Lolita's Butterfly Poem by Alexandre Nodopaka

The artist proposes an installation/performance project to his local museum of modern art. It consists of power-sawing the museum's exhibit floors into twelve large pyramidal slabs, prop them upright in a circular fashion in its gardens in the manner of the other famous dolmens. On top of each column a large mechanized butterfly will perch flapping its wings in slow motion. Each cement wedge with odd abstract patterns has already been selected with patterns reminders of the Genesis primal soup. They are art in themselves and integral to the highly polished cement dark brown floors of the museum. The slabs are imbued with the spirit of numberless past artists and visitors.

Twelve naked performers, six women and six men, each wearing on their chests a painted number from one to twelve. They exchange positions in random fashion at the end of every minute during which they remain still. In the center of the formation, a thirteenth female artist lays flat on her back on a slowly rotating lazy Susan. She scissors her legs horizontally parallel to the floor. Layered directly above facing her, a fourteenth male performer screams the time at the end of every minute.

Unfortunately the proposal meets the fateful trajectory of landing in file 13 that rests on top of a large copy of Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. This trashcan carries a metal identification tag numbered 13. A fateful number! The artist suspects it is because he means nothing in the hierarchy of who is who in the art world. That number is for the janitors to collect and deliver its trash to the managing higher ups for snooping purposes. The can is made of a very fine mesh to prevent gross lies about art from escaping and informing the public of its gullibility. By contrast the white lies are smaller and slither right through the tiny holes formed by the stainless steel mesh.

Once upon a time, in the middle of a moonless and stormy night, as is typically the case, across that fateful floor the artist levitates naked. He presumes nudity makes him invisible except for the crocodile armored skin portfolio wedged between his arm and side that bulges with obscure art proposals. The artist also suspects his thoughts are visible because of their drunken opacity. He tries avoiding to think all together but is ultimately netted by his nemesis, Vladimir, who has only Lolita's butterfly on his mind.