Untitled 404
(After a Cindy Sherman Photograph)
Recently someone scolded me for speaking about Cindy Sherman because
Cindy Sherman was an instrument of the patriarchy
Like an evil saxophone, that only plays hold music for a bank
Bad financial jazz pouring out of the telephone
O sometimes I get so tired I want to blow the stars out, one by one
Every year people demand to know what art is feminist and what art is
un-feminist
Sometimes I wonder if it’s ethical to be a woman at all
It’s a great stupidity to waste your life on right-seeming behaviour
Like putting a coin in a jukebox that only plays whale song
I like this picture because it reminds me of loneliness
And the great, unspecific boredom of life
It’s the expression I get every time someone tries to hold me accountable
for my artistic wrongdoings
The critical theorists advancing, with black leather pompoms
Once there was a time in which I had many ideologies
Many self-pleasing ideologies with which to chastise others
The theme of these ideologies was: however wrong you are, that is the exact
amount I am right by
I felt them in my blood like too much money
Once upon a time, I had many ideologies
Many superior ideologies, with which to cheerfully educate
my family and friends
Forget crying myself to sleep, I wanted to cry everyone else there
Then drive off in my Cadillac, my black wig blowing
Once upon a time I had many ideologies
And by ideologies I mean specific ideas about things other people should and
shouldn’t do
But proving yourself right is a bad career
Then you have to prove yourself even righter, in a blue satin pantsuit
Sometimes the world is so backwards all you can do is stare
Stare and stare, from out behind your waterproof mascara
Oh it’s a great responsibility to be your own misogynist
There are so many beaded handbags with which to oppress yourself
I don’t think the great project of art is ideological messaging time
Like Monet, spelling ‘fuck you’ in waterlilies
All I want is to pour my eyes into the world
The sunset blazing overhead like too much eyeshadow
People are always on the lookout for new ideologies with which to punish
themselves
Contemporary ideologies, studded with hashtags
It’s like not being able to wear a sexy nurse outfit unless you apply for a sexy
medical licence
You have to take someone’s blood pressure with your skirt hiked up
There are a lot of punishments in this world
And some of these punishments look a lot like day to day life
Some things cannot be transformed, only endured
The moon shining over all of us, with its clean white handrail
The imperative to be correct is the great failure of the left
Sometimes you just want to wash iceberg lettuce in quiet despair
It’s like buying a second wig, and putting it on over the wig
you’re already wearing
You cry and cry, impressing no-one
By Hera Lindsay Bird
Check out other work in the Strange Faces Other Minds series here.