Case 1171. The man with strange sunflowers.

‘Did you know that our V.O.C. ships used to
take a painter along on their voyages?
He had to paint the coast we were going to discover.
On the bow. And if the coast didn’t look like the real coast,
he was keelhauled because the utopia
had to resemble our real utopia.

‘They are strange flowers. They look radioactive.’
‘Then I think: maybe he means something by that’.

The Tall Black and White Men look at each other.
The General Public is going to appreciate these strange sunflowers
only after the death of intentions.

(Slide 2)

And even then, my Lords
no one at that Great Public is going to ask
why they serve coffee
while eating these potatoes.

Potatoes with coffee.
What does he mean by that?
Coffee was expensive.

Thanks to us, gentlemen, thanks to our efforts
this is going to be a very important pain-ter
for our ships and our cities,
without his strange intentions
getting in the way of that eternal fame.

I feel how Pa and Ma instinctively (I don’t say sensibly) think about me. There is a similar reluctance to take me in as there would be to have a big shaggy dog in the house.

*

In the end, only Paul Gauguin came.

It was his dream to establish an artists’ community.
But in the end, only Paul Gauguin came.
And he walked out angrily after two months
and hacked Vincent’s ear off with his sword.

The official story
is that Vincent was so sad
that he cut off his own ear with a razor
and gave the ear 300 metres away
as a gift to a prostitute.

An official story and a conspiracy theory.
Which do you believe? Does it matter?

In the end, only Gauguin came.
In the end it will always
be only Gaugain showing up to utopia.

Martinus 03-09-2022

These two poems are about Vincent van Gogh, and how
this painter was a madman who cut off his own ear and gave it to a prostitute. In passing, a conspiracy theory of two two German wappies is mentioned, for the sake of completeness, of course. 

That nobody noticed that the poor country bumpkins sit drinking extremely expensive  coffee with their potatoes – oh, it’s only art. The high level of our art criticism probably just does not allow itself such suspicious speculations.

These days you have to make a reservation for the Van Gogh Museum in advance. I didn’t know that, so I found myself with my daughter Mavi at a door that was closed to us. Crazy man. Just as crazy as your daddy.