Vincent

Broad brush strokes of oak-smoked salmon.
Pointillist dabs with lobster claws and crabs.
A still life with bread knife,
                                             a feller with celery
and Dairylea triangles.

Disintegrating self portraiture
(gone way past its Best Before)
stored alongside tins
of dim blurry visions
and packets of obsolete dreams.

Come, winds! Crack your Rustie Lee cheeks
and blow away the Duchess potato clouds
while crows, like black smudges of liquorice,
wheel above the fields of golden Weetabix!

On the day Vince broke down
by the roadside café,
when he got all shouty and stabby,
we hid inside the BIG EAT burger baps,
made out like we were mushrooms,
singing We are les champignons, my friends
to the bag of scampi Nik Naks
and the two pints of bitter end.

B.R. 25/08/2018

Wheatfield with Crows, 1890. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.