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March 2016
Ed Ruzicka
edzekezone@gmail.com
At 16 I was a Cubs fan from a Cubs family when I got drug to a “Dada & Surrealism” show at the Art Institute of Chicago.  Now my brother says, “ I live here and you go to the Institute way more than me.”  My book, “Engines of Belief” is an ekphrastic jubilee dedicated to Modern Art.  edrpoet.com 

​Bedroom at Arles

based on the painting by Vincent Van Gogh
Picture
These floorboards, rudely lain by
laborers who worked in haste,
are of a heavy, grainy wood.
Hard-edged portraits lean in from the walls
at uncomfortable angles as if they could
unhinge - fly at you.  The chair’s seats are
woven from rush reeds that still seem quick.  
Though  no swan or goose will ever 
mash them into a nest again, these reeds 
visibly ache to be visited. 

Light floods in through open shutters — 
but look where it falls.  Ask,
how much blood can a red blanket absorb
before it screams its color?
He is not here, Van Gogh - his lost ear.  
The animation of objects 
has overtaken his room.  




Starry Night
based on the painting by Vincent Van Gogh
Picture
This tempest that trembles up 
    with epileptic force 
through shimmering fields of light 
is what the blind see more of 
    by seeing only darkness.   

It is what we are reminded of 
    in spite of ourselves
during the first quiet hours on the towel 
    by the seaside
as ceaseless waves work 
    to pull the shore apart.
Or what we pay good dollar for 
when lights go black in the womb 
of a movie theater and an Armageddon
of terror rages across the screen.

When passing near a 
    sputtering madman
we veer away as he raises
    The Book
and exhorts us to come to grips 
    with what is inevitable --
that someday the once rooted stars 
    will tremble 
within the roar of a long forgotten voice 
    and drop like teeth.
Here, in this late shower of light, 
    Van Gogh 
has transfixed our attention 
so that we can not turn
but are caught up and quite
fulfilled in this rapturous end.
​©2016 Ed Ruzicka
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