Indelible

I ask myself, what road was left to take?
My breath is all but holy, yet I know
Their offered accusation was a stake
Too high for me to chance. And where to go,
Upon a tree where once I saw him hang?
Where demon’s eyes looked on him from the crowd –
Where Roman scourge, and viper’s venom fangs –
That drove him dead and beaten to the shroud –
Will light my path? I ask you not to cast
A heavy finger out in my direction,
For I am not a man that has a past
Of sin and disobeying insurrection.
You cannot hold the blame unto my head.
I did not cause the screams of hellish pain,
Or up upon the cross leave him for dead,
Nor did I drive the nails into his vein,
Or sweep a scarlet cloak across his chest,
And neither did I pierce his tattered brow,
But I’m the man that now they all detest!
And now the people all that used to bow
Have nothing left but loathing for my name!
And still I see them brooding in my dreams,
Some silent Nazorean, all the same
Is thrown before my court. The mob, it teems
With curdling cries for nothing short of death
Upon this quiet man. And still I see
His ragged lungs exhale their dying breath,
His eyes of searing blue still gaze at me
Like nothing from this world could bring him down.
Go, fetch me now a cloth to dry my eyes –
Far too much blood has spattered on my gown
And on my face. And what! to my surprise
This blood of Christ with effort won’t erase
And leave me deaf of all the thund’rous cries!

I see it now, upon my gravest place:
‘Here lies the man who brought the Christ to die.’

Starless Night Over the Rhone

For what is left when artist's hands no more
Do grace the canvas that at once they knew,
And turquoise waves of life along the shore
Have faded swift and deeply in their hue
To grey and brown. The artist's brush is dry.
No palate does he have to dip his mind,
No smile will be there to ease a cry
Of real pain in real life unkind
To those of whom who look upon the trade
As glory up above these walls insane.
And we well know it was not hands that made
A Starry Night, but yet we all have slain
A lover's portrait, aiding all the same
An illness that no doctor could erase.
But there upon the canvas is his name,
The doctor's eyes so deep upon his face
Could never find a cure within this world.
As sadly as they come, all things must go,
No field of lilies by the paintbrush swirled,
No starlet night o'er the river's flow,
But only in the eyes of one Van Gogh.

I'm Back

Like I just said, I'm back.