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The Haunting of William Lazos
Van Gogh creeps by William's
sleeping body, strolls past
paint cans, air brushes, spattered
work shirts to his smaller canvases.
He paints a sprawling sunflower
on William's self portrait.
A third eye blossoming;
Van Gogh's mark of approval.
William looks like the Giant
in the beanstalk story.
Broad shoulders, bold brown eyes that usually
intimidate climbers back down the vine.
Van Gogh already knows he'll scale buildings,
to paint raging bulls and matadors.
Sometimes he fears William will leap
off the canvas and chase him back to where
dead artists wait, hungry for late night stories
of collaborations with this slumbering giant.
William wakes, sighs, scrapes off the yellow,
repaints his brow in varying shades of ochre.
He doesn't mind Van Gogh so much;
he's just glad Pollock or Picasso
no longer visit, covering his image completely
with paint splashes or sad shrunken blues.
Freda, either, with her crazy monkey,
tiny paws dragging it about like a toy.
Before his final exhibit, he locks
his portrait behind prisms and charms
sleeps fitfully, assured by a mystic
neighbor that no ghosts dare tamper.
Pris Campbell
©2011
Published in Poets/Artists journal 2011
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