Out the slicer comes,
and one will succumb,
smearer unsere, a seeper.

Sore at Gauguin, who’s run to paint near dames and Tiki bars.
Goin’ crazy—unclear the peepers. . .
razor in his hand to shear a hearer.
He’s unstable, this guy, of ear a reaper,
razing with his hand,

Daubing time is done:
ear comes off anon.
Hone it like beets julienned—
he’ll untether it with certainty. . .open up his oticness.

Forty thousand paintings. . .no one pays.
Buyers ogle and then they jest.
Forty thousand paintings. . .such dismays.
G.’s they buy, think he’s best!
This organ that hears shouting’s coming off today—
it’ll leave a big scar.

After razing, one ear a keeper. . .
razing of the gland that is a hearer.
On the table, some pie
left here—no eater.
Pastry? Not a fan.

Gone are two. . .now one:
’ppears like bloody chum.
Razored gash, bright the redness.
There’s just one hearer good and stuck on.
Lots of gore where opened. . .flap of skin from shear.
Jug handle hewed, rent, clipped—not here.
It’s spurtin’ hue, neck’s really smeared.
Shaving’s for the face made.

One’s off. . .razee, then he had no ear
on the left of him. It departed. . .bye-bye!
He looks awkward, this sev’ring guy,
since he done sliced off that part
with badly shakin’ hand—’cause no one would buy his art?
Gone to Rémy,* one ear a keeper.


*On 8 May 1889, accompanied by his caretaker, the Reverend Salles, van Gogh committed himself to the hospital at Saint Paul-de-Mausole, a former monastery in Saint-Rémy.