Tim Lynch

van gogh’s reanimated hand writes about stars some say are dead

every depressive’s favorite story
says my last last words       a day after i failed
to lodge a bullet in the monstrance of my heart
were the sadness will last forever
and judging by passyunk’s
surviving stars     crumbs in a couch’s dark
it's true and you whose heart is derelict the way
history’s a sacked shrine to persistence
envision your wrist a resurrection
of cardinals       whistles in the chest
of a pine assigning dry needles to dirt
while lamplight riveting wet stoop rails
tongues         mucked street gutters
unraveled in noon rain          everything
is letting go             how cruel
life must be to imagine me
hammering a round into the warped board
of my spine in the middle
of a ready harvest    to presume i didn’t want to
die in the promised way       not leaking
but a listless wind in my throat
pushing pulling back      each breath
a brushstroke repeated to my body's last
privilege        its rigorous indifference
but your mind i guess is a tumbling city
rebuilt off kilter by the hand of a drunk
steepled on itself in a punk bar
mirror constellated with names
of forgotten artists and so sadness
wishing your heart plucked by crows
and broke down in their burnt out bellies
to a cough            even death
is holy      enough to say god
damn it         look at these shitty
       shining stars
                  that they outlast
                  that they are nothing

Philadelphia, PA

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Tim Lynch was awarded a 2025 Emerging Artist Fellowship through the Delaware Division of the Arts. His poetry appears most recently in Frozen Sea, t’ART, Garland, Voicemail Poems, Tupelo Quarterly, ONLY POEMS DAILY. His poetry and fiction have been nominated for Best of the Net, Best Microfiction and the Pushcart Prize. His first screenplay was a semifinalist in the ScreenCraft Horror Competition. He is a paraprofessional for children with intellectual and physical disabilities.