they dose not keep me form having a terrible need of---shall i say the ward--religion.then i go out at night to paint the stars.
--Vincent van Gogh in a letter to his brother
The town dose not exist
except where one black-haired tree silps up
like a drowned woman into the hot sky.
The town is silent .
The night boils with eleven stars
Oh starry starry night! This is who i want to die.
It moves. They are all alive.
Even the moon bulges in its orange irons
to push children ,like a god ,from its eye.
The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is who i want to die:
into that rushing beast of the night,
sucked up by that great dargon,
to split from my life with no flag ,
no belly,
no cry.