Study #6: After Andy Warhol

Study #5: After Frida Kahlo

My reading of my favorite study in the sequence.

Study #4: After Egon Schiele

Look at me, cock in my claws,
combcrimson from scratching.
Skinny arms kink round my back
but can’t kill the screeching itch.
The hand can’t scratch its bones.
I snap off the blackened arrows
but their featherless beaks stab
the crying katydids, their broken
feet catch in the scattered flesh.
I stretch the canvas on the rack.

Study #3: After Vincent van Gogh

God sank a mineshaft into me for a reason
I could not see in the coalmining district.
Coal dust ate the baby potatoes and beer.
When a man slammed into a woman, dust
climbed in their heads and formed a cloud.
I carried away what was mine, and burned
black into blue, red to rose, yellow to gold.
I burn a house and change it to a church.
I burn the fuse of flesh and my face bursts,
a wheel of fireworks, a vase of sunflowers.