The Sunflowers (Ross Clinic 1960s)

If you stare long enough at a painting of Van Gogh's sunflowers The heads turn into a pride of lions with fiery manes Or Catherine wheels whirring in break neck agony cc-crack, cc-crack, cc-crack They are all consuming suns Swallowing galaxies of onlookers They are venomous sea anemones They are explosions of pus All are cut off from the living Dying in their yellow beauty Their petals like loose teeth rattling in a painted skull Image, and the power of the image Like a spark in a tinder box Exploding within the mind's imagination