“To be the Painting and the Painter”

Arteidolia
June 2016

Poems of Alice Neel

 from Evening in Riverside Park, 1927, photo: Arteidolia

Oh, the men, the men
they pull all their troubles
into beautiful verses.
But the women, poor fools,
they grumbled and complained
and watched their breasts
grow flatter and more wrinkled.
Grey hair over a grey dishcloth
and no one loves their grumbling
sad, sour, dry with red and shiny knuckles.
Oh, for the words
separate from reality.
Something to read, stretched out
in a little green book.

*

my house is beside a river of lead
i build a snow woman
and hold her breasts
my brown fingers dream of blood

  warm earth in cuba

i burn my snow woman’s
black coal eyes

       and still i am not warm

water has mixed with the marrow of my bones
my spine as ramified icicle

my snow woman told me of a saxon mil white doe
i thought she meant a dough to make bread
or the milk white do of the piano

the grey of this sad house

       beside the river of lead

               my tropical soul

               frozen in ice

               molded with pain

(two poems, 1929, from Alice Neel by Patricia Hills)

*

now is the great renunciation
now i know i’ll never be strong enough mentally or physically
they’ll just be grey and yellow shadows in my skull
self-realization – i was just on the point of it
all the little threads of my heart and spirit were
somehow connecting themselves with the classic beauty of washington bridge,
somehow i saw so clearly the sick unhealthy beauty of nadya olyanova
saw her as a new york olympia – with paper flowers from the five and ten
a subway under her bed – a city of hills and bridges
a sickly sexual olympia
and the sad grey wood houses of sedgwick avenue
some red brick ones with classic fronts
I know these are all subjects – paintings with a story
but does it make any difference what sets you into action
oh i was full of theories
of grand experiments
to live a normal womans life
to have children – to be the painting and the painter
but now i have no strength
my mind is weak and tired, my body sluggish,
my belly’s fat – my gums receding
i’ve lost my child my love my life and all the god damn business
that makes  life worth living

(the great renunciation, from Alice Neel by Patricia Hills)

from Mother & Daughters, 1927, photo: Arteidolia

I cry and my tears are for no one
In a tropical city
speaking another language
To a little girl who is my daughter…

Do you see that man with a cap over his eyes
Walking under the light
He used to be my lover…

Those paintings torn and ripped
Those drawings burned
They are the work of Fifteen years.

*

For how I have loved you with all my heart
that you were better than you seems to be
Loved your faults, your eyes, your hands, your mouth
Your spirit which at times was beautiful
But now I see you in a baser light
A rate who scuttles off the ship that’s going down
You’ve lived with me a year and several months
On Tuesday morning my poor premature baby was born and died
On Thursday you rush madly to your wife
Entreated her to live with you. You couldn’t bear failure you
suspected me of weakness
And then this shriveled petty mind
Denied this baby life to a stupid little night club scene…

from Alice & Josie, 1936, Arteidolia

I love you Harlem
Your life your frequent
Women, your relief lines
Outside the bank, full
Of women who no dress
In Saks 5th Ave would
Fit, teeth missing, weary,
Out of shape, little black
Arms around their necks
Cling to their skirts
All the wear and worry
Of struggles on their faces
What a treasure of goodness
And life shambles
Thru the streets
Abandoned, despised,
Charged the most, given
The worst
I love you for electing
Marcaronio, and him for being what he is
And for the rich deep vein
Of human feeling buried
Under your fire engines
Your poverty and your loves

(from Alice Neel, The Art of Not Sitting Pretty, Phoebe Hoban)

 from Alice and José, 1938, photo: Arteidolia