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Artwork: Many the Clown by Will Jacques
At the Neon Circus
Stephanie M. Wytovich
Stuffed inside a cello case at the neon circus,
the technicolor glow of chipped face paint caught my eye,
reminded me of red and white tents and cotton candy holograms,
of hallucinatory harmonics and mechanique ballets,
but trapped inside this clockwork catastrophe, this industrial imprisonment,
I twitch, I malfunction, I short-circuit in freak-show electrocution,
Too excited at the prospect of dancers, at the idea of animatronic musicians
Returning to play with me once again,
but
no one ever comes and yet still I pluck my own strings
a
solo-performer auto programmed to self-destruct,
my
left eye blinking, my right eye stagnant, sealed shut from
low
ticket sales and poor attendance, a forever artist, starving, thirsty…
I scratch the leather case, my steel fingernails a thorn
in the upholstery,
wonder what it would be like to oil my lungs, to sing hypnosis again,
to belt out those automatic musings programmed in my head—
the
ones that don’t stop,
the
ones that repeat,
forever
playing
over
and over and over again…
Yes, these fever dreams of opera! These salt mines of
un-cried tears!
I tune myself to the sound of bombings, to the sad wails of Italian
poets,
to the weary stares of painters with cubist faces scarred by seismic
ruin,
but the countdown to my annihilation wears taut against my routine
and bound by my master’s hand, I die to save art, to save humans:
listen to me, silent. Play me, loud.
I
never wanted to stop
I
always wanted to play
forever
performing
over
and over and over again.
