visiting the drowned man on valentine’s day
referencing Jozef Israëls’ “Fishermen carrying a Drowned Man” and other works housed in the National Gallery
The drowned fisherman is not on view. I see the Old Man holding a Pilgrim Bottle instead. Witness Perseus turn Phineas and his followers to stone. I never knew men turned first from their eyes then— Well no. Perhaps it’s in proximity to Medusa as Phineas seems to have gone fingers first. The man downed in the back a mere gesture in oil paints. Her head looks so small there in his grasp. Callous men really do all hold the same fist. I wish I could say that she looks tired. How many tons of stone laid at her gaze… Not one mention of the kind. Is it all the same or dependent on personality? Personal sins? Birth-place? She looks petrified and slack. Tchaikovsky is not the right music for this. I revisit the seemingly sunken city of Joseph Mallord William Turner, remember my dreams of similar scenes. Pale stone cattywampus in the ocean. Cotton-clad bodies sliding towards the surf knowing we will all become fish. I prefer Claude’s seaport awaiting the Queen of Sheba. The sun simplified to an off-kilter glimmer. I listen to Hildur. I always end back up at the Execution of Lady Jane Grey. Overwhelmed by its light, the chords falling off one of her ladies, her mouth slightly agape— You can feel the height of this piece. The air feels crisp up here. I expect to see my breath jettison out in front of me. I hold it in as to not blow away the brushstrokes of straw below the chopping block. I can even hear the thud the axe made when placed on the ground. We both feel heavy in this moment. Except I am without counterweight. Sharp edge like the rim of my glasses. The lady knows I am here witnessing her demise on Valentine’s Day. Eyeless she is. Seeming to reach out for Medusa’s head across the hall. The shadows of her blindfold across the tear trough beckon to me. Beg me to turn away and allow her this last private moment no matter how many times I’ve been sat here rum-soaked with headphones on. Nevertheless I leave her encased in varnish, move on to Friedrich’s Winter Landscape, pray there with the man in the snow until the promise of whiskey carries me out the door.
Burnt honey and chamomile. Gin and benedictine. I’m not quite sure the drowned man is another fisherman. It’s just assumed on my part from the tender way the fishermen carry him ashore. What if he was entirely wayward? Fleshy driftwood turned green and tannin-less. I, like him, am waterlogged by sorrow and salt.
My ink is cold.
I am once again confronted with the sense of drowning on air, I write about it enough don’t I? Or maybe I’ve never written it just right. Breath studies origamied under my tongue. I feel the eyes of the room. At least the fisherman are courteous enough to shield theirs. Or they were unconcerned with me. However, they’ve followed me into the bar. Darkened faces burrowing tiredness, knuckles white around the bloating body of the fallen. They gave their sweat back to the sea in heaving him up. Eyes swung low, workwear heavy with wet, feet squelchy in the marsh. The final everything fast settling into the earth. And the boat, shattering in the haze, horizon collapsing around it, collapsing in my periphery, collapsing into my glass—what a sight.
[unfinished for now. i will continue to write about the drowned man until i too am viridescent and deluged.]
images referenced can be found in my visual diary on pinterest
