16October1888

My dear Theo,
I'm sending you a little sketch at long last to give you at least some idea of the direction my work is taking. Because I feel quite well again today. My eyes are still tired, but I had a new idea all the same and here is the sketch of it.
As always a size 30 canvas.
This time it's simply my bedroom. Only here everything depends on the colour, and by simplifying it I am lending it more style, creating an overall impression of rest or sleep. In fact, a look at the picture ought to rest the mind, or rather the imagination.
The walls are pale violet. The floor-is red tiles.
The wood of the bed and the chairs is the yellow of fresh butter, the sheet and the pillows very light lime green.
The blanket scarlet.
The window green.
The washstand orange, the basin blue.
The doors lilac.
And that's all-nothing of any consequence in this shuttered room.
The sturdy lines of the furniture should also express undisturbed rest.
Portraits on the wall, and a mirror, and a hand towel, and some clothes. The frame-because there is no white in the picture-will be white.
This by way of revenge for the enforced rest I have had to take.
I shall work on it again all day tomorrow, but you can see how simple the conception is. The shadows and the cast shadows are left out and it is painted in bright flat tints like the Japanese prints.
It will form a contrast to, for example, the Tarascon diligence at the Night Cafe.
I am not writing you a long letter because I intend starting very early tomorrow in the cool morning light so as to finish my canvas.
How are your aches and pains? Don't forget to let me know.
I hope you'll write one of these days.
One day I'll do some sketches for you of the other rooms too.
With a good handshake.
Ever yours,
Vincent.

Crimson Crowns

by john clare

my golden crowned lady of crimson beauty
I defend thee from the image of me!
For who better to know the enemy within
Than he who knows where treachery begins?

my crimson crowned warrior of renown
who defends this the honor of my golden crown
do you not know within that for which you fall
is but a heart of common straw?

Behold Your Sacrifice

by john clare

from the realm of the Father you came down
to end the slaughter of the lambs
the doves in open cages soar overhead
fatted calves rise from the altars of red
life returns to this land of death!
Angels fill a heaven no longer bereft
Majesty in the out of the way
the lowest know this first day
their swaddled sacrifice lies so very blue and still
they huddle close to ease His first earthly chill.

A Christmas Card letter

My mother showed me her Christmas cards which she loves to get and mull over long, I read one in particular that for some reason really irks me. It was one of those newsletter cards that catches you up on what has been going on in the lives of some family you have absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the year. It usually starts out, we just moved into our new home, I just got my advanced degree in some fabulously difficult field, the kids are excelling tremendously, the husband, he spends most of his time in the woods in his new lease...bla bla bla....
I would like one year, to read a reality newsletter card, one more down to my level...
We are not sure if we can keep the house, I am still looking for work, but at my age, prospects beyond a Walmart greeter elude me, the wife, she is struggling at her job, the staff are cut throat and the commute a killer. The kids, one is addicted to video games, the other
we never see, but he is doing better in his makeshift shed he lives in with his one year old and wife.
You know....not all is so hunky dorey out there folks. Spare us the prosperous details of your well-manicured Christmas.
Oh, by the way, those boots...I am throwing them at you.

Journey Wrong

Journey Wrong

by john clare

I was not wanting on this journey into exile
Impudent men packed the safari boxes and set out
Tracing torn paths on maps rolled long ago
Thinking wiser ones than them hid something
worth leaving.
And so we endured the hardships
of following forbidden maps.
Our party split at the foot of the sacred hill,
most of the burden bearers seeing
the skulls upon the stakes
Others the golden trinkets adorning the bones.
Way too far along to say I told you so,
I pick up the abandoned burdens
and journey on
Too close to the X to turn back now.
And to what?
The reef holding our sunken schooner?
The drums from cannibal councils
hungering for flesh?
The lot is cast with this gold lustered crew.
What more can a mute coward do?

Beyond Fifty fathoms

Beyond fifty fathoms
by john clare

from the shore to far away
beyond the time of gloam
the equinox between the night
and the day
Half a heart for home
Half a heart to roam
the symmetry defines
a double bladed shaft
crafts of graceful lines
places sought so vast
Half a urge to hurry
Half a urge to tarry
gleams from soft glowing
roiling to rippled surroundings
the nearer to the far I go
behind fades shattered sounds
Half way to gone
Half way to alone
upon the thin point of time
i pause before going beyond far
to cut upon the trot line
setting the guardian of far free
Half the line swings
Half the line sinks
too soon the paddle scrapes
the near shore from far
shattered sounds i had escaped
rising stench from a rotting gar
Half his body bone
Half his body gone
Half of me home
Half of me gone.

O Wind

Misgiving

by
Robert Frost

All crying, "We will go with you, O Wind!"
The foliage follow him, leaf and stem;
But a sleep oppresses them as they go,
And the end by bidding him stay with them.

Since ever they flung abroad in spring
The leaves had promised themselves this flight,
Who now would fain seek sheltering wall,
Or thicket, or hollow place for the night.

And now they answer his summoning blast
With an ever vaguer and vaguer stir,
Or at utmost a little reluctant whirl
That drops them no further than where they were.

I only hope that when I am free,
As they are free, to go in quest
Of the knowledge beyond the bounds of life
It may not seem better to me to rest.

First light upon Suwannee

Suwannee Gold

Toward Halpatter Home