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the dead fox
lies prostrate
on the forest
floor its legs
bent and
almost still
running to
nothing
its eyes for
ever closed
degas painted
the trees
surrounding
the corpse as
oblivion
around the huts
two women sit and
remove leaves and
stems from fruit and
berries as a boy leans against a tree and
looks to his right while gauguin paints and
perhaps smiles
oil on canvas
twelve sunflowers
in a vase
twelve faces of van gogh
one
hangs
over the lip
a comet
stretching
across
the sky
one
too ripe
to produce seeds
its stem plucked
too soon by a world that would
not allow it
to simply exist
one
hides
it
self
amongst the
others
a social shadow
one
bent
to the side
almost weeping
oil on
to
canvas
one
a lion’s mane
shaking
desert dust in
to the
arid air and sun
light
one
sitting in a corner
like helios
a glowing eye
naked and burning a
lone
in the sky
one
stares up
at the heavens from the
bottom of the earth
vincent’s visage
questioning an indifferent
god
one
with its crown
bent
to
wards an earth kind enough
to be tread up
on
one
tuned
to an
other the smiling face van
gogh pointed in love
to his friend
gauguin
one
staring out of
the canvas some
how
an eye questioning the
audience and left
unblinking
one
a little
too red
the crimson wound in the stomach
of the painter
in those
last days
one
nearly unpainted
the green of its stem
the shell of the soul
only visible form and
perhaps van
gogh’s true face
William Wright Harris' poetry has appeared in nine countries in such literary journals as The Cannon’s Mouth, Ascent Aspirations, generations and Write On!!! A student at the University of Tennessee- Knoxville, He has studied poetry in workshop settings with such poets as Jesse Janeshek, Marilyn Kallet, Arthur Smith, and Marcel Brouwers.
Email: William Wright Harris
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