I am Not a Display
Look at me and see my eyes
Take a gander, what an odd sight
There’s a dog in this light
Perfect white walls and wooden floors
What a frame
A perfect cube
And see me through the door
An empty room, a latch, a yellow rope
And a dog alone on the floor
No food, no water, no paper, no mess
Not on my side
There’s no mess on my side
But where you are
Are you still looking at me?
Don’t you see something?
Perhaps sickness, perhaps disease
Perhaps the poverty of not even being
Human or rich or anything but mute
Look for guidance
A statement
Do you see it in my eyes?
This is suffering and its here for you
So bourgeois a concept to display
I hope it hurts you, but not for vengeance
I’m not mean, I’m sorry.
I’m sorry for you
To you who my sight hurts
A mongrel, a diseased mutt that slowly dies
Who without this gallery would die alone
I hope it hurts, because when I die here
I take a little of those who care with me
And they take a little of me with them
And that’s all I ever really wanted
A home and a place to feel safe
With people I love and who love me
It’s so simple, you see it in my eyes
That’s not the way things were meant to be
So here I am in this perfect cube
This gallery
This brilliant frame
This place for freedom of thought
This place for humans to celebrate life
This place for humans to ponder their tragedy
This place of thought, hope, sorrow, love, life
AND I AM NOT A DISPLAY
You who see it in my eyes
You know
I AM NOT A DISPLAY
I am not your art
I am not your toy
I am not your prank
I am alive and living
And you who see it in my eyes know
YOU KNOW WHAT THIS IS
There is no art here in this cube
This is not the art of suffering
This is the suffering!
This is not a comment upon life
This is Life
And however tragic it would be
This is my life to live
You who see it in my eyes, you know
You know, and you try
But there are those few
Those few who do not see it in my eyes
Who do not admit they see it in my eyes
They must ask about my suffering
They must compare it to themselves
As though the air they breathed were different
As if this rope separated they and I
Instead of their fear, their shame
They seek answers in this cube
This little frame
Their frame of reference
Their whitwashed frame of mind
The shuffling hard soled shoes tap the hard floor
The debates echo off the perfect walls
But I only hear the sound from those who see my eyes
Because then I hear the rip of a heart being torn away
While the rest past by this rough display
Like featureless plastic
It’s been three days
And I have to lay down
Do not worry for me
You can see my eyes
Worry for those who don’t
The ones who are asking,
“What is this?
What am I seeing?”
My vision is blurring
And I’m seeing Life
Do not worry for me
My eyes must close now
And those who never saw
Those who never looked in them
Will one day be falling down like me
And before them will flow Life like a river
Every moment they loved and hated
The moments that shaped them
Like I see you now
Those who suffered at least a moment with me
What beauty they had in life will be on display
For them to enjoy for one last moment
Like I feel your care for me right now
And they will only ask,
“What is this?
What am I seeing?”
White walls, bright lights
And this odd corpse, a dog.
No, there is no mess on my side.
–
This was written in a knee-jerk reaction to articles about the artist, Guillermo Habacuc Vargas in Costa Rica.
If you google his name, you will find out the whole issue easily.
Checking Snopes, I discovered there is some contention over details of the issue,
but my sister assures me the Spanish articles she’s read are showing
the same things as the American blogs.
