Van Gogh, Can You Tell Me...

By: David Lerner

van Gogh, can you tell me
how many martyrs does it take to open up a 
blood bank

van Gogh, can you tell me
where does beauty go when it dies?

van Gogh, can you tell me
why saints live on car exhaust
and are lonely as crushed acorns

while enormous suppurating blisters of men
sleep on beds made of dollars, their pillows
the breasts of fantastic women

van Gogh, can you tell me
you who made paint scream
who drew the expressions of the wind

and portrayed leaves and stars
writhing in agony
as though they were human

tell me which of the satellites 
circling the earth 
is mine

how many pairs of shoes does it take to 
walk to infinity

do you believe the world will ever learn how to
cry in unison

van Gogh, with your skin like scorched leather
from too much time spent in the wheatfields
on your knees, shooting dice with God
over who gets to color sunset

didn't you ever feel like an asshole

incapable of self-preservation
always crossing at the end

van Gogh, can you tell me
as the sun comes down around my ears in
chunks today

as hummingbirds hover at my window
cursing me in tiny voices

why roads drag you down them
how you are finding light in Paradise
and if you have your own easel
or if God allows you to paint on the sky

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You can find this poem in David Lerner’s — The Last Five Miles to Grace — and his other published works at Zeitgeist Press.

“Lerner was a broken-down saint if there ever was one. He was an eloquent screamer, a soft-spoken rageoholic, a madman with a great manuscript. His poetry will always be a reminder of a time when poetry in the Mission was spontaneous, magical, and more than a little bit dangerous.” — Bucky Sinister, San Francisco Bay Guardian