Easter Sunday (ups, now it became Monday) - some will try their luck today (again): bunny hop. No, not on a bike but on a boat, not a small obstacle but the Mediterranean. A miracle so to speak. Overload and too little wood or plastic to surf the open sea, too little horse power to ride against the waves. A nutshell, out on a pond. Ascension may come but how deep is the fall before and how to revive? The slow descend into another element, life bringing substance that brings death. Too salty and too much of it. How much can you take before engulfing it all, becoming sea, never to be pulled ashore?
A day like this, when the story of the pain of a human is brought to her first triumphant climax, when the white and red lights are cast upon earth after the storm has passed and the material temple has been scarred, on a day like this not only the new arrivants are present in their hopefull bunny hop. Many ancient, old, new and untold stories of deceit, imprisonment, torture, struggle for survival, staring gazes and loud cheering to one's death are present as well. Two of them searched a voice and found a humble vase of words stuck to the silk of this digital web. Here they are.
Number one pushed to be written a month ago in Venice and published today online. It is the well-known ordeal of a woman of the tribe of San, brought to England by a cunning doctor, portrayed, exposed, commented and written about, laughed at, used and abused both in England and in France by the supposedly most learned and fortunate men of the Empires. It is no other but the woman that was named The Hottentot Venus. There are disputes if Saartjie Baartman is her real name or merely the first one to be imposed by a European. For those who don't want to read: The Cyrcles Edge offers image and sound followed about a rant.
In any case: there exist two literary translations of her and her story. The South African poet Diana Ferrus wrote a "A poem for Sarah Baartman" that may have influenced the French minister of research and law makers to return the long displayed remains to South Africa in 2002. Secondly, a play has been written and produced by Suzan-Lori Parks titled "The Hottentot Venus". They are both better researched and probably written with more premeditation. Probably they could defend themselves better against the criticism of writing about things "they don't really know about". I confess that my lines are written by a sudden shiver in the spinal cord whilst hearing for the first time about this woman-in-constant-exposition.
Fi nameless 'uman on display
1029180311 Ca' Foscari
You standing in a cage they put around
you are moved into the lights of Empire
as a shadow under scrutiny
by pale darkness with gloomy eyes
and spit drooling from open mouths
You sitting in your cage whilst
the latest buyer fucks your great
anatomy right from behind
are running the savannah
behind tearing eyes
are lying on a beach
beneath your burning skin
where the marks of insecure
short dicked bullies write
H U M I L I A T I O N
on your ample body's lush widths
where herds of eyes graze upon
eating the light and reflection of your
nameless beauty of Otherness
May your parts fully rest in peace
and may the eyes now close shut tight
May the show be over and done
May the show be over and out
May the show be gone
Rest in peace and respect
Number two has to do with a similar exposition of bodies. But this time in ancient times and in a bloodier way. Gladiators in the Collisseum. Not the way the Hollywood movie portrays it. Not entirely at least.
glad? later.
maybe one is glad later
but as a gladiator
I is just another slave
on the way to work myself
to death
The games are promised
to thrive
for 101 days...
The Roman plebs is hungry
and blood must run
and entertainment come
If no good show this Caesar must run
Senate might even return
He don't want no run
Thus blood
from enslaved people
out of the cages into the arena
from the underground
to the spot of some thousand eyes
to this roar and this stomping
I had never heard before
Like an over-sized elephant herd
fleeing bush fire
Maybe one is glad later
but how should I survive
if summoned on inauguration day
with another hundred days to go
Luck
and a fingertip of earth powers
and a fingertip of star dust
and a fingertip of water from the Tiber
might prove to be enough
if spent wisely
But now out come
the hungry lions
and maybe I am glad later
but now I got to fight
or fall victim to sharp teeth
whilst the masses cheer and laugh
at my bloody death
