Karl Marx wood sculpture
by Marvin Grayson
1917-2002
Marx in
Mahogany
for Marvin
Grayson
by Sherman Pearl
He’s still
standing
huge in your studio, balls-out
naked, muscular
as a Michelangelo deity
poised to crush
oppressors and uplift the
proletariat.
But I need to tell you, Marv, he
seems changed
by your death, more human, a
sad old prophet
grinding his wooden
teeth.
Oh, the face still tries to look
fierce, righteous
as the day you carved him.
But his brow
is furrowed with
contradictions,
his beard a tangle of
dialectics, the strands
can find no
synthesis. His eyes show
more past than
future; his vision
seems to be sandpapered
over. What’s left
are glimmers of
sorrow for those who’ve been
sacrificed
in his name. The hardwood
you chiseled him
from has shriveled a little,
cracks widened,
skin a bit darker and softer.
What’s
happened, I think,
is that your soul, having
no heaven but art,
is seeping into him.
He’s even
starting to look like you,
how you’d stand
in the studio,
surrounded by your creations,
molding ideas,
making revolutions.
Posted: Sat
- February 1, 2003 at 07:57 PM