Sad Impressions (Two-Legged Easel)

The great art of life is how to turn the surplus life of the soul into life for the body. - Thoreau

Van Gogh self-portrait

found behind another painting

undigested potatoes on a starless night

troubled emptiness smeared on a palette dabbed

squeezed from dark, troubled, rolled-up syringes

expressed in solemn brushstrokes

hues absent, speech of emotion muted

where went the wide swaths

hued impressions and feelings

deep, exploding, forever capture

hurt spilled

serenity polluted

Author's Note

"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do." - Thoreau