Poem: Max Ernst

A prose poem on Leonora Carrington's Portrait of Max Ernst.

You wander this Antarctic land, sure to find what you’re looking for; but you do not think, never consider, cannot imagine the nature of this territory, a space made strange by other hands not your’s. Incomprehensible these frozen reaches; they will not submit to those clever fingers, that miraculous touch.

A friend goes before you. You carry her like a lantern…. Lighting your path? Yes, Max, but there are other, more powerful, illuminations here, though their lamps are full of painterly disguise, the hermetic lampshade not the lamp showing us where to go…. No no, not Breton, not Freud, nor the perverts who turned him into a sex freak; it is a private language, whose symbols tell us something about you, that ice.… What? Gibberish? No No Max. Your warmth freezes us. A radiator warming only itself… You complain. You say this is absurd. Look at my lantern, almost tropical; a tiny aquarium that keeps my sea-horse safe. But look, look at the magnificence of that frozen horse, a sculpture worthy of the Cinquecento; while how small is your friend; warm, yes, but trapped in such cold glass. Your heat a hoover…. Again he smiles. He is smart, he is sharp, he knows what I am saying.… An artist a prison guard? I melt this ice not make it. Do you? Do you really? I look at that white horse a long time. I turn to Max, ask him a direct question. Why paint your face like a doll, your body a furry fish? That hand a virtuoso’s? No, it is a puppet’s wooden claw. Not quite human…. He shakes his head, and smiles his knowing smile. Yes, Max. You think this your vision; Max's influence like snow, falling on everyone.… A wry quip. Always to go inside, to visit your own landscapes, searching for the odd creatures you grow there; you dig them up like vegetables. To exist only to be transformed by your brush; do you think this easy for us Max? Look at that horse! A lover left behind, as you travel to the next iceberg for inspiration…. Max paints me as an irritating buffoon. No Max, you do not think of this. We are not real to you, just the material for these unearthly images. But it is you who must look now; are you not spooked by that white horse, the hills like frozen fireworks…. Oh, I know Max; a master; such antennae for the strange and beautiful; but what about those you turn into such marvellous objects, these grotesqueries? How long before that lantern is thrown aside.… He paints a sword-bird above my head. So hot inside that vision, you leave everybody else cold…. He laughs; calls me a fool; and walks towards new friends whom he promises the wonders of metamorphosis; that magic lantern, the fancies of his mind. I protest. Call him back. Say the artist sucks out the lives of others…. The sword-bird swoops and kills.

Leonora smiles as she puts her brushes down. It’s a hard life being a muse. One’s blood turned into pigment. Masterpieces! Artists! So self-satisfied; so nonchalantly, so innocently, they travel over our bodies, ambling across our mysterious landscapes, as if no weak points, crevasses to fall into. Poor Max. Trapped now you inside my canvas. Freeze-frame!…. My baby today. Leonora rolls a fag, laughs out loud, pretends to give birth, her legs stretched wide before this painting. Oh, I know, I’ll add a tiger sock, a homely touch, my little cuddly toy.