Is it art or politics
that make statues come to life?
A form of afterlife on a plinth.
Like dying twice.
Statues have history.
They are not neutral.
They represent our approval
but whose epitaph should we celebrate?
Effigies rely on peoples ignorance.
But who were they? Public benefactors
or private tyrants. It’s like looking at yesterdays
dark in today’s light.
Are they figures sculpted from old wrongs?
Highly polished versions of bygone days
that reflect a former gleam of glory.
But whose and why?
They are memorials to personal wealth and status.
Should we pay homage to almighty money?
Would that be like bestowing a kiss
in a nightmare?
If reputations are ruined should they
be restored? Can they be redeemed
by revealing displays
in public parks?
For time has conspired to delude us.
Celebrations of the past
can betray the present.
Yesterday’s birth, today’s funeral.
So do we need to carry a
dead weight upon our past?
A hostile encounter, a posthumous demand
for dead ideas whose time has passed?
