by the Cuban-born artist Wilfredo Prieto
It is the mystery of the colour-wheel
the black missing out of Matisse’s decoupages.
It is the canvas you ignored yesterday
and might use tomorrow.
It is
Mona Lisa at the Antipodes.
It is the unbroken hymen of a virgn bride
the exchange of caresses and embraces
Sidney Nolan’s snake skin molting.
It is the smell
of Tutankhamen’s open sarcophagus
decomposing mummies
the beauty of Nefertiti
and Cleopatra’s nose.
It is the taste of a horse’s carcass
and satisfied sex organs.
It is the buzzing of a thousand
dead flies framed into silence,
cascading words written in waterfalls,
video tapes knitted into masks
our armoured sons will wear
brandishing their swords.
It is
all the cards dealt
the die cast
the verbs you did not conjugate in the present
and the books left unread.
It is where i-poded robots will
imagine
draw
write
their future
will
take photos in white
to transform the ordinary
into the extraordinary.