The Shed: The Daughter of Shadows Speaks from Max Beckmann's The Dream (1921), by Louis Bourgeois

The Dream, by Max Beckmann (Germany) 1921

The Shed: The Daughter of Shadows Speaks from Max Beckmann's The Dream (1921)

1.
Father holds the fish without hands.
His parted hair reveals dead eyes.
His prisoner's suit was bought in the fish market--
where his hands were amputated for stealing a carp.
He stands suspended in the air, looking down on us.
 
2.
My uncle plays a thick trumpet and laughs between notes.
He wears sandwich boards all day long in the streets,
but he does not beg, his pockets are always empty.
His blue sandals do not become him, and he laughs.
His name is Joseph, and he only speaks Hebrew at night.
 
3.
Mother does not have all her bones.
Her legs are sieves of flesh, folded at right angles.
The wheat grinder has taken her soul.
She smells of creosote and crabs,
her eyes are blackened and her hair thin.
 
4.
Mother holds the monkey in one hand,
in the other, the parrot, taken from the town's arbor.
They speak to each other, the three of them, 
they speak with soft tongues and liquid breath.
The dialogue destroys Mother, the monkey and parrot know this.

Louis Bourgeois

​​Louis Bourgeois was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is primarily a poet, but he has published translations, fiction, memoirs, poetry and interviews in over two hundred magazines and journals in North America, Europe and Asia. He graduated from Louisiana State University with a BA in English and was the first graduate of The University of Mississippi’s MFA program in Creative Writing.  He is the Executive Director of VOX PRESS, as well as the Program Director for the Mississippi Prison Writes Initiative.