Starry Night Over The Asylum, By Debi Swim

Starry Night Over The Asylum
By Debi Swim

Is anyone in the village below awake?
It is late, late, sleepers in houses dark and quiet.
How can they rest when overhead there is a riot?

Stars and worlds ringing like church bells,
moon ablaze throbbing in hi-hat jumps
a galaxy of milky white tambourine thumps

I cover my ears against the dissonance.
Why aren’t there people in the streets
wailing in anger for the noise to cease?

Oh, starry night. Oh, raucous, strident, starry night,
your beauty bellows in discordant din
and I, I fall to my knees in your poignant orbital spin.

Vincent Van Gogh, The Starry Night

Process notes: I’ve admired the beauty of this picture many times and written about it but as I looked this time, I thought, this scene is LOUD. A cacophony of sounds, like each member of an orchestra tuning up individually before the start of the concert and I imagined Van Gogh with his hands over his ears. Written in response to Prompt 30, Red Wolf Poems.

Debi Swim writes primarily to prompts. She is a wife, mother, grandmother and happy poet.