Carole Maso - Beauty is Convulsive - The Passion of Frida Kahlo

… He is not sentimental but he is intensely emotional and passionate. Inertia exasperates him because he is a continued, live and potent flow. Because of his extraordinary good taste, he appreciates all that contains beauty, be it a woman or a mountain.… Like the cacti of his land, he grows strong and amazing either in sand or on rocks; he blossoms in a lively red, the most transparent white, and sunlike yellow. Covered by thorns, he protects his tenderness inside. He lives with his strong sap in a ferocious environment. He shines alone like a sun avenging the gray color of rocks. His roots go beyond the anguish of solitude and sadness and of all the frailties that dominate other beings. He stands up with amazing power, then blossoms and bears fruit like no other plant.

(And when she is sick he will distract her by dancing around the bed with a tambourine pretending to be a bear.)

Awakening on black slap

Awakening on black slap paint (no new pain though, take.

Take

Take what?

the pigeon made mistakes

toe by toe by toe — take

night

votive: courage

not the leg

the blackened toes — then take

night is falling.

black not the leg

black black toes

black

night is falling in my life. not the leg

Ringing

the amputation 3 free let me—

let me

3 7 9 live

Did the bells not mean she might be saved might— not the leg— be saved

Take the toes then

Bargaining in someone’s religion — a made-up thing

3 7 9

the little girl’s stash of butterflies, marbles, paints, charms

these are the games she— not the leg not the—

these are the games let’s play awhile

chattering, counting, babbling

while she drags out her headless dolls her perverse tell all her bartering her not the leg —and the paintings—

pain arranged laid bare

poised like that

look, look

Frida what?

Frida what is it?

Over there.

drawn to the vision

her head in a sunflower — engulfed by that flame. Her head.

Frida.

she wiggles her—

toes, toes then take

adiós, mi amigos, adiós

not the leg.

Dr. Farill recommended that her foot be amputated, leaving only the heel.

Dr. Glusker brought a Doctor Puig, a Catalán bone surgeon educated in the U.S.

her lucky numbers are—

adiós

begging

she’ll be begging—

not the leg.

in pieces

take all the toes at once.

anything but—

You know Frida that I think it is useless to just cut your toes … because of the gangrene.

I think Frida, the moment has come when it would be better to

not the — not the — not the

cut off your leg.

not old not over not ready to go

You know Frida that I think that it is useless.

you stole from me fourteen beds, fourteen machine guns and fourteen of everything. He only left me his pen, he even stole the lamp, he stole everything.

Blood in the corner now saturating the page.

Covered in gold where does your life

A metal rod through the pelvis

But not the leg

You know Frida that I think it is—

Cracked pelvis — useless — you know—

Not the leg

You know Frida

Points of support

On my whole body there is only one; and I want two. In order to have two they have to cut one. It is the one that I do not have that I have to have in order to be able to walk, the other will already be dead!

Raquel Tibol:

Irritated by the vital energy that radiated from an object that she had created, an energy that she, in her own movements, no longer possessed, she took a knife made in Michoacan which had a straight and cutting edge, and overcoming the lassitude produced by her nocturnal injections, with tears in her eyes, and a convulsive grin on her tremulous lips, she began to scratch the painting slowly, too slowly. The noise of steel against very dry oil paint grew like a lament in the morning in this space of Coyoacan where she had been born.… She scratched, annihilating, destroying herself; it was her sacrifice and her expiation.

Your tears are nails

the pigeon made mistakes

it made mistakes.

Instead of going North it went South

It thought the wheat was water

It made mistakes.

not the leg

the sun and the moon out together indicating the sorrow of all creation

her head is fire

one stiff, paper-doll-like arm. The central Frida is armless. One bandaged foot …

not old, not over, not ready to go.

the leg

In the night the bone men come and in the day.

enclosed in a steel corset for eight months.

the leg

Like a lament in the morning.

Dr. Eloesser mentions that Frida had been painting up to three months prior to his visit, that she has headaches, and that for a period of time she had had a continuous fever. Her leg, he said, was in constant pain. The rest is illegible except for the word “gangrene.”

Votive: oblivion. She swerves.

Leaves. Blades, cupboards, sparrow

I sell it all for nothing. I do not believe

in illusion. You smoke terrible.

smoke. Marx. life, the great

joker, nothing has a name.

I don’t look at shapes, the paper

love. wars, tangled hair, pitchers.

claws, submerged spiders, lives

in alcohol, children are the days and

here it is stopped.

Her sister Matilde:

They fused three vertebrae with a bone of I don’t know who and the first eleven days were something terrifying for her.

They gave her Chloromycetin every four hours and her temperature began to drop a little but that’s the way it has been since the 4th of April when they operated for a second time and now the corset is dirty as a pigsty since she is secreting through her bag, it smells like a dead dog and these señores say that the wound is not closing and the poor child is their victim.

the desperately festive falling apart Frida

All dressed up with nowhere to go

I sell everything for nothing.… I do not believe in illusion … the great vacillator. Nothing has a name. I do not look at forms … drowned spiders. Lives in alcohol. Children are the days and here is where I end.

your head is flowers, your body the body of a deer, pierced

Without Hope, she scrapes, it is coming

4 black toes

it is coming

3, 7 and 9 are your lucky numbers. You put them in a glittering box. You add a pink ribbon, a drawing, a lock of hair. Black feather. You are no fool. The end is nearing. You draw a right foot, right foot, a right foot.

You return now to the women. In the calm violence of your being, desire. You draw a right foot as you drag yourself across the page to this final place.

Your tears are nails. You hold them in your mouth. Your last Calvary. Sorrow.

And hear now the women praying their dark rosary — the tone of the cross, 10 our fathers, 10 hail Marys, the drag and hum of the cross. The wound of the cross. Salt.

A paper halo once — a child’s cutout falling useless to the floor. See how she suffers. A halo of paper and pins to keep the disintegrated shoulder bone intact. Visiting the woman held together by paper and pins. What do you know of suffering? she asks. And she is right. Paper dolls holding hands. Good-bye.