The crows fly towards me over the wheat fields
in the Immersive Van Gogh Experience
and my heart starts racing like an EFI V8 engine.
Too much stimulation, like the last time
I overdosed on sativa, up all night
with hallucinations and a rapid heartbeat.
With Erik Satie on the speakers, I wander into
the room where you can “Van Gogh yourself”
by stylizing your image after the master
who painted in the fields in the full sun,
who reveled in it “like a cicada.” Mercifully,
it’s quieter here, overlooking Pooh’s 100 acres
as the master’s ghost bumbles around
muttering, “Putain, qu’est-ce que c’est?”
He’s been through 50 of these light shows
in the US alone and loathes their carbon footprint.
”Il faut avoir la nature pour peindre la nature,” he says.
I catch the flickering light of his ghost aura
in the corner of my eye as “Starry Night
over the Rhône” comes down over a couple
capturing it all with their smartphones.
Dan Grossman is an adjunct instructor of English at Marian University. He has worked as a managing editor and arts editor at NUVO, a team lead at Goodwill, an assistant manager and trainer at Borders Books and Music, a delivery driver for Jimmy John’s, an Uber driver, a Peace Corps volunteer in Niger, West Africa, a program manager at the Writers Center of Indiana, an insurance agent for Bankers’ Life, and a research assistant for the IUPUI Arts & Humanities Institute. He received master’s degrees in English and nonprofit management from IUPUI. He has published poetry in So It Goes, a Literary Journal of the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library, NUVO, Third Wednesday, InPosse, pLopLop and The Indianapolis Anthology among other publications. He is also editor of the blog Indy Correspondent.