Kafka's Head is Working Again
Kafka, shiny statue Kafka Head
You're back!
Your’re working again
Turning …
Churning …
Illustration By Robyn Hunt After David Černý
Movin’ and groovin’
Slicin’ your way through laser beams.
Lookin’ Insta ready, Insta great
Insta bright, Insta right.
Lending your cred to the people on the street
As they look up from their feet
An’ start dancin’ to your beat.
Dutifully they clock
Each successful head rotation.
With a nod of admiration and
Open-mouthed exclamation.
Are you feeling better though?
You still look slightly off, a little weird,
Are you stronger for your ordeal?
Always you, yet never you, not as you saw you,
In your journals and letters …
But how we see you,
A representation,
A version of…
A celebration of complexity and absurdity, how it walks hand in hand with profundity, an allegory for this, a symbol for that …
Such big ideas
And you,
An ordinary, extraordinary man at the centre of it all,
Struggling for breath, and peace, and meaning, and sense.
A reflection of our ant like vitality running hither and thither, a mass migration, a collective vibration.
Mirroring me,
My face,
Everyone,
The world.
A metal lock box for the castle inside your head - you saw the castle in every head.
And when the music stops,
when the lights are unplugged
And time passes
When some of the people who walk by you today, everyday …
Are gone …
Tomorrow …
Next year …
When the people look back down at their feet.
When they forget to look in your direction
Will you reflect their absence?
Their indifference?
Will your head stop working again
For some reason?
There's every chance …
Or maybe you will turn to stone,
become like other statues…
become a lump, not a living, changing, moving thing.
Will anyone perceive the change in your expression?
As we go about our day in anxiety and depression …
- As the world continues to turn?
By Robyn Hunt (c) 2024