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They say that instead of a brush
he used a knife on me –
a savage of geometry.
But I say, look again,
this is the closest
anyone has got to the pain.
7 Green knows me –
8 Not the green of new shoots
9 but the ghastly green of gangrene.
10 Yellow knows me –
11 Not the cheery yellow of the sun
12 but the sickly hues
13 of this war’s putrefaction.
14 Blue knows me –
15 Not the boundless blues of sky or sea
16 but the blues of the singer’s
17 deepest sorrow.
18 Mother Dolorosa
19 this grief has got to me.
20 Under the poise of my red hat
21 I hear, as if from a great
22 distance,
23 my own stifled scream.
1 Even my hat mocks me
2 laughing
3 on the inside of my grief –
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My twisted mouth
and gnashing teeth,
my fingers fat and clumsy
as if they were still wearing
those gloves –
the bloodstained ones you keep.
10 What has happened
11 to the pupils
12 of my eyes, Picasso?
13 Why do I deserve
14 such deformity?
15 What am I now
16 if not a cross between
17 a clown and a broken
18 piece of crockery?
1 But I am famous.
2 People recognise me
3 despite my fractures.
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I'm no Mona Lisa
(how I'd like to wipe
the smugness from her face
that still captivates.)
8 Doesn't she know that art, great art,
9 needn't be an oil-painting?
10 I am a magnet
11 not devoid of beauty.
12 I am an icon
13 of twentieth-century grief.
14 A symbol
15 of compositional possibilities
16 My tears are tears of happiness –
17 big rolling diamonds.
1 Lies tricks transformations
2 and mine has been completed –
3 from lioness to goddess
4 from goddess to doormat
5 from eagle, raven, swan
6 into a silly duck
7 flapping about all day
8 in case he calls.
9 In case he needs me to sit still.
10 Whereas before I could
11 have gone off like a cat
12 hearing folk say
13 with an indulgent laugh:
14 There goes Dora Maar
15 wearing her camera
16 like a medallion against her heart.
1 Everything he touches
2 with his Midas-hands
3 turns, of course, into a fortune.
4 One still-life can buy a house.
5 A bicycle saddle
6 with handle inverted –
7 becomes the head of a bull.
8 A freshly thrown vase
9 its neck stretched, broken –
10 becomes a bird, startled into being.
11 Each time my own face cracks
12 he rushes to pick up the pieces
13 with pencil and pad –
14 storing each fragment
15 each briny drop already pearled
16 for some future need –
17 ‘Women,’ he sighs
18 ‘they’re suffering machines.’
1 Still, if anyone had told me,
2 that one day I’d be sold by Sotheby
3 that painting of me and my cat
4 going, going, going –
5 my regal posture
6 my surrealist hat –
7 ninety-five million under the hammer!
8 Never in my wildest imaginations
9 Never in my heart’s rebellion
10 from before or beyond the grave
11 (Van Gogh rolling in his)
12 would I have believed that.
1 Conquistador
2 of the flesh
3 my stallion
4 my bull
5 my Cortez
6 invade me now
7 with the sperm
8 of your colours
9 let your blue periods
10 and pink periods
11 find my deepest red –
12 Conquistador
13 of the flesh
14 I am your
15 New World
16 your Malinche
17 assisting you in
18 your conquest
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Whispers of a new mistress.
Surreptitious glances.
The leaky fuselage
of my tears behind dark glasses –
5 How dare they pity me
6 an immortal
7 in the halls of painting?
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Dear heart
save face
when they come
with their impudent stares
and crocodile condolences
as if I wasn’t forewarned by you
that it would end like this
8 Dear face
9 save heart
10 let me hear
11 myself say
12 as if casting a flippant dart:
13 ‘Heavens all I’ve lost is a man
14 with an ego as big as a barn.’
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Children, they’re the worst Their candid eyes and carrying voices:
‘Mummy the lady in the red hat is crying.
Is it because of the war
or has someone broken her heart?
The lady in the red hat is crying.
Her face is like a fan, Mummy.
But you can still see through her tears.’
9 Children, they’re worst
10 touching the nerve of best artwork.
1 And yet I praise the swaddled-gifts
2 that mothers bring –
3 Month after month
4 I’ve spread the red womb-carpet
5 Month after month
6 the little one I crave
7 Disappears like a flood
8 into the forest
9 Prefers to stay hidden among branches
10 than come into the limelight of living.
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Who are these people
with their gowns and lights
leaning towards me
with their whispering insights?
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The white-clad ones
The Minotaur
wheeling me down
a labyrinth of wards
9 No Ariadne-thread
10 No pebble of Hansel
11 O maelstrom of guitars
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see how they dance?
13 Jesus you are my star
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I climb upon your branch
15 to hide my memory
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from the thorns of this therapy
17 Jesus, make no mistake
18 they’re here to cure me –
19 Don’t let them take it
20 away from me –
21 My psychic pain
22 all my sympathetic little aches.
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Bed of roses
Bed of nails
Bed on which
I’ve levitated like a fakir
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Bed of hopes
Bed of fears
Bed that’s seen me through
My worst nightmares
9 Bed of rock
10 Bed of feather
11 Bed on which I’ve finally
12 Put two and two together
13 Bed my dark room
14 And my light –
15 So we make you
16 So we lie on you
1 Picasso, I want my face back
2 the unbroken photography of it
3 Once I lived to be stroked
4 by the fingers of your brushes
5 Now I see I was more an accomplice
6 to my own unrooting
7 Watching the pundits gaze
8 open-mouthed at your masterpieces
9 While I hovered like a battered muse
10 my private grief made public
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Dora, Theodora, be reasonable, if it weren't for Picasso
you'd hardly be remembered at all.
He's given you an unbelievable shelf-life.
Yes, but who will remember the fruits of my own life?
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I am no moth flitting around his wick.
He might be a genius but he's also a prick –
Medusa, Cleopatra, help me find my inner bitch,
wasn't I christened Henriette Theodora Markovitch?
9 Picasso, I want my face back
10 the unbroken geography of it.
1 My camera my one-eye
2 taking what you like
3 stalking like Polyphemus
4 the shadows and the light –
5 that man’s head emerging
6 from a man-hole in the road –
7 Salomé’s surrealist gift.
8 A blind man sitting
9 with his cane in the sun –
10 his remming eyes
11 dreaming their inner visions.
12 My camera my third eye
13 my Guernica witness –
14 turn my negatives into positives.
15 my floating fetuses into life.
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I am no longer there
trapped in that chrysalis
that distorts
my cherished mirror images
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I am no longer framed
imprisoned in that cocoon
that winds up
the silk of my spirit
9 I’m beginning to feel
10 Dora Maar is beginning to feel –
11 Her new incipient
12 still imperfect wings.