Rembrandt’s dark oils fevered with afterglow
Foreshadowed bankruptcy and abandonment.
Modigliani’s long-necked ladies of
Dissolute absinthe.
Poe inebriated with casks, /Black cats and ravens.
Keats dying too young on the bitter
Spanish Steps, his name “writ on
water" El Greco’s astigmatic elongations
scorned. Toulouse-Latrec infected by
the gaudy Whores he worshipped.
O.Henry’s brief spendthrift ironies.
Gauguin’s brown women of jungle dreams
Misunderstood, ignored.
Vermeer’s pearl earring of hopeless debt.
Wilde’s sad coda of cheap hotels.
Melville’s obituary “long-forgotten"
Stephen Foster’s Suwannee river flooding
Into Bellevue. In his pocket, 38 cents and a note
“dear friends and gentle hearts"
Van Gogh, destitute in a starry night of suicide.
“The sadness will last forever."