Van Gogh's Ear

Bernadette Murphy's recent book, Van Gogh's Ear: the True Story, inspired this poem.

Van Gogh's Ear

I am not here. Already I’ve moved out
from studio to street, from charcoal grey
into chrome orange and cochineal,
from yellow house to whorehouse. Gabrielle,
that poor maid, mops the floor
the painted ladies pockmark with scuffed heels.
I pity her bare arms, her rabid flesh
scarred by the cauterising iron,
and pull her by the wrist into the light,
the burning light of cobalt blue Provence.

I place a ragged parcel in her hands.
She shudders and says nothing, but receives
the gift with grace, clutching it to her breast
in reverence, and I am like a god —
I’m Jesus Christ, and gentle Gabrielle
is Mary Magdalene. I stagger through
the blinding streets of Arles and cross the Rhône,
rave in the cornfields just beyond the town.
Vermilion blood runs down my cheek like tears.
But I’m not here. I have already flown
by crow’s path over waving cypresses
and under whirling stars I lay me down.

The Person From Porlock

On the second day of my walk along England's South West Coast Path I passed through Porlock and down to Porlock Weir (see photo). The Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge used to live not very far away - in the village of Nether Stowey between Minehead and Bridgwater to be exact - and he and his friends William Wordsworth, Wordsworth's sister Dorothy, and the poet and essayist Thomas de Quincey, used to take frequent long walks in the surrounding hills of Exmoor and the Quantocks. What lively, literary conversations they must have had! Or do you think they must have just grumbled about the weather and the state of their feet, like most walkers? (Though actually we know both from Wordsworth and from William Hazlitt that Coleridge was a brilliant conversationalist.)

Of course, the name of 'Porlock' resounds in the literary imagination because of Coleridge's famous story about being interrupted by a 'Person from Porlock' while feverishly writing his visionary poem Kubla Khan. Whether Coleridge was struggling to finish it, or whether his juices were in full creative flow, we will never know. Whether the 'Person from Porlock' really existed, or whether this was a fiction invented by Coleridge to excuse the fragmentary nature of his poem, we will also never know. But what is certain is that only fifty four lines were ever completed - out of a projected two to three hundred. And what is also highly probable is that the poem was composed in an opium-induced trance. For Coleridge was addicted to laudanum (an easily obtained, readily prescribed pain-killing drug at the time) - as were many of his friends and contemporaries, including Thomas de Quincey (whose book Confessions Of An English Opium-Eater I strongly recommend; it makes wonderful reading.) Indeed, some scholars believe that the actual 'Person from Porlock' was Coleridge's physician, Dr P Aaron Potter - who had called unexpectedly on that day in 1797 to supply Coleridge with his fix, thus diverting him from one of his wildest visions. Anyhow, the term 'Person from Porlock' has been alluded to by many poets and novelists ever since to mean any unwelcome visitor or unwanted intruder.

On a wider note, all this got me thinking about 'unfinished' art in general. Creative works may be 'unfinished' for many reasons: the death of the artist, the deliberate wish of the artist, the interruption of the artist. Consider the great 'unfinished' masterpieces: Jane Austen's Sanditon, The Mystery Of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens, Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, Coleridge's Kubla Khan. Does the fact that they're 'unfinished' really matter all that much? Personally I feel it matters not one jot. Indeed, for me, some works of art are all the better for being 'unfinished'. Perhaps this is why I like so much some of the suggestive, seemingly unpolished drawings and sketches by artists like Constable, Van Gogh and many others. Perhaps this is why I like so much the fragmentary nature of a poem such as Kubla Khan, with its half-fulfilled desires and half-complete visions. Sometimes the 'unfinished' work of art reflects more truly the life we really live. We can fill in any gaps and omissions and endings in our own imaginations.

Back at Porlock Weir, this family's having a good time crabbing and messing about by the boats ...

But this couple's striding off rather purposefully towards ... what ..? I leave this unfinished, as I don't know the answer myself ...

(If anyone is interested in the relationship between opium and English Romanticism, try reading Alethea Hayter's terrific book Opium And The Romantic Imagination, a book I read and enjoyed many years ago.)

Night Café

I left London's Victoria Coach Station at 3.30 pm on Friday 5 September. Direction: the Channel Tunnel and France. After changing coaches in Lyon I arrived in Avignon late the next morning. A short train journey took me to Arles, the lowest bridging point of the river Rhône. Pilgrims from Italy and from central and eastern Europe have congregated here for centuries before commencing the long trek westwards to Compostela.

Arles used to be an important Roman city, and many Roman antiquities still remain - including the baths and the amphitheatre. Before the Romans Arles had been occupied by the Greeks. I even spotted some Greek inscriptions on some of the stone sarcophagi in the necropolis of Les Alyscamps. This is Van Gogh's impression of Les Alyscamps:

Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) came to Arles in February 1888 and lived there in the Yellow House - then in the mental hospital at nearby Saint-Rémy - for scarcely more than 2 years. On arrival he was immediately entranced by the Provençal light and landscape, and in a feverish bout of activity produced around 300 paintings and drawings - including many of those which later became his most famous. Café Terrace At Night, for example. You can still see this café today. In fact I walked right past it. He wrote of this painting: In my picture of the 'Night Café' I have tried to express the idea that the café is a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad or commit a crime. Yes, absinthe was the downfall of many an artist of the time...

I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things. VAN GOGH

I see drawings and pictures in the poorest of huts and the dirtiest of corners. VAN GOGH

Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it. VAN GOGH