Sketches from the Picasso Room

“Pareja de amantes observando un cuadro”
Aguafuerte sobre cobre

In the Picasso room
I try to learn poetry
from Pablo’s sketches.
Boobs, globes, buttocks galore

like oranges
in black and white

She a svelte queen
and he?

Scribbles behind
aligned with her throne,
a nose looking over her shoulder

En el teatro: el corundo blandiendo el “rayo de Zeus,” con el águila y otros personajes

Picasso drew a sword
an ejaculating wand
squeezed tight
by an infinity-headed man
til it spurts

Gargoyle scrawl
supplicates for a blow.
A lady loses her arms
to the artist’s whim for arcs

Three visages
look on from the edge

Comparación con figura II

I learn vocabulario
by reading the plaques

Moño must mean “bun”
figura estilizada
remains a puzzle,
but from the looks
of things it must mean:
face goozing space
into itself

(después de rojo)

white line
derives
a nose
a cheekbone

Jacqueline y
Francoise
collapse
into shadow

Notes: yesterday went to Neruda’s house in Santiago. In his dining room hang various paintings of watermelons—he loved watermelons. In his study is a photo of Picasso kissing him jubilantly after Neruda won the Nobel Prize. Today I went to Picasso’s exhibit in Neruda’s city. There hung a sketch of a boy imperiously eating a watermelon as Zeus is crowned god.  

SAR.
Palacio Baburizza
2016