Jennifer MacBain-Stephens

Mixed Media Artist Jenny Holzer Speaks to Me From the 90’s

Neon letter boxes infect Times Square
Holzer was obsessed with sex and war
I wish I could have seen your prophetic
billboards above strip clubs, Jenny:
Abuse of power comes as no surprise --
The contrast of pixelated dots
Hung over pasties in display windows, rat bodies
gleam like slaps. Her signs
loomed over saliva splattered concrete.
Always blockade, always the same font,
(She would never use “Freestyle Script.”)
She inhabits disembodied words.
Lines hang in the air
two inches from ghost mouths.
Which came first --
the words or the mouth?
I am angry with you, Jenny.
All I wanted was to see
your pretty pink mouth
forming these words:
men cannot protect you anymore
In the Field museum
At that Biennale in Venice
At the Guggenheim.
I don’t even know myself anymore.
I thought I was bright
and elucidated brightness.
When I read your words
I know I am still searching
for myself.
Jenny posts
Your awful language is in the air by my head
I am on the corner of 42nd Street
and Broadway, pushing bodies like pencils,
no words in sight.

---

Lustmord

Jenny Holzer says all wars start as a secret.
She inks models’ skin with letters, sentences
My eyes are sore from moving against your palm
Some phrases carry a hint of threat
Of women squatting
Of being taken
She makes me want to
slam the book shut
take a shower, get a haircut.
Self-awareness can be crippling.
The information age blew our
brains open.
Terrorists stream live video,
machete all the words.
In the desert it takes
longer to find a dictionary,
longer still to locate
synapse centers,
palm a sound,
hold it in your throat
swish it around
claim one last guttural noose.
War is a purification rite.
There are no emoticons
in dictatorships, Jenny.
Pandas eating jellybeans,
cherry cola bottle,
kitty holding heart,
to ease all of that
genocide.
The air turns smelly.
A dead rat trapped under the fridge word.
A rotten chicken breast word.
A cacophonic fly swarm word.
A dog rolling in its own vomit word.
You are trapped in these words so you will explode.