A Million Vincents & C.diff by Christian Ward
A Million Vincents
Obsessed with Van Gogh's Sunflowers,
you started seeing him everywhere:
In a barista's ginger Tom beard.
In a skater doing a kickflip
in the middle of the High Street,
with everyone's iPhones giving him
the evil eye. In a bus driver
giving you a nod firm like chilled butter.
Ex boyfriends, too: the Astronomy
student with marmalade freckles,
obsessed with Pearl Jam and MTV,
who ended up a barrister
with an overgrown garden and three kids.
The palaeontologist turned writer
of hard-boiled detective novels,
who boasted he knew the names
of every dinosaur better than Ross
from Friends, and squawked like a T-Rex
doing the chicken dance after you
beat him in Monopoly. And who can forget
the one obsessed with drawing you,
the one with eyes brilliant like fireworks,
who said you were brighter than the lion-yellow
sunflowers, before going down on one knee
to try to propose? You said no,
so he reached into your chest and pulled out
your heart, treating your pain like performance art,
like a paint soaked brush to be cleaned,
put away, and never spoken of again.
C.diff
The boy inside my gut
wants a more realistic sky.
Complains the sun
and moon are stuck on.
Failed ouroboros, failed ampersand,
you took the last of all I had
from the tip of my tongue
and left me with shades of grief.
How do the stars taste
when they are forced down?
“‘A Million Vincents’ was written earlier this year. I was inspired by the idea of seeing Vincent Van Gogh everywhere. I tried to get it published, but went nowhere and abandoned it. I'm not sure whether the problem was with the idea or the execution or the genre. Maybe I'll revisit the idea in fiction...or just leave it alone.
‘C.diff’ was based on my experience catching C.diff in hospital last year, during a stem cell transplant for lymphoma. It was supposed to be a surreal take on it, and I really tried to push it. No takers. I don't know whether it was too out there for people. Anyhow, it ended up abandoned and unloved.”
Christian Ward is a UK-based writer who has recently appeared in Rappahannock Review, South Florida Poetry Journal, The Dewdrop, Dodging the Rain, The Seventh Quarry, Dipity Literary Magazine, Indian Periodical, and Streetcake Magazine.