SEVEN VIEWS OF PHOTOS AT AN EXHIBITION

SEVEN VIEWS OF PHOTOS AT AN EXHIBITION  

                                                            —to photos by Jan Bogaerts

1. In a sports stadium a knot of clergy flowering for the Pope.

Internecine wars dropped for an open-air mass.

Score: Visitors 3. Home 1. All in drag for the Holy Ghost.

2. Sequence cut: Everyone's masked at a charity ball,

even the hookers smoking in the wings.

One wears a chador. Nude from the waist down,

in nylons and heels, the star whore on a gurney

chalks up 187 men—all in a night's work.

Spent condoms dangle from numbered pegs

as contestants candidly look on for the camera.

Whoever has the most jism wins

the Championship Fucking Finals in Catholic Holland.

Where else? shrugs the photographer. (Audience laughs.)

3. Sequence cuts:

Michael Jackson, David Bowie & the Pope all have the crowd in mind.

You can tell by the red light in their eyes. The way they mouth the mike.

The way vestments of color drapes itself onto the walls for the camera lens.

4. Sequence cut to black and white:

A small town in Bavaria,

where Hitler built a train station for Mussolini:

With love, for the Good Old Boys.

Burning into memory’s retina,

color film couldn’t cope with the crime.

Spilled wine appears as black.

What of the gay queen at the carnival,

white face, sad cartoon eyes? So much meat.

5. The mist covers the crotch of the valley's shame.

Gravestones covered in plastic—

protected from winter’s hostile art.

It's a white Bavarian Christmas in Berchtesgaden.

Celebrating the birth of Christ with a vengeance,

a housefrau serenades a captive audience,

a nun grimly serves tea. Smiles cost time and money.

The oldest woman of the village prefers TV to gossiping villagers.

Who can blame her? Others watched their homes destroyed.

Michael Jackson's face would support entire villages of old women.

6. Masked young men come down from the mountains

to beat the villagers so they will fully repent for the occasion,

only the offer of a drink will silence their sticks.

All in good fun, they said, breaking the photographer's hands.

All in good fun, said Hitler as crematoriums burned.

Did he drink schnaaps in a gold-rimmed glass too?

His mask slipped to reveal another mask mirrored beneath green infinity.

Some swear he was God. Some know snow angels melt in spring.

What of the Pope? Michael Jackson’s gone from Black to white.

Horse of a different color. Rainbow of a different name.

7. Cowbells, a saint's crozier, grim men, folded arms

in front of tannenbaum; a crêche child in a coffin of hay.

A man grimaces for the camera,

another smiles while a fool looks on,

a full complement to the theater of saints.

Will they ever escape the mountains?

Verlichting en Belichting. A crucifix of light

repenting for our sins. The camera looks on.

9/92 Eindhoven, Holland


see  PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION  (short v.)