Imagine Van Gogh

Each ticket, they sell for fifty dollars

immersive galleries for your lost hours,

how many lawyers do you think it took

to hand over the rights to your life’s work?

Where was Theo when you needed to be understood?

.

Like Paris to Arles, so Calcutta to Vancouver

I have sworn allegiance to flagless borders

closing shifts into the late hours

unkempt hair and bloodshot eyes

on the midnight bus when they look at me, I apologize.

.

The pungent odour of weed, settles fatigued in my basement

the smoker’s cough reincarnates with rent

due first of every month. I pay with God’s grace.

I pray, but my landlord doesn’t like my chanting

He also doesn’t like how my curry smells.

.

Vapours entwine, rising up: cumin, ginger and garlic

boil in mustard oil, red chillies, cardamom then turmeric -

I paint with an ancient palate.

But I have not eaten properly for days, I have drank too much

starry dreams blur my anxiety, sadness meets addiction, merge.

.

“Are you taking care of yourself?”

Mama skypes from centuries away.

I am no longer your boy but a man, alone

I haven’t seen you in years mama,

here they keep telling me to go home.

.

I have decided I will not go.

I will sleep in the dirt and dream of wet flower pots

hanging from the red chipped balconies of childhood.

Life is but a joy that turns to sorrow,

where was Theo when you needed to be understood?