Vincent Van Gogh On His 163rd Birthday

Above the heroin and the whores, the sex shops
and the Van Goghs,
we float high atop a Ferris wheel

on brilliant waves of pink, blue and neon orange;
and breathless 

we hover there, rising, but longing to descend.

Always the blade hovered over his head,

ominous and foreboding,

a shadow that changed the shape of things.

He saw apparitions in the corners of his mind.

In his sleep, he saw the faces of the dead.

There is money in nightmares and pornography 

but not in poetry.

The oldest woman in the world said

she once met Vincent van Gogh

and that he was disagreeable and drunk.

But why talk of that?

His work will not be forgotten.

We walk in a room and there he is, looking back 

at us, more like a ghost than a man.