Early nineties,
they found a box behind reception labelled ‘lost anatomy’
opens it,
finds his voice.
They took our sounds for granted and crossed the lines ‘till the only thing our lips could do was flail,
they plugged us in with wires but no amps, back into the whitewashed walls and tied us up in graffitied corners, all the places where political shadows do nothing but lull out anaesthetic.
Mocked scenes from final destination,
the one where the subway train collides
encounters America’s tired hum and buzz.
The television upchucks static and we don’t know why it’s still switched on.
A child’s hand reaches out and plucks a seashell from an afro,
tries to hear the sea.
Looping, rippling and losing his rights each time a wave hits the shore.
The invisible nooses around our fingers rifle through an open book.
They told us that that much candy can rot your teeth
and the hand works its way up a room with a view where
tights aren’t tight
but no one ever notices the old man at closing time,
crying at the clocks.
Inspired by a 2015 Nottingham Contemporary exibition on voice, race, sexuality and gender (I'll add in the name when I remember). Favorite artworks in the show were Felix Gonzalez-Torres' "Untitled" (Perfect Lovers), 1991 and Bruce Nauman's "Run from Fear, Fun from Rear", 1972.
