Sullivan, Jennifer

English

The Open Repository @Binghamton (The ORB)

Harpur Palate: a Literary Journal Volume 7 Issue 2 Article 12 December 2008 Van Gogh's Asylum Days Jennifer Sullivan Follow this and additional works at: https://orb.binghamton.edu/harpurpalate Recommended Citation Sullivan, Jennifer (2008) "Van Gogh's Asylum Days," Harpur Palate: a Literary Journal: Vol. 7: Iss. 2, Article 12. Available at: https://orb.binghamton.edu/harpurpalate/vol7/iss2/12 This Poetry is brought to you for free and open access by The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB). It has been accepted for inclusion in Harpur Palate: a Literary Journal by an authorized editor of The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB). For more information, please contact ORB@binghamton.edu. VAN GOGH'S ASYLUM DAYS Jennifer Sullivan I follow that which Dickens offered as a remedy to suicide: a glass of wine, a piece of bread with cheese, a pipe of tobacco. Still, open-armed and hungry, sorrow sashays to me. Voices burrow into my head, subtle and muffied, a prostitute slipping out from the sheets. The curtain of consciousness slithers shut. I wake up hours later, face pressed against the stale floor, taste of turpentine loitering in my mouth. Soon, the doctor will seize my brush and canvas. Until then, I paint with the fury of a madman. I paint desperately, a yellow-eyed drunk begging for one more drop of wine. My tongue becomes the palette. "A glass of wine, a piece of bread with cheese, a pipe of tobacco" is excerpted from a letter Vincent van Gogh wrote to his sister Wilhelmina on Apri l 30, 1889. 34 1Sullivan: Van Gogh's Asylum DaysPublished by The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB), 2008

Van Gogh\u27s Asylum Days

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Van Gogh\u27s Asylum Days

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