My Performance Was Contrary to Traditional Orientations

Painting by Graeme King


MY PERFORMANCE WAS CONTRARY
TO TRADITIONAL ORIENTATIONS

Three, yes, three somersaults in a void, in
A void, three,
I spun around three times, spin-
Ing, whirling around in the cosmos, I

Felt like the fossil of an extinct species
pressed atop as outline on a rock surface
where two rocks
Met to form a dark crevice, gapped at

By tourists,
Who designated the shadow-darkened space
a black snake,
or the flung whip of a costumed lackey
forcing merry-go-round metal,
gold sprayed painted braids,
to gallop as enamel-painted simulations,
sliding up and down on a brass pole,
or a rune with a lost meaning.

I heard the audience beneath,
the sound distorted, quasi-
Inaudible, but interpreted that it was said,
“He performed three circles.”

Many said it, many said the same thing,
and not one
Of them knew what they meant
When they reduced my Japanese spinning in air
To a simple geometric figures.

But that is a relationship to an audience, we
Perform what we feel to be misunderstood,
To be reduced to a familiarity that is false.


Duane Locke

Posted over on The Sound of Poetry Review