L�origine du monde, a poem by Rethabile Masilo
1866. Who can't like the way Courbet painted women? Jo on the bed
with her head thrown back, as Gustave fiddles with brush and palette.
That is how it ought to be, for heaven told us to call the sun
when in trouble, call the wind, raise rivers off their floors. But
is this iron lung mine? Plastic heart mine? My face can no longer
be stretched. Am I wearing plastic boobs or a rubber crotch?
High over mountains, above a hawk that stares with beady eye,
above the stratosphere and beyond, no distinct air can breathe.
The ozone layer has even fashioned a funnel to shoo shit out;
for the world is its own prosthesis. Otherwise breathe under an arm
the aromatics of life's smell�for Courbet's painting is on the wall
of my room, inside a frame carved from the bark of a tree.
This poem is from the book Waslap (2015). It is hardly fair that we have just this month discovered the real name of the lady whom Gustave Courbet painted in 1866. I don't care... I called her Jo because word had it that Courbet's model had been Joanna Hiffernan, whom Gustave had painted a few times already. Nevertheless, I am happy to know that the real model's name was Constance Qu�niaux.
with her head thrown back, as Gustave fiddles with brush and palette.
That is how it ought to be, for heaven told us to call the sun
when in trouble, call the wind, raise rivers off their floors. But
is this iron lung mine? Plastic heart mine? My face can no longer
be stretched. Am I wearing plastic boobs or a rubber crotch?
High over mountains, above a hawk that stares with beady eye,
above the stratosphere and beyond, no distinct air can breathe.
The ozone layer has even fashioned a funnel to shoo shit out;
for the world is its own prosthesis. Otherwise breathe under an arm
the aromatics of life's smell�for Courbet's painting is on the wall
of my room, inside a frame carved from the bark of a tree.
This poem is from the book Waslap (2015). It is hardly fair that we have just this month discovered the real name of the lady whom Gustave Courbet painted in 1866. I don't care... I called her Jo because word had it that Courbet's model had been Joanna Hiffernan, whom Gustave had painted a few times already. Nevertheless, I am happy to know that the real model's name was Constance Qu�niaux.
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| "L'origine du monde" Gustave Courbet |
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