"Primitivism" Exhibit

Museum of Modern Art, 1984

In spite of admonitions not

to loose my psyche in this primal landscape

I get off on the wrong foot

misread Ibibio as libido

then must duck so as not to scrape

the Soul-catcher's noose of hanging O's.

Worse, there's God A'a, whose maggoty people

I take as a lesson in fleshcreep.

At the site of umbilicus, nipples

eyes, ears, nose, chin

hips and kneecaps

cling clay Lilliputians

upside down and sideways.

Leeches fasten like this in stagnant ponds

but nobody knows what the statue meant to say.

Maybe it was a frozen happening,

an art event on Rurutu Island.

Maybe a second, or 32nd, coming.

Longest I look at the dread

dog fetish, whose spiky back

is built of rusty razorblades

that World War II GI's let drop

on atolls in the South Pacific

they were securing from the Japs

who did not shave, but only plucked

stray hairs from chin and jowl.

I like the way he makes a funk-

y art out of cosmetic junk

standing the cutting edge of old steel

up straight to say, World, get off my back.