Sunflowers.

For Angela.

Outside the Van Gogh museum
there is a field of sunflowers
that turn toward the sky.

Van Gogh frequented prostitutes often,
he almost married one,

then abandoned her
and the two children.

Do sunflowers know what they’re looking at?
….. They turn to keep their faces warm.
I remember standing on the front lawn
and staring up at the solar eclipse that was about to happen
and my mum told me not to look directly at it
but I did anyway.
Are the sunflowers ignoring mum’s rules too?

Van Gogh cut off his own ear,
after a series of arguments with his friend,
he might have attacked his friend (?)
it’s not certain.
His ear did not survive the turmoil.

I don’t know about you,
but I think cutting off your own ear
is a pretty good way to win an argument.
Like; maybe I’m being a dick!!!!
but look, now, I have no ear.
SO YOU CAN’T CALL ME A DICK.
it’s like a fucked up game of eyebrows,
except its ears,
and Van Gogh was the only one playing.
Houdini would be proud.

Houdini died when he was punched in the stomach
at a gym.
Well, he died of complications after that,

but that’s the moment when he started dying.
Imagine killing Houdini-
not even Houdini could do that.

Van Gogh may have not killed Houdini,
but he did discharge himself from a mental hospital,
then shoot himself in a field,
(some say he got shot)
and died from his injuries after that.
Slow burns,
the both of them.

Houdini was 52 when he died.
Van Gogh was 37.
A sunflower’s lifespan is two to three weeks.
That means Houdini was 1081.6 sunflowers old.
And Van Gogh was 769.6.
The sun is currently 95.7424 billion sunflowers old,
and it’s only through half a lifespan.

When I was being taught math, do you think the teachers knew I'd use it to write a poem about
sunflowers?
When mum told me not to stare at the eclipse, do you think she knew I’d end up writing about it?
When Van Gough and Houdini died, did I cross their mind?
I bet the universe knew.
The universe knows everything.

Van Gogh painted five versions
of a vase filled with sunflowers,
now they’re scattered across the world.
Living a lot longer than two to three weeks.

Mum doesn’t mind that I want to be an artist
she just doesn't want me to start smoking,
so now I’ve ignored another one of mum’s rules.
At what point do the rules become meaningless ???
At what point do I get punched in the stomach ???
The apocalypse has gotten awfully boring.

I think Van Gogh would approve of me
because art lasts much longer than people
and we can bond over our questionable moral standards.
At least Houdini had a wife.

There are 125,000 sunflowers in the maze outside the Van Gogh museum,
That’s 2,600,000 years of sunflowers all planted at the same time,
To honour a dead man.
Houdini’s house sold for 3,600,000 dollars,
and he has a museum in Budapest.
Who’s going to honour me?

Originally published in Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2021, p. 235