When words are not enough

Brother, all my life
I’ve painted sunflowers, irises, wheat fields
rooftops, potato-eaters and the like.
But see, what the world has given me in return -
one scorching bullet-wound in my chest!
Watch the blood, so real, so down-to-earth
like the filthy woman in the old brothel ...

I can sense the curtain coming down,
a gargantuan shadow eclipsing my view.

I needed to die in an open field
free from the people lurking within
your half-lit bylanes.

Let it be then, brother, let it be.

Though the sadness of severing my ties
from these meadows glittering in July,
the cypress, the orchards
the green fairy absinthe,

Will last forever.