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BoschGED MiddleP.tiff

ART: Hieronymus Gosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights, Middle Panel, Left Portion

An Asian at the Prado

So self-consciously (maybe ‘self-reflexively’

Would be the better word), I roam 

The hallways and galleries of Spain’s 

Museo Nacional del Prado. Oh, I am not clad 

In any “ethnic” habiliment to make me feel 

Properly shy, strange, or foreign on these

Shiny floors, looking up, maybe gawkingly,

At the Maja Desnuda (while ignoring

The Maja Vestida), or the horror of Saturn

Devouring his son, the peasants’ terror

Facing the fusillade in El Tres de Mayo,

Or even the illusions of royalty and mirrors

In the lovely Las Meninas, the resplendent

Sinfulness of the Garden of Earthly Delights…

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And countless frames of Rubens, Titian, 

El Greco―whose titles escape me now, 

And all of them watching me back as if

I am an exhibit myself: Clad in Khmer silk 

Of loose pants and bolero, or the Visayan

Pintado in loincloth and tattoos straight out

Of the Boxer Codex, or even more 

Recent, the Katipunan guards’ Rayadillo. 

But that is all pretend and in hindsight 

As I play the only souvenir I brought back 

From the Prado’s basement café: a couple 

Of CDs of Andalusian Cante hondo, the sonorous 

Tabor pipe and Euskara lyrics of Radical Rock

From the Basque Country. Which is just as well

Because I like to imagine myself lingering

At the Museo, strutting defiant with my 

Proud and unrepentant postcolonial ego.

 

 

Marne Kilates

2 September 2021

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