Vincent Van Gogh

His life came to a ruinous end Plummeted into insanity The red-bearded painter With his self-hatred, despair and desperation for understanding He drank yellow paint thinking it would make him happy Locked up in a mental asylum that would shatter any person’s self-belief Deceived Vincent cut his earlobe in an unforeseen calamity But he channelled the awful torment into beauty Immaculate and sublime To find ecstasy in the ordinary And in transforming the banal into a magical masterpiece The Starry Night, Sunflowers, Self-Portrait, The Potato Eaters, Wheatfield with Crows, Irises, The Bedroom in Arles Each a genius’s masterstroke into Eternity A jumble of love, sorrow and rage Painting the canvas in bold strokes as his heart and mind burst into flames The King of colour, a whisper into the future unheard in his times He died in a rut with voices all over his mind. So, he picked up the gun And the bullet went straight into his golden heart Wonder how many colours lost their lives on that day?