Douglas Reid Skinner
Lady Gaga
Joan Hambidge
“Do
what you want
with
my body,” she taunts,
this
pale imitation Marilyn.
Sometimes
she even wears a meat dress
that
looks like Parma ham
hung
in a real Italian restaurant.
She
shows how raw her inside looks,
this
modern phenomenon.
Indeed,
flesh bulges out, warns Lacan,
character’s
expressed by the body.
Perhaps
Marilyn and Madonna cross-bred?
But
authentic in her mimicking
of
other icons, she even performed
Julie
Andrews’s songs from
The
Sound of Music on
an Oscar night.
What
shall we do with this problem
called
Lady Gaga?
Is
she simply cracked, a crazy,
or
a true emblem
that
exaggeratedly
rides
with bearing reins?
Let’s
not pluck out her tail feathers:
Lady
Gaga the copycat
is
unique and precious:
so,
no salt on her feathers,
she’s
one for the connoisseur.
(Translated by Douglas Reid Skinner)
