La Poesia

Hector was exhausting his canvas. Precious few inches of skin were palatable, or legible according to some naysayers. Maybe the back of his neck. It was virgin skin, but not quite the size of canvas he desired for his ultimate work. Several months had passed, thirteen to be precise, and Hector refused to perform. True, he practiced daily, slicing and dicing, experimenting with his form, the figure of handwriting the brought his poetry to life. Maybe a cursive a on his heel, or a drooping p slightly above his cheekbone. His fingers were without tips. His agent has long since threatened to leave if Hector did not continue his parade of public appearances as he had signed in his contracts. You have made a commitment to be and before the law, his agent said, to turn your power of attorney over to me and. You have taken a solemn oath to forsake your free will and vest it in mine so that you may be rid of distractions. And yet, he continued, you have ignored my wishes and let your art, your movement wither and die. I gave you freedom, I set you free from your material distractions, and now, I take it away. That was the last Hector heard from his agent. Hector did not mind; his agent was uninitiated, and ignorance is the natural enemy of reason.

Then, he had it, a revelation, after thirteen months, a triumph to trump his last act of brilliance. He would unveil it at his next performance. Hector’s next appearance was at a slightly lesser venue than he had been accustomed to. Former gallery owners no longer wanted to be associated with the spectacle of blood that Hector’s once tame art movement had evolved into. His students, too, had become disenfranchised, soured by the lack of respect that they received from their peers. They had taken to splashing blood on each other, cow’s blood, mostly, in their performances, only seeking to disarm and disgust their audiences. Hector’s last student summed it up in his final verse, one written by Hector, and imparted by the student upon his right bicep with a small chisel and nail:

Despite their efforts, it seemed that the public’s fancy for self immolation had passed. However, Hector suspected that his public was eagerly awaiting his return, that his public understood his love for them, and his passion. He knew he could not disappoint them.

His new venue was in the alley behind fourth street, ensconced from the vulgar public, but with reach of his true fans, and not far from the corner where he began his career. They would come. Over a few days, he began to build his shrine. A broken car harbored the perfect ingredients. A windshield would act as the requisite glass barrier between the artist and the audience. Car mirrors were repurposed to guide Hector in his performance. He had created a complex chandelier of mirrors above an below his body, making almost every millimeter of his body visible from his work bench, which was created by lashing four tires together.

Hector could feel the passion burning, like his skin was on fire, and it must be cut to set forth the truth, his soul. His body was shaven, completely. His implements are well sharpened, and he has taken all his considerable money to create the world’s sharpest scalpel, made of pure diamond, that hardest substance known to humankind. He was quite glad to have this alley, and not some larger stage, since the money side of things could only cause him trouble. But, he began to long for the first days of his calling. He looked solemnly upon his body. Many fingers and toes were missing, at least he could not see them. One arm was numb, almost like an amputee talks about a missing limb. He longed for that day when he wrote a long poem down his forearm, one that started, I like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent.