In Brian Boyd’s poem depicting images of and by the social realist painter David Alfaro Siqueiros, who was one of the most famous Mexican muralists, we see a man of his times becoming, in a sense, timeless—timeless because his work survives, timeless because his life and work urgently speak to our times, timeless because Brian Boyd has brought him before our eyes and given us such a beautiful sense of this man’s span of life and courage. Boyd uses a kind of anaphora, repeating the phrases “the left hand” and “the right hand,” to build an energetic and urgent portrait of an artist who was willing to use his hands to speak back to power. How timely is that? Siqueiros, through Boyd, is indeed holding a mirror up to us and asking the question we all have to keep asking ourselves in times like this, a timeless question, indeed.
Brian Boyd writes short fiction, poems, and art journalism, and his work has appeared in Litro, The New Yorker, Amjambo Africa, and CAA Reviews. He teaches English in Maine to visitors and immigrants from around the world.
—Betsy Sholl, Maine Arts Journal Poetry Editor
The Hands of David Alfaro Siqueiros
The left hand of Siqueiros grips the bars of his cell in Lecumberri Prison
where he’s serving eight years for leading protests and criticizing the president,
the right hand of Siqueiros points to the capitalist in a top hat stealing
sulfur and zinc from impoverished miners while a teacher is bludgeoned
with the butt of a rifle,
the left hand of Siqueiros holds a mirror that is a snapshot that is a window,
his head is a bronze bust is a jadeite Olmec mask is the Maize God spray-painted
on a city wall,
the right hand of Siqueiros punches the museum glass from the inside, fingernails a bone border
between death and the color of the universe,
the two hands of Siqueiros circle the wrist of a dying compañero and wash away his blood in
the river,
the left hand of Siqueiros curls like a condor’s claws,
the right hand of Siqueiros is hired to paint a mural of Tropical America for the 1932 Olympics
in Los Angeles and so places at the center an Indigenous man crucified by US capitalists
whereupon the mural is immediately whitewashed by those who commissioned it,
the left hand of Siqueiros thrusts palm first through the bars of Lecumberri Prison demanding
an end to police brutality while his eyes ask what are YOU doing to fight fascists,
the painting hand of Siqueiros is buried deep in his pocket.
You know you can’t kill an old baseball player, he said when he was released in 1964,
I’m happy to be free again for my art and for my politics.
Image at top: Héctor García Cobos, David Alfaro Siqueiros (in Lecumberri Prison, México, D.F.), 1960, Fundación María y Héctor García.