Van Gough Wants My Ear Poem by Robert Rorabeck

My ear wants van Gough:
There is a prostitute in a
Red slip:
This is for her.
Rap it up in a burning ship.
Make it something grand
She can dance with.
Do in all the hooligans
With my knife,
So even the bourgeoisie can’t sleep.
Do you hear me, Theo?
Mark the grenadiers with
A piece of chalk,
Even the ones who are
Dead and smoking the
Drunk whore’s cigarettes:
Clickety-clack, Crickety-smack
His teeth go like this,
Do you hear me?
His teeth go like that,
As I said!
Then we can go down to the
Sea and paint:
Carmine, cobalt and emerald green.
Lilting stamens all the way....
In Montmartre for the last
2 years, listening to mice
Crawling into conches
In the blue stars,
Beneath the stairs of sepia’s hue:
You’ll take this to her on a plate
From Arles down to
Auvers-sur-Oise
I’ll give you a head start,
And then swim in the gutters:
Where the proletariat
Stretch their legs:
Little opal waves:
There you will see the
Prettiest girls with no last names.
To dance with one is
Pure suicide,
As I am missing pieces
Of my last still-life?
Do you hear me, and
Have you done as I said?
The penumbra of my gist.