The Photographer’s Dilemma
Charl-Pierre Naudé
The young woman had blonde hair
and light freckles all over her body.
She had spent much time in the sun.
Only much later did police
find the negative.
At the dead of night.
The moon was shining bright.
The body was hidden under vines
where she went to seek sanctuary.
Her hair was jetblack and plastered with brine.
And the corpse covered with brown moths.
They fluttered up in the torch’s light.
“Exposure,” the inquest found.
“Yes,” the photographer testified.
“By exposure.”
Everybody knew
there had been a tragedy.
Eventually the town was found.
They did the official excavations:
bodies, and trees, perfectly preserved.
“Petrifaction,” said the investigators.
No difference between the church icons
and the townspeople that perished.
Just another time scale ...
“Yes,” said the sculptor.
“Petrifaction indeed.”
(Thanks for being here, ladies and gentlemen,
said the eminent judge.
Shall we proceed?)
Now this is where
the nightmare occurred.
The tightrope-walker plunged
eleven storeys to his death.
See for yourself.
There is the bed.
That is where he had the dream.
“Stone dead,” concluded the detective.
“Laid out, once and for all.”
“Apparently so,” mused the performance artist.
(Follow me, said the prime minister.)
That is not all.
Archaeologists in conjunction with scientists
have made a startling find.
The clay pots of antiquity
recorded voices from afar and around them
during the baking process, at sub-hearing level.
These are the world’s first phono records.
They contain evidence of terrible things.
There should be a truth commission.
A woman’s head was cut off
while she glowed in front of her oven.
A thousand years later
she still gargles in her own blood.
The spirit of the jilted lover
still squeaks like a chicken,
depending on how fast you spin the pot.
“Sinister,” said the forensic assistant.
On analysis of a vase the music
of the stars was found to be in it.
At that exact moment ceramic bowls
came flying through the air,
the painted peacocks on them
folding out their fans in a flurry of colour;
as if the clay were still expanding.
One vessel even had the first
dyed bra inside, hidden there by Mozart.
Another had an incredibly small shoe in it,
snatched from a fairy tale,
the crushed bones still inside.
Ah, the magic, the poltergeist:
it was none other than the voice of an opera singer.
“Incredible!” sang the opera singer.
“Mindblowing!” answered his female lead.
“Oh yeah! Oh yes! Oh yes, oh yes, Yes!”
Which brings us to the boudoir.
(Follow me please, gentlemen
and gentle women ...)
Here you see a woman on her haunches.
The press wrote extensively about it a few years ago.
Naked on her sleeping mat, arms
hanging at her beautiful sides.
As if she is rowing
a dug-out canoe, can you see?
Listen to the ripples …
She bends forward
into position
and eventually topples over
with a soft cry.
Felled by a single arrow.
Or a bullet, for that matter.
Her head held lovingly
from behind, by whom?
Her lover.
They both start laughing.
Yes, by the Western world.
Isn’t it a shame?
Is this really love?
“I’m afraid so,” says the poet.
“Metaphorically speaking ...”
“Murderers! Killers! Psychopaths!”
cried the spokesmen.
Undoubtedly, agreed the artists.
Thanks for coming, gentlemen
and gentle women, said the investigator.
You are now under arrest.
“Do you really think
anyone believes your innocence
just because you say you want to help us?”
You invert reality
in order to show it?
“Liars, confounders!”
You shed the truth
in order to be truthful?
“Fraudsters, cheats!”
You relativise everything
for the sake of perspective?
“Blasphemers! Forgers! Tax evaders!”
Approach an issue from two WHAT …?
“Double nationals! Sodomisers!
Devil’s Advocate, my arse!”
You there, photographer!
There are things that we cannot
be proud of as citizens, as good Africans.
The Human Eye, for instance.
Let’s admit it but not embrace it.
It turns the whole world
on its head in order to show it upright.
This is nothing other than hereditary sin,
ladies and gentlemen.
To capture someone who died in her prime,
and then to say she lives for ever?
You there, sculptor
poet, singer, artist!
That poor woman at her outside oven,
somebody will have to carry the blame
for the potter;
in clamps.
If he sings, so much the better.
Tragedian, you are guilty
of all the world’s unhappy endings.
And you musician, for all the discord!
“Arrested,
what do you mean?”
asked the assembled troupe.
Take the sculptor for instance,
the spokesmen replied.
The sculptor will be arrested,
like the movement of his images.
And henceforth the photographer
will be framed like her pictures.
The performance artist was then put in chains,
as in all his stunts;
the tragedian sentenced to exile
just like in Act Three;
and the musician recorded
24 hours a day with a bugging device.
What is the main charge? they asked.
Bringing irreparable harm to the world,
the answer.
You have identified unequivocally
with the horror of your subjects;
you even made them look beautiful.
Something we as governments
can’t recommend.
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