film – poems 2 die for

FIN

it is the end of the movie
which I mistakenly took
as the endibg of the reel

left me stuck there
in that place

expecting conclusio
expecting resolution

as if
such things
ever existed

simply
exist
in the world today

NEW WAVE

I am in a French New Wave
watching a French New Wave

jump cut
on the screen

jump cut
in my life on
your
screen

I go Delon
I go Belmondo

am ultra chic
scarily existential
the product of
new thnking
film analysis
film criticism

have a gun
and bullets

and the freedom to do
with them whatever
crazy thing
the script demands,

FRAME

am at a distance
am

at an acute disadvantage

wish I could steadicom
my eyes go
rack focus

crane shot floating
over and above

give you the one-take
tracking shot of
my every life moment

diegetic sound being
the beastly bustling buzz
and freaking
hubbub of
technologized time

for which screetch of
whatever wheels will serve
as slick
sufficient synonym

and here
we cut to

me at fast food joint (fabulous
community)

writing fast I can
as if looming shadow of
terminal extinction event

thing dipping
into Earth’s atmosphere
to turn
up the temperature
eat all that
luscious oxygen

gulping us
down
with it

as in
so many disaster flicks has
already gone
mega-cliche

damning any hope of that
movie that
heavenly moment
of moments

where you and
I playing
antagonists as ever

find ourselves in
and on
camera

perfect in
same frame

FIN

we are
at the end of the last reel

the sea is out there
other mise-en-scene

steadicam shot tracking
us as we
go our separate ways
last piece of
dialogue

syllables exchanged
words spoken to each other

the crew are removing things
the theme is ending
catharsis death

back at the studio
a nightwatchman
flicks the on off switch

VACUUM CLEANER

there’s Plato

and here’s
a vacuum cleaner

helps you keep
the cave clean
get rid of all
those transcendental
appearances
some
great film director
must
have left
lying around

and here I am
dusting and sweeping
giving the place
a thorough
Spring cleaning

cleaners are always welcome
in every utopia
       just have to lie
about their
poetry
    cannot be afford to
get caught
with a scrap
    about their person

the Republic of Philosophy
has clear ideas
on the nature of text
and how
to determine
what it means

FILM OF MY LIFE

SOFT TOYS

FAST FORWARD

fast forward

when I looked
at the film
again

it had
all been remastered

some
small scenes had
been tripped
cut down the running
time
to Hell with
the narrative

villain had
becoms protagonist
protagonist
did nothing

and old ending
charmingly absurd
had made way
for denouement generic

lay a foundation
for sequel

cruel to laugh seeing
them flounder
in that
wet cement

but I did
so anyway
(no
samurai suicide
for these
producers and
scripwriters whose

sense of
shame so
not of the best

FALL

OF THE FITTEST

I like the way
you shot this scene

but what
does it mean
what does
it mean?

why this blocking, these
camera angles, this framing?

what does your cinematography
do for, what is it
doing to my poem?

so much you have to
surrender to reach
a wider audience

sacrifice gleefully, even
ecstatically,
for
your art
to
survive