“We have fought monsters together
and we have won…”
– Vincent Van Gogh, Doctor Who
From Ink-Stained Hands to Paint-Splotched Hands—
You do not know me, sir, though you might
in the subjunctive sense of something passed between
your world and mine—or shall we say, that space within
the space between the head and heart, invasive stops and false-step
starts and whispered longings not belonging to the light or dark, but
mixed within the brighter shades of bolder art. We share ourselves,
in whole or part, with wonders and star-dappled spark, in truth
where what might be our truth is splashed from buckets, leaking
pens, across a maudlin-canvas-world, where what is wanting
every way a world could want, is left in wanting, wanton cloaking
beneath a blackened, woolen scrim to eyes that cannot know what
we two know. And yes, we know, good sir, we know because we’re
cursed & blessed
to move against the shape of rushing water, press against the solid
stone, drift without the feet to tread the clouds we see instead of be
in flight—embers flying in our art, descrying meaning, intersection
from the flames and their fierce burning, so far distant from our
yearning for the stars that spin above. But do you know me, now, as I
know you? Two shipwrecked vessels passing in that night, that haunted,
stifled night that is and was our life—that starry scroll that’s ever rolling,
never showing what we know within our heart of hearts and senseless knowing
are the wonders of a world that hides its kisses while intoning No, Nay, Never
on the lips of all we hope.
Do not hope, monsieur; do not
fear what cannot be unseen or seen or passed between that
space between the ears, or sprawling years, or anything but
what’s sincerely given, if it’s given (God above, if it’s e’er given)
by dames or demons singing in the ghostly lanes or narrows
of an artist’s blood and veins, or by our God, or in the words we share
with spirits, if we’d hear it, whatever names this place might call us,
shouts of hatred or aspersion from any sightless person…
for our work is but with Wonder, and our art is swelling
thunder, and the arc that joins your soul to mine knows naught
of time and space—nor can it ever be a waste of paint, or ink,
not when we’re linked by that one taste of the eternal ‘mid temporal,
the never ceasing from the ceasing, the truly cosmic from the comically bereft;
we two have left the stars to be far more than just this swirling madness—
we are the timeless brands procuring fires from earthly wells
and lighting torches of ourselves with the heavens from our hells.
