Frida
Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 2:00 am
“I paint my own reality. ...I paint whatever passes through my head
without any other consideration.”
-Fride Kahlo
Frida, you’re my watermelon
after a midnight siesta
with the juice that must be burnt away
like a sunset
with black seeds riveted
like a cave full of bats,
then shot out of my mouth
with a Gatling gun
and the huge slice
of your self portraits
more ambient than a crescent moon
more fragrant than camellias growing in smokestacks
more defiant than a beaten horse against the whip
rearing into the ruckus hush
into the sweet pulp of the forbidden self
as sweetly forgetful
as opium and movie house chocolates
you and your lover devoured
while watching news reels of Hitler
and a bad wire act over Manhattan.
Diego, you poor moon chaser
however big
you wanted to paint
ants crawled into your eyes,
and like a stray hound lost and cornered
you could only bark at the emptiness of a canvas
but for a blind man you were forever
her eye’s delight.
Frida when you painted
bedridden in the militia of blanket
in a cosmopolis of wild boars
every grievous stricken worm
kept writhing in your earth
your hand taming the spotted brush
growling like a jaguar,
the meager sky balanced on your
rich top soil
with blue marmalade of mold dancing
on a nailed bread towered by twilight
you kept between your thumbnails, the primal color
of brand new dungarees
before the fading and the patching and the stooping
and when your brush turned the last corner
a rickety cart of jalapeno peppers
moaned like ship horns.
there are train stations weeping
there are ribbons without pins
and a whippoorwill sang of brave colors
that bear tangled souls like roots of mangrove
when colors you mixed
were laid to sleep in a glass jar
like a rare moth.
without any other consideration.”
-Fride Kahlo
Frida, you’re my watermelon
after a midnight siesta
with the juice that must be burnt away
like a sunset
with black seeds riveted
like a cave full of bats,
then shot out of my mouth
with a Gatling gun
and the huge slice
of your self portraits
more ambient than a crescent moon
more fragrant than camellias growing in smokestacks
more defiant than a beaten horse against the whip
rearing into the ruckus hush
into the sweet pulp of the forbidden self
as sweetly forgetful
as opium and movie house chocolates
you and your lover devoured
while watching news reels of Hitler
and a bad wire act over Manhattan.
Diego, you poor moon chaser
however big
you wanted to paint
ants crawled into your eyes,
and like a stray hound lost and cornered
you could only bark at the emptiness of a canvas
but for a blind man you were forever
her eye’s delight.
Frida when you painted
bedridden in the militia of blanket
in a cosmopolis of wild boars
every grievous stricken worm
kept writhing in your earth
your hand taming the spotted brush
growling like a jaguar,
the meager sky balanced on your
rich top soil
with blue marmalade of mold dancing
on a nailed bread towered by twilight
you kept between your thumbnails, the primal color
of brand new dungarees
before the fading and the patching and the stooping
and when your brush turned the last corner
a rickety cart of jalapeno peppers
moaned like ship horns.
there are train stations weeping
there are ribbons without pins
and a whippoorwill sang of brave colors
that bear tangled souls like roots of mangrove
when colors you mixed
were laid to sleep in a glass jar
like a rare moth.