This painting by Ruprecht von Kaufmann fascinates me. It leaves the impression that the human figure has been disassembled and placed back into the room without its center.
Rolling thunder—
Sounds like rattling bones
In a makeshift
Barrel
Traveling over uneven bricks—
Coursing through the sky
Varied gradations of height
First loosening the moon
With percussive vibration
Then shaking
Newly budding leaves
Velvet green
From yawning trees
Barely awake.
Scattered light—
Looks like fingers
Flicking away all that flies
Stretching across and
Opening wide
Then curling back inside
A fist pulsating
Currents through the air
Bringing light to where
Shadows live
But only one
Moment at a time
Slowly and
Without warning.
Water pouring—
Tastes like a child’s tears
Hot and heavy
Filled with reflections
Of all that surrounds
But void of understanding,
Simple
Pure
Enveloping the landscape
In a pool of
White
A mirror to the sky
With no pondering of why
Only what.
As above the tempest
So below
The raging gusts of natural disaster
If love be called natural,
If the heart enrapt
In upward gales
And stripped from its
Cavity
Be called disaster—
Stripped, that is,
By freshly painted
Nails of red
Tossed and then released
Into the atmosphere.
And then, stillness invades—
Feels like bated breath
Unwilling to climb
Rungs of the rib cage
Or slip past the tongue
Of one whose
Voice must not be known
Hidden in silence—
No more masking
Than that—
Only quiet
Enshrouding some figure
Crawling past and almost
Out of sight.
Inside the stillness he sits
Shoulders slumped and heavy
Something feels different
(Reality varied)
An inventory begins—
He lifts his hand
To count all his parts
First his legs, yes
Then confirming his arms,
All accounted, yet
Discerning something amiss
His eyes move and
Focus inside
Where the hole was dug.
“My heart,” he panicked
“I am sure this is the space
where once it sat.”
Groping further down
Through his mouth
As though, perhaps
It slid
Descending
Sloshing now in acid—
His fingers reaching
He gags and chokes
Hoping to find it
Inside the vomit
But still he is without.
Coalescence deprived
Nothing more to bind
His pieces together
Like glue or like chains
Wrapping around
And pulling down
To anchor—
Now adrift on the sea
Of humanity
Only he
And his leftover parts
No longer a whole
He floats atop the foam
Like a corpse.
There is a thing that happens
In the mind
Between loss
And understanding—
A vacuum
An unhanding
Of reason
Disillusionment invades
It cascades
And splashes into pools
Of paralysis
Then sinks into rebellion
Before it hits the bottom of
Despondent and
Swirls with caustic deviation.
“Parts for sale,”
He spouts like a madman
From sunrise until
Dusk sits like a spy
On the edge of the moon
Waiting for its chance to fall—
“Pieces for sale,
gently used
never abused
no longer needed
the price is low
everything must go
no credit
only cash.”
The people pass
They point but do not laugh
Sympathy cloaks their eyes
They try to disguise the sadness
And yet,
“I see it there,” he scoffs—
“Do not pity
I have no heart
through which
to feel the pain,
sometimes in life this happens
there is no shame.”
He chops—
“Here, have a leg.”
Then, one passes close
Carrying a bag
Filled with hope.
The sitting man
Raises his hand to ask,
“Soon I will be dead
my last drops bled
with no chance
to renew.
My heart, you see,
was taken from me
and I wonder if
hope can be fastened
to one with no pulse?”
His hurried steps
Do not delay
From the corner of his mouth
He sighs to say,
“I have my heart
inside this bag
with some hope besides
but I tell you true
unless it beats,
an endless repeat,
there is nothing
this spark can do
for you.”
The passing man passes.
The sitting man
Beholds one flicker of hope
Flaming on the ground
He imagines hobbling toward
Leaping forward
But instead
He watches it burn—
Yellow to dark
And then
One line of smoke
Stretches, back curled
Like a cat
Being lifted from the center.
© Jill Szoo Wilson
Photo credit: My dear friend and German artist Ruprecht von Kaufmann, Die Sache mit den Sirenen 2014.
Jill Szoo Wilson 