22.08.12 Leopoldine Museum

22-The Leopold Museum was what was in store for today. Our final tour with Doctor O unfortunately, but she took us around the few floors showing the history of Klimt and Schiele more than anything. Leopold started his collection after inheriting a stamp collection worth more than I’ve ever thought a stamp collection could be. With this money he got a few paintings, including some Klimt, to get himself started. We went over countless postcards of Klimt’s, but I wish the one was shown of his lifelong, platonic partner, where it reveals she knew about his syphilis and would have nothing to do with that. I forgot to ask if he’s always so prominently displayed or if that is only because this is the 100th anniversary of his life. I wonder how big things will be for Schiele. Doctor O also pointed out his painting of the nun and priest to me, and her explanation of the painting definitely helped my efforts and gave me some material to research and incorporate into the poem I am working on, also about the Kiss. The mentioning of the feet, their dirt and humanity, has given me a new way of looking at the moss in my own poem:

A Statuette

Tension between their lips, almost touching

stopped in a moment of intrusion

Her arm curves around his neck

fingernails taste his skin

She guides him as much as he holds her

A convergence perfectly balanced

Moss blankets them, their bodies

tinged by years of dirt and rain

Though they did not move

I knew them to be my parents

I glide my hand over the definitions of his arms

and down the long curve of her back

My mother’s skin fragile despite the stone

as though the wind had carved her into existence

I place my hand against my father’s stomach

And wait there for a sign of breath

The wet moss is cool in morning sun

it cushions my touch as I smear the dirt

I place my face between their breasts,

breathe in the earth and stone, warmth impenetrable

I’ve still more work to do on this piece, but I know finally what direction I want to take it. 

Word of the Day: der Verstand: The mind.

Ich bin außerhalb des meinem Verstandes