11 figures, wombs of stone, like the charred of auschwitz,
eyes dug from death before death was named, lie strewn, almost casually,
disregarding.
11 figures, neither of word nor opposed, without memory,
without dreams, lie on their random pedestals, in a gallery of moors with night
for walls, indifference for a ceiling, unmeasured time for a floor.
11 figures, as if they are acquainted not through anything
resembling knowledge but in their geometric relations and the nature of their
eyes which do not meet, lie in a gallery, without purpose, uncouth.
11 figures, though in a space that could be fathomless, seem
to consume space, not through any sight, for no one sees, but through the
presence of a quality that might be a function of their being stone.
11 figures, of a poverty so vast they would be saints if it
weren’t for the lack of word and regard and function, lie in silence as you do
in hope and pain.
Their faces—though this is too friendly a name for what
might be claimed to be an aspect of their uncanny heads—somehow point to the
palette of the human heart, without colour, expression, experience or capacity.
11 figures, notwithstanding their lack of legal rights and
freedoms, are chained to a law that knows no rights, to a freedom that
resembles black’s freedom to be black.
11 figures, belonging to various clubs of dismemberment and
mutilations so unorthodox we might recognize them only when mad or in the pit
of love, lie, as if they are exhausted by their very immobility.
11 figures, with holes for brains and hearts and eyes and
gods, are and have been—though to be is
too strong a word for such conditions and are
and have been require a tense not yet
available in language—of this gallery bereft of names and limits and will be.
11 figures, women, erotic in their unattractiveness, some
wearing dresses, others outside of fashion, are as if they themselves were born
of something that preceded stone.
11 figures lie—can we say in wait in such conditions?—and could we—if we were ever capable of
entering a space that wasn’t full of waiting—say what lies so heavily upon
them, who lack our hearts?
No comments:
Post a Comment