Slapstick in Lipstick

" Slapstick in Lipstick "

by Suzán Jiván

Vaudevillian
slapstick in lipstick
intermittently seen
as piece offerings
in a chic dress
and high heels
while sitting
primly
on a balcony
complete
with walkie-
talkies
for refugees
as words
pop
onto a screen
suggestively
like age-old
notions
of identity
thought to be
beleaguering
after an unveiling
unexposed
and unmapped
in historical matters
of cantilevered detail
expanding and contracting to scale
with a kind of jet lag on a sprawling
scaffolding of early examples
of unswept hair especially flared
like heirlooms rarely surpassed
by longstanding hallucinatory drawings
of porcelain orbs
As supernatural as stop-action
on a smudgy canvas
of the old-fashioned
Heavily impastoed
segments of dance
like mind travel with ballast
Occasionally dabbling
with the dramatic
out of context
with feminist gestures
hanging
at different levels
Compelled
by the contentious
being
portrayed as vacuous
praise
like fleeting creations
of independent labels
with nothing except
the legitimacy
of the still image
printed
in millimeters
whisked
without incident
into silent films...