Madness

by Brandon James O’Neil

“I paint because the spirits whisper madly inside my head.” –El Greco

My uncle Wilbur heard
whispers too but never
put brush to canvas

He skinned cats
and broke his father’s
jaw

Jesus heard over
the rolling Jordan “this
is my beloved son”

So his family came to
fetch him thinking
he had lost his mind

El Greco heard spirit whispers
and painted to exorcise
or satisfy them

—No record says he
skinned a cat or cursed
a fig tree—

He painted and
insisted minstrels play
wild zarabandas

Is it madness to release
the whispers and replicate
their logic in vibrant oils?

Madness locks this world
within until eruption
as violence or miracle

El Greco heard whispers
and painted Christ healing blindness
and dying on Golgotha

bodies pulled upward
like gum on a
sidewalk shoe

the holy family, the saints,
clouds parting for a soul
crawling newborn to heaven

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Brandon James O’Neil is a poet and scholar originally from Rochester, Michigan. His work has appeared in Plough, Image, and The Dewdrop.