged, sprinted along the sand.

A familiar one, I want to say.

A kind of monkey.

Speaking to Monsieur Vincent. Speaking to me, you see.

In the distance, the predictable sirens emerging.

It’s me , the atmosphere claiming around Monsieur Vincent’s bird-swarmed head.

At last.

The anarchist artist is not the one who creates anarchist paintings , Signac once noting as we wandered among the spice stands in Arles’s street market.

His heart beating beneath your hand.

Mounds of rusty brown cinnamon.

— saying something, saying—

An uncertain pulsing.

Rather, he is the one who fights with all his individuality against official conve—

As if his heart is trying to think of something, but can’t, quite.

Pumpkiny turmeric.

— my wife beside me at the party, unwifing—

The heat of your gun against your thigh: a pocket-sized sun.

My brother. My Theo. Here.

The ending that isn’t an ending slanting into view.

There is nothing more artistic than to—

Come here, Abdul.

It’s me, Vincent , the atmosphere saying. Do you know me?

Because there was no room for error.

Of course, I reply, then add: don’t I?

Palm pressing down.

Bold red paprika.

— rushing along the autobahn, our windsucked voices, the—

Because there was no room for surprise.

I have to confess I seem to have misplaced myself.

When he prays, he has to—

Eyes closed, I picture him speaking to me as he speaks to me.

He has to sit in a chair.

It is June. It is 1890. When Theo and Jo detrain with their new baby for a picnic at Auvers, Monsieur Vincent insists on bringing his nephew around to display for him the animals menageried at Doctor Gachet’s residence.

I offer you this.

Coriander: toasted mustard’s tint.

My palm pressing down on your unbelieving heart.

Eight cats. Eight dogs.

What do we have to lose except ourselves? And then we are free.

We are alone. We are talking.

I offer you my spite.

All the best are left unfinished.

My machete.

Propped against pillows, Monsieur Vincent smoking his pipe contentedly.

I offer you yourself.

An everyday family gathering, one might mistake this for.

You are what has become of your thoughts.

Look: my boots on the horizon. Again.

Allah’s language honed to the shape of a blade.

Chickens, rabbits, ducks: Doctor Gachet’s runted, caterwauling ark.

— what’s, yes, a hand, good, someone out th—

I offer you my mother, my father, my sister, my brothers.

I wish I could hear what I have to say. I suspect it might be not wholly without interest.

In a chair .

The others having vacated the room, lent us a few minutes to ourselves, we speak about this and that as if we don’t believe we are losing.

It’s like opening a window.

Marguerite Gachet serving us tea in her father’s garden overlooking the shaggy treetops and terracotta roofs of Auvers.