“Still Life with Potatoes, Pearls, Raw Meat, Rhinestones, Lard, and Horse Hooves”
From Loose Womanby Sandra Cisneros
In Spanish it’snaturalezamuerta (natural death) and not life at all.
But certainly not natural. What’s natural?
You and me. I’ll buy you a drink.
To a woman who doesn’t act like a woman.
To a man who doesn’t act like a man.
Death is natural, at least in Spanish, I think.
Life? I’m not so sure.
Consider The Contessa, who in her time was lovely
and now sports a wart the size of this diamond.
So, ragazzo, you’re Venice.
To you.To Venice.
Not the one of Casanova.
The other one of cheap pensiones by the railway station.
I recommend a narrow bed stained with semen, pee, and sorrow facing the wall.
Stain and decay are romantic.
You’re positively Pasolini.
Likely to dangle and fandango yourself to death.
If we let you. I won’t let you!
Not to be outdone I’m Piazzolla.
I’ll tango for you in a lace G-string
stained with my first-day flow
and one sloppy tit leaping like a Niagara from my dress.
Did you say duress or dress?
Let’s sing a Puccini duet–I like La Traviesa.
I’ll be your trained monkey.
I’ll be sequin and bangle.
I’ll be Mae, Joan, Bette, Marlene for you–
I’ll be anything you ask. But ask me something glamorous.
Only make me laugh.
Another?
What I want to say, querido (my darling), is
hunger is not romantic to the hungry.
What I want to say is
fear is not so thrilling if you’re the one afraid.
What I want to say is
poverty’s not quaint when it’s your house you can’t escape from.
Decay’s not beautiful to the decayed.
What’s beauty?
Lipstick on a penis.
A kiss on a running sore.
A reptile stiletto that could puncture a heart.
A brick through the windshield that means I love you.
A hurt that bangs on the door.
Look, I hate to break this to you, but this isn’t Venice or Buenos Aires.
This is San Antonio.
That mirror isn’t a yard sale.
It’s a fire. And these are remnants
of what could be carried out and saved.
The pearls? I bought them at the Winn’s.
My mink?Genuine acrylic.
Thank God this isn’t Berlin.
Another drink?
Bartender, another bottle, but–
!Aycaray and oh dear!–
The pretty blond boy is no longer serving us.
To the death camps! To the death camps!
How rude! How vulgar!
Drink up, honey. I’ve got money.
Doesn’t he know who we are?
Quevivan los de abajo de los de abajo (long live the lowest of the low),
los de riendasuelta (the unleashed), the witches, the women,
the dangerous, the queer.
Quevivanlasperras (cheer for the bitches).
"Que me sirvanotrotrago (that they may serve me another drink) . . ."
I know a bar where they’ll buy us drinks
if I wear my skirt on my head and you come in wearing nothing
but my black brassiere.
In this poem, Cisneros compares the European standard of living and “fancy” behavior to the raw acceptance of her own reality and culture. In a mocking tone, she alludes to exotic, “sophistocated” places such as Italy and Brazil. When she says “I recommend a narrow bed stained with semen, pee, and sorrow facing the wall,” she darkens the reality of her mindset and her life compared to these dreamy, upper-class ideals of Europe and Brazil. She implies that she would rather have harsh reality than a glamorous ideal. She has experienced the “dirtier” parts of life, a life of poverty, prejudice, and oppression. This is also reflected when she says:
“What I want to say is
fear is not so thrilling if you’re the one afraid.
What I want to say is
poverty is not so quaint when it’s your house you can’t escape from.
Decay’s not beautiful to the decayed.”
This gives the idea that Cisneros has experienced fear, poverty, and decay, in ways that the upper-class wouldn’t understand. She wants to tear the fantasy of perfection found in her current surroundings, and shake up the dreamy European ideals that everyone reaches for. She is proud of her heritage, of not being bred into a white upper class family, and her pride is shown when she says, “doesn’t he know who we are?” in regards to the blond bartender who isn’t paying attention to her. She feels like she has to take drastic measures to be noticed by the “blond bartender,” or European/American people. She knows that she has seen more in life, and realizes she has more knowledge about both sides of the fence. In lines 39-44 (“What is beauty...A hurt that bangs on the door”) she wants beauty to be the harsh experiences in life that brings real meaning to her reality, instead of fluffed images and ideals of what her life should be. This connects with her own background, and being a Chicana woman who faces judgement from her own culture as well as from her Anglo-Saxon, American culture.
~Analysis by Cassidy Monette
From Loose Womanby Sandra Cisneros
In Spanish it’snaturalezamuerta (natural death) and not life at all.
But certainly not natural. What’s natural?
You and me. I’ll buy you a drink.
To a woman who doesn’t act like a woman.
To a man who doesn’t act like a man.
Death is natural, at least in Spanish, I think.
Life? I’m not so sure.
Consider The Contessa, who in her time was lovely
and now sports a wart the size of this diamond.
So, ragazzo, you’re Venice.
To you.To Venice.
Not the one of Casanova.
The other one of cheap pensiones by the railway station.
I recommend a narrow bed stained with semen, pee, and sorrow facing the wall.
Stain and decay are romantic.
You’re positively Pasolini.
Likely to dangle and fandango yourself to death.
If we let you. I won’t let you!
Not to be outdone I’m Piazzolla.
I’ll tango for you in a lace G-string
stained with my first-day flow
and one sloppy tit leaping like a Niagara from my dress.
Did you say duress or dress?
Let’s sing a Puccini duet–I like La Traviesa.
I’ll be your trained monkey.
I’ll be sequin and bangle.
I’ll be Mae, Joan, Bette, Marlene for you–
I’ll be anything you ask. But ask me something glamorous.
Only make me laugh.
Another?
What I want to say, querido (my darling), is
hunger is not romantic to the hungry.
What I want to say is
fear is not so thrilling if you’re the one afraid.
What I want to say is
poverty’s not quaint when it’s your house you can’t escape from.
Decay’s not beautiful to the decayed.
What’s beauty?
Lipstick on a penis.
A kiss on a running sore.
A reptile stiletto that could puncture a heart.
A brick through the windshield that means I love you.
A hurt that bangs on the door.
Look, I hate to break this to you, but this isn’t Venice or Buenos Aires.
This is San Antonio.
That mirror isn’t a yard sale.
It’s a fire. And these are remnants
of what could be carried out and saved.
The pearls? I bought them at the Winn’s.
My mink?Genuine acrylic.
Thank God this isn’t Berlin.
Another drink?
Bartender, another bottle, but–
!Aycaray and oh dear!–
The pretty blond boy is no longer serving us.
To the death camps! To the death camps!
How rude! How vulgar!
Drink up, honey. I’ve got money.
Doesn’t he know who we are?
Quevivan los de abajo de los de abajo (long live the lowest of the low),
los de riendasuelta (the unleashed), the witches, the women,
the dangerous, the queer.
Quevivanlasperras (cheer for the bitches).
"Que me sirvanotrotrago (that they may serve me another drink) . . ."
I know a bar where they’ll buy us drinks
if I wear my skirt on my head and you come in wearing nothing
but my black brassiere.
In this poem, Cisneros compares the European standard of living and “fancy” behavior to the raw acceptance of her own reality and culture. In a mocking tone, she alludes to exotic, “sophistocated” places such as Italy and Brazil. When she says “I recommend a narrow bed stained with semen, pee, and sorrow facing the wall,” she darkens the reality of her mindset and her life compared to these dreamy, upper-class ideals of Europe and Brazil. She implies that she would rather have harsh reality than a glamorous ideal. She has experienced the “dirtier” parts of life, a life of poverty, prejudice, and oppression. This is also reflected when she says:
“What I want to say is
fear is not so thrilling if you’re the one afraid.
What I want to say is
poverty is not so quaint when it’s your house you can’t escape from.
Decay’s not beautiful to the decayed.”
This gives the idea that Cisneros has experienced fear, poverty, and decay, in ways that the upper-class wouldn’t understand. She wants to tear the fantasy of perfection found in her current surroundings, and shake up the dreamy European ideals that everyone reaches for. She is proud of her heritage, of not being bred into a white upper class family, and her pride is shown when she says, “doesn’t he know who we are?” in regards to the blond bartender who isn’t paying attention to her. She feels like she has to take drastic measures to be noticed by the “blond bartender,” or European/American people. She knows that she has seen more in life, and realizes she has more knowledge about both sides of the fence. In lines 39-44 (“What is beauty...A hurt that bangs on the door”) she wants beauty to be the harsh experiences in life that brings real meaning to her reality, instead of fluffed images and ideals of what her life should be. This connects with her own background, and being a Chicana woman who faces judgement from her own culture as well as from her Anglo-Saxon, American culture.
~Analysis by Cassidy Monette