Performance Jinx By Mara Lemanis

 

Performance Jinx

I live inside a body
that moves in space
with no safe place
just a corpuscle
of locomotion
performing an act
based on a pact
made in heaven or hell
not the place where I dwell

My body obeys a trajectory
designed by a digital factory
that assembled my parts
to perform certain arts
on digital platforms
on stages suborned
that shake and swerve
toward clients who
cheer and slur
they bark
—Give us art that is smart
Show how you dance
in a trance with a tiger
she’s starved
do you fight her
turn her claws outside in?
We bet you get mauled
but of course
you could win…

I feel my platform sink
the stage beneath me shrink
—Make our day, voices cry,
we pay, you deliver
we won’t stay
for stale drivel…
Listen, I say

I give you a sound
like glory unbound
the meter
fits and starts
the pitch shoots
diamond darts
the scale leaps
bones sing
stones break
at the beat of
jet black wings
—What a bore
they exclaim
we want more
show us the store
that keeps us free
of poverty
we need guarantees
of security
How will we endure?
give us a cure…

My platform shakes
my footing brakes
I show them banks
with chromium flanks
—Show us the room
where the big money talks
give us the key that
opens the vaults…
I sense something dire
their stage going viral
—We are afraid!
crooks will seize
our weal
rob our wealth
give us art to
stop their stealth
make them feel
make them fear…

That sounds drear
I suggest
a long career
without cheer
—We need protection
you sell defection
you prorate our fate
we know what we own
we won’t let it get blown…
But how can you act
before the fact?
perform your outrage
on some fake stage?
—We act from tradition
we scorn sedition…
What do you propose?
—Barbed wire and a methane hose —
A gnarly restitution
not in the Constitution
—Dude, your performance stinks
You’re fired, son of a jinx!

As I hover on my platform
I see their stage conform
to the shape of a munitions fort
grenades, rifles, drone transport
my mind is fraught
with a persistent thought
How do you know
who your enemies are?
—Their eyes are beady
their mouths greedy
their clothes seedy…
look…over there!
we see their glare…

Heat in hand they make a raid
on figures basking in a glade
the figures rise
their eyes like glass
ricochet the raiders’ blasts
as assailants stare
full-bore the eyes of
enemies cast back
the image of their
self-same visage
as they share
the viral stage
with alt-performers
their fear can
nought assuage

                                                                                                             Mara Lemanis

 

 

 

 

Mara Lemanis

Biography: Mara Lemanis is a literary scholar. Her essays have been selected for 20th CENTURY LITERARY CRITICISM and are included in undergraduate student textbooks in the U.S.

She has worked as an archivist for Historical Preservation and with the IRC, assisting refugees in Oakland, California.