The Last Room
Free-Verse inspired by the painting “Bedroom in Arles” by Vincent van Gogh
And at dawn
I dreamed of death.
Waves of supreme
silence crawled up
the bedstead to nestle
in my absence
where I’d stashed
the thorns of sobs
in the stoic folds
of last night’s sheets.
I stirred upright
and glimpsed
myself perched
on the chair beside,
moaning me and
the night drained,
face to the window
and eyes elsewhere,
waving off my
parting ghost.
‘The Lord is my
shepherd,’ I hummed
to give the dream
its theme
and lay listening
to my footfalls
leading off
to the corner,
to the mirror.
An eager scramble
of fingers groped
and clawed
at my face vanished
with its masks.
An orphaned pair of
lips were heard
swilling down
all the seas’
water in long
gasps and gulps
and flailing fright,
swathing screams
in pursed disbelief.
The floorboards
kept peeling
the last of greens
and sent it painted
on feet untrained
in farewell dances.
From round the spongy walls
arose clinks of meeting toasts,
guffaws of the ones gone
before, their cheers straining
at the time-ground rust.
I wrenched opened the door
to breathe a laughter
into the pulsing dark,
and regarded the clouds
that reeked of gods,
until was stubbed out
and buried alongside
a charred bolt of lightning.
*A poetic tribute to “Bedroom in Arles” by Vincent van Gogh
