Two Meican Poems
Raphael Rubinstein
1. Love
He believes it's the only thing in life worth the trouble.
He's been married to Carmen Mondragon for years.
He's had very many girlfriends-
"We have many hours of flight" he says-
one of the first was Antonieta Rivas Mercado
whom he considers the most extraordinary woman
the country has produced
the one of greatest sensibility and intuition.
She founded the Ulysses Theater,
the first experimental theater that we had,
she published books
but all that fell into the void that is our land.
She committed suicide in the Cathedral of Notre Dame
in Paris.
Margo, who was the star of Lost Horizons
and appeared in Under the Bridge
is another of the women who has detained him in his life.
He always found her "marvellous, of an extraordinary
human quality and a prodigious sensibility."
Maria Petrucci, daughter of the last Italian ambassador,
writes him from New York saying that she "can't forget" him,
that she "adores" him and things like that.
She was a painter who used to get very upset
when someone said that her work seemed a little like De Chirico's.
"It's impossible to paint horses without someone saying
you've been influenced by De Chirico,"
she would say.
2. Life of an Artist
Born in Mineral of Gold the 7th of March, 1905.
Died in the capital the 27th of October, 1924.
Childhood full of yearning
thirst for something big
growing aspiration.
By January or February 1922
he amazed his friends by painting
(without ever having done anything before)
a portrait of me,
an admirable work beyond all concepts
for its justice, formal resolution, refined coloring
and, above all, its emotion.
His intimates-we asked ourselves where would this youth get to,
playing with an infinite love for painting?
Canvas after canvas set a new modality,
encountered new orientations,
and while all artists affiliated themselves with the "ism"
that offered the most novelty,
he, confident in his sensibility, strode the road
that others would only follow later.
The sole colorist who was able to think in tropical fruits
and our popular crockery,
in the earth of our country.
He created new harmonies
ignored recipes, procedures, cookery.
He was pure,
the academy hadn't pissed on him.
His reactions in front of things were direct
sharp to the point of closure;
possessing them and understanding them,
he annihilated them.
He signified great intelligence, nobility, generosity, sincerity.
Brutal reality destroyed him.
Art: Rachel Whiteread, Untitled (Library), Plaster, polystyrene and steel 1999
Courtesy: Luhring Augustine, NY
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