Mourning the lost poems of an unknown poetHurt- spoken to Vincent

by A.V. Koshy

i know, vincent

this one is going to be as raw as your later ones

and as bitter, angry and ugly

you know those friends, birds of the same feather

but they were not friends

and i would write poems

and poems after poems

and they would say silently

but you are not as good as the ones who write in malayalam

we are better

or the ones who write in usa or uk

or the ones who got prizes

or got published

or the great ones

and i would say nothing

write, read it out

to a few

who would not laugh -

like you had theo

i had them -

and then tear it up

confetti on the sidewalks, so many countless pieces

littering the streets of the city of my cri(m)es

all my life they have followed me, vincent

and i kiss my girl and say, to her i'm more than vincent

and they say why don't you stop this madness

and i say

anna

is there god's hand's imprint on my heart

am i not like dostoevsky

and they say megalomania

vincent, sit here, paint with me in my loneliness

while i make love to your golden cornfields and bluest of skies

and let me read out to you my poem

and we can tear it up and let it like blackbirds fly

into your painted sky

for one thing i know of you, vincent

you would not laugh as the gutters fill with boats for boys

made from paper taken from my left-behind poems

alone of all mankind, you would sit and cry

with me and give me your canvasses, to write -