Rembrandt's dark oils fevered with afterglow
Foreshadowed bankruptcy and abandonment.
Modigliani's long-necked ladies of
Dissolute absinthe.
Poe inebriated with casks 
Black cats and ravens.
Keats dying too young on the bitter Spanish Steps 
his name “writ on water"
El Greco's astigmatic elongations scorned.
Toulouse-Latrec infected by the gaudy
Whores he worshipped.
O.Henry's brief spendthrift ironies.
Gauguin's brown women of jungle dreams
Misunderstood  ignored.
Vermeer's pearl earring of hopeless debt.
Wilde's sad coda of cheap hotels.
Melville's obituary “long-forgotten"
Stephen Foster's Suwannee river flooding
Into Bellevue. In his pocket  38 cents and a note
“dear friends and gentle hearts"
Van Gogh  destitute in a starry night of suicide.
“The sadness will last forever."