Poems on Charlotte Salomon, by Maya Bernstein

from Life? or Theatre? by Charlotte Salomon (Germany) 1941-43

​Prelude #18: In Heaven Everything Is Much More Beautiful Than Here on Earth
 
Eight mothers in white climb the vertical line at the painting’s blue
center, shark teeth in a salty sea, the expanse between the mother 
in bed and the daughter she abandons so she might become 
 
an angel. Why does she lean out the window, her ribs like jambs, 
her eyes like glass, her limbs no longer warm? Charlotte’s mother 
said, when your Mummy has turned into a little angel, she’ll come down 
 
and bring a letter. My mother too sang me a lullaby: on the window’s edge 
stood a beautiful bird; a girl rushed to the window, the bird flew away. 
When I bled, she stretched a bandaid over the wound, 
 
when she pinched, my skin turned black and blue. She told me 
angels have only one task to fulfill, unlike a mother 
or like God. Like Charlotte, to survive, I gazed out the window
 
and dipped my pen-tip into my own blood, 
making shapes from its golden-hued blues.

from Life? or Theatre? by Charlotte Salomon (Germany) 1941-43

​Alexander Nagler 
Charlotte Salomon's husband, Nice, 1943

She sang to herself while working.
Her face always in profile, 
perched atop a drooping 
sunflower floating in the blue 
air, a green circle, a chair, a pear, 
a pair of untied shoes, an indigo 
vase drizzling petals, paintings 
of paintings, an orange wheel-
barrow, a child in a long white 
shirt holding an enormous red ball. 
 
I was her husband but she saw
only colours, paint, and this. 
I cooked her vegetable soup, 
cleaned her brushes, stood them tips-
up like unopened tulips, led her 
to the buttercup-strewn meadow, 
sat silently beside her until she could 
see, amongst the clouds, the words
of the prophecy she would make 
come true, one must first go into 
oneself to be able to go out of oneself.

Portrait of her Dying Grandfather, by Charlotte Salomon (Germany) 1943

​Dr. Ludwig Grunwald 
Charlotte Salomon's Maternal Grandfather, Nice, 1943
 
She looked just like my younger daughter, whose name
was also Charlotte, who looked just like my older daughter 
Charlotte’s mother, who looked just like my wife – 
how the hell do you expect me to tell 
the difference between all these women? Charlotte 
herself wrote, I became my mother, my grandmother, 
in fact, I was all the characters…I learned to travel their paths 
and become all of them, and I was the same. All women
for me are One Woman: O Persephone, O Demeter, 
O daughter, mother, under-world, over-world, O world, 
All One! All One with me in bed, in the kitchen, then
in the breeze from beyond the open window. 
 
There will always be another, and I’ll call her by the same name.

Rofeno Abbey Polyptych, by Ambrogio Lorenzetti (Italy) 1330-1335

I Imagine Charlotte Salomon On Vacation, Before the War

In the Museo Palazzo Corboli in Asciano, Italy, gazing  at Lorenzetti’s Triptych of St. Michael the Archangel. Her eyes piercing the painting and St. Michael the Archangel speaking in her mother’s voice, saying:  
 
           If Eve succumbed to the slithering 
           suggestions of just the one-headed serpent, 
 
           how am I to resist this hissing, hepta-
           headed, polka-dotted beast? Its bloated 
 
           belly the very writhing ground beneath 
           my booted feet. In my left hand, a lance: 
 
           it can’t prick the snake’s persuasive song. 
           In my right, a scythe, all might. It can’t stop 
 
           the sound, the seductive sound 
           slinking through my outer blood-
 
           rush cape, my inner pink-blush 
           cloak, my entire mind full of – 
           you will not surely die – my wings, 
           all golden shimmer, decorative – 
 
          my eyes – locked with this long-tongued- 
          one seducing me, your eyes will open, you will 
 
          be like God, this lullaby sung since my blue 
          birth. It’s clear who’s winning here. 
 
I imagine Charlotte responding, shouting: 
 
          Where would I fly off to anyway, and who would I be 
          if not embattled with this creature encircling me?
 
Maya Bernstein 
 
Maya Bernstein is a poet, musician, and facilitator who explores intersections: between the sacred and the everyday, tradition and innovation, freedom and restriction.