[from] Perspectives on The Spectacular Art of Public Suicide
by Brentley Frazer
[ poetry - july 04 ]
The blood cycle
1. Illusion has its own reality
That girl under dirt with a head wound
broken face once admired by boys in
class, on the side of the highway expired
as the bus tickets in her pockets and the
unspent change saved like the rest, to
get her out of here -
Evidence, the day she left the theme
party her friends forgot to mention
screaming that those who hold faith
in flags and fresh insignia are damned
to brandish weapons and oppress
the people... Most then departed on
the chance she would return, but I
searched and found her naked on
her side, sleeping in a field wrapped
in stars, blood drying on her wrists,
pointing at whatever horrors still
hover there, clawing at the veil.
2. The necrosis of the Buddha
The antimen dangle from the wires above.
Not the corpse, more a sound, the death
knell as the telephone rings and they ask
for money, that creak beyond his voice the ferry
of Salvation? Sailed into a long harboured burden.
Picked up parts of the child and placed them
in a suitcase. He heard it on the radio, a promotion,
an emperor to the throne. There will be a flag on his
coffin, a classical insertion of anything he pens,
angry soldiers with bayonets, should some colours offend.
Armies at his command, legions of aged voters and
children he can still convince. And in the interview he
said no more sitting on the fence, treaties are signed
with blood, our sons and daughters must be prepared
to die, it's in the national interest.
3. Perfect mirror, shattered mind
Excited and frightened like all children about the storm,
precise synaptic patterns mimicked by the lightening and
the thunder plays with the hearts of animals. There are
still arteries open in the inner mind, red lights that never
arrived to save her, sirens that could tear those veils
apart but not stop the flow of blood. I imagined there
to be nothing beyond the first luminary hour of weary
feasted yawns, chasing kites from dawn into the
idiot night, building fires beneath a less complicated
moon, Truth allowed to pass the apostates at the gates
unmolested, skirts intact. And who is there but the
Emperor himself dancing in a judges silly wig, serenading
the wine waitress with someone else's rhymes.
4. The reverse of reflection
Smooth technocratic people rub themselves up against
the media, equally permissive and reeking of elevator
trysts the new social moral code downloaded in .pdf
printed and distributed at the door. Somehow our
ecstasis keeps burping up from the drink fountain.
Civilisation supports our excess, the selfless fleshless
priest at the threshold of dreams flicking sliver
smiles all over the restaurant tables, holding up
severed his brothers union-labelled hand. There's
less room up there, it's full of children with floppy
arms dancing to scratchy records, several Arabs
at the door with fireflies, thirty attempts to get
your infinity gimmick before the audience rips out
your hair. Two within threw tiepins on the floor.
5. The base face
Now the superstructures stale as fast as radio's
decomposition, two men of culture setting gas
stations on fire, on CNN; no contradictions could
corner that girl with the bayonet, her face set to
a base nature of revenge; not even the lens flare
made her squint, peace or pieces, death the set
criterion. That journalist sensed his time remaining
eyeballed the briefcase as the girl started wailing,
blood rain in an occupied nation, someone's dad,
his entrails in a dirty camo carry bag. Go, don't
drag your tongue, run, they put the cosy on prisoners
here you know, especially romantic revolutionary ones.
You're no soldier, where are your guns, and those socks
you are wearing, made by your mum - I'll put a
knife in your arse boy, I'll show you de Sade, and
my dog trooper here will eat out your heart.
6. The voice union
Those two who threw their fraternal tiepins
to the floor have reformed and placed usurpation
on the table, established an order (some would
call a cabinet) a ritual dance with fleshy
pirouhettes, unnamed symbols in strange curved
temples, a million members from worlds away.
They have read Mitnick and are masters of deception
Euphemantics and corporate propaganda, from school
satchel to halls of power collecting weapons for
that imagined hour of need, the emergency, and if
it doesn't come, by god they'll manufacture one...
for the tribal mindform television magicians to serve
up glossy and digital edited, a new cultural clari -
fication; a monk on fire, just a spiritual expenditure.
