Douglas Reid Skinner
Lady GagaJoan 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)