Deirdre Neilen, PhD: Anne Rankin gave us a beautiful but difficult poem that analyzes Vincent Van Gogh's "Starry Night" and finds in it an unsettling similarity with her own speaker. Here's her poem "Broken."
Staring again at Van Gogh's Starry Night,
I've a fervor all my own. Before me the sky
a sea of waves, the swirling almost holy.
But I can't pray here, can't turn away
from the weight of the cypress, the glaring
eyes of the stars. The moon
looks unwell but there's nothing I can do.
Subdued, the little boxes of the village stand
opposed to the curves of the swirls.
(Right angles never fix anything.)
There's so much pain here, I can almost hear
the canvas calling.
Most are dazzled by the strange
brushstrokes: the swell of his yellows,
the depths of his blues.
But it's too hard for me to watch.
Sickness, painted boldly.
They're never going to get
all the ways he's broken.
He had told Theo, Just as we take the train ...
we take death to reach a star.
He'd reached before, was reaching still.
But there's a black hole
in every galaxy, dark matter in every life.
I'm never going to fix
all the ways I'm broken.
There's nothing romantic about the mind
succumbing to its own black hole.
There is only the ear, calling, and the gravity
of the blade. In the end,
a small voice -- deep as the universe --
convinced that nothing will mend me.