Nappin' stance,
Far-fallin' perchance
Narcolepidoptery:
A study in scar
let the ganglions roar
pell mell in a submerged shell
her doorway a well-trafficked jamb
the eye of a lie on the lam
tempus fugitive
done damage punitive
incompleted sentence
for a pencilled-in period
find the gap before you mind it--
the first step is a daisy
plant your fleur on the platform
spring more words,
fall be kind.
***
10.04.2010
6.10.2010
BYE, O' LOGICAL CLOCK
the rain check bounced,
her second chance trounced
fool on a stool,
crouched like a question mark
a soft spill of wine
color’d outside the lines
of a napkin doodle
cold sweats and knots-me-forgets,
she’ll bolt upright
in the meat of the night,
a game gal volatile
and still premarital
not counting her lickin’s
before they’re matched.
***
her second chance trounced
fool on a stool,
crouched like a question mark
a soft spill of wine
color’d outside the lines
of a napkin doodle
cold sweats and knots-me-forgets,
she’ll bolt upright
in the meat of the night,
a game gal volatile
and still premarital
not counting her lickin’s
before they’re matched.
***
2.24.2010
CONFLUENCE, COINCIDENCE
Some years back (too many to say, really), I wrote this poem that upon completion appeared to be subconsciously inspired by Tennessee Williams. Not that my words on paper resembled those of the master, but it was the vibe I felt while reading it back to myself.
Last night, I read an article about the influential director Douglas Sirk, who late in life made a short film of a one-act play by Williams called Talk to Me Like the Rain And Let Me Listen... which, while unfamiliar, immediately reminded me of my old poem. Why? Here's an excerpt from the opening stage direction:
On a folding bed lies a Man in crumpled underwear, struggling out of sleep with the sighs of a man who went to bed very drunk. A woman sits in a straight chair at the room's single window, outlined dimly against a sky heavy with a rain that has not yet begun to fall. The woman is holding a glass from which she takes small, jerky sips like a bird drinking.
The setting in the play is in a Manhattan apartment, while my poem (as I imagined it) takes place somewhere in the Deep South. And here, the man and woman are (presumably) married, as opposed to the father and daughter in my poem (though the use of the word "father" might not need to be taken literally in terms of their relationship). But the similarities--the diminished woman sitting near a window holding a glass, the rain, the wreck of a man waking up on the couch--were surprising.
Not the biggest coincidence I've ever encountered, but a nice excuse to visit an old friend. Here's the poem, with a few minor corrections/changes by a more critical hand:
TENNESSEE
The rails of the porch were raintipped;
she stood wirelipped
and grimaced at the grey on the horizon
a glass of lemonade sweats on the windowsill,
lipsticky on the rim:
a one-night-sip memento
she longed for the embrace of a velvet mist
but the sandpaper cyclone cut in
inside,
the fabric flutters
from the sideswipe of the breeze,
brushes Father's arm,
sleepnumb on the sofa
the woman in his dream glides closer
(with laugh of heliumed hyena);
he reaches out to pet her
and awakens caressing the drapes
outside,
she peers through the screen:
Father is startled and surly;
he barks for his pipe,
"and how 'bout a light?"
...she withdraws with the grace of the tide.
Boston, MA
Last night, I read an article about the influential director Douglas Sirk, who late in life made a short film of a one-act play by Williams called Talk to Me Like the Rain And Let Me Listen... which, while unfamiliar, immediately reminded me of my old poem. Why? Here's an excerpt from the opening stage direction:
On a folding bed lies a Man in crumpled underwear, struggling out of sleep with the sighs of a man who went to bed very drunk. A woman sits in a straight chair at the room's single window, outlined dimly against a sky heavy with a rain that has not yet begun to fall. The woman is holding a glass from which she takes small, jerky sips like a bird drinking.
The setting in the play is in a Manhattan apartment, while my poem (as I imagined it) takes place somewhere in the Deep South. And here, the man and woman are (presumably) married, as opposed to the father and daughter in my poem (though the use of the word "father" might not need to be taken literally in terms of their relationship). But the similarities--the diminished woman sitting near a window holding a glass, the rain, the wreck of a man waking up on the couch--were surprising.
Not the biggest coincidence I've ever encountered, but a nice excuse to visit an old friend. Here's the poem, with a few minor corrections/changes by a more critical hand:
TENNESSEE
The rails of the porch were raintipped;
she stood wirelipped
and grimaced at the grey on the horizon
a glass of lemonade sweats on the windowsill,
lipsticky on the rim:
a one-night-sip memento
she longed for the embrace of a velvet mist
but the sandpaper cyclone cut in
inside,
the fabric flutters
from the sideswipe of the breeze,
brushes Father's arm,
sleepnumb on the sofa
the woman in his dream glides closer
(with laugh of heliumed hyena);
he reaches out to pet her
and awakens caressing the drapes
outside,
she peers through the screen:
Father is startled and surly;
he barks for his pipe,
"and how 'bout a light?"
...she withdraws with the grace of the tide.
Boston, MA
2.16.2010
Excerpt from "The Triumph of Bullshit", by T.S. Eliot:
Ladies, who find my intentions ridiculous
Awkward insipid and horribly gauche
Pompous, pretentious, ineptly meticulous
Dull as the heart of an unbaked brioche
Floundering versicles feebly versiculous
Often attenuate, frequently crass
Attempts at emotions that turn isiculous,
For Christ's sake stick it up your ass.
Awkward insipid and horribly gauche
Pompous, pretentious, ineptly meticulous
Dull as the heart of an unbaked brioche
Floundering versicles feebly versiculous
Often attenuate, frequently crass
Attempts at emotions that turn isiculous,
For Christ's sake stick it up your ass.
2.14.2010
Favorite Films of 2009
Yes, it's halfway through February, but of course it takes TIME to get through everything that floods the gate at the end of the year.
Some of the films mentioned may not have received a domestic release yet, but I'm including them anyway:
1. A Serious Man (Joel & Ethan Coen, USA)
Winking into the abyss, probably their funniest and most thought-provoking film in quite some time.
2. The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke, Germany/Austria)
A disturbing work with a flawless ensemble cast that simultaneously obfuscates as it illuminates, and consequently one is left with quite a strange taste in the mouth afterwards, bitter and delicious.
3. Tetro (Francis Ford Coppola, USA/Argentina)
An aging master looks energetically into the past, both personally and cinematically, with exciting nods to Fellini as well as Powell & Pressburger.
4. Bright Star (Jane Campion, Australia/UK)
Restraint, delicacy, silence, textures, flora, the wind, and the word. An unfortunately overlooked flower in a year of loud spectacle.
5. Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, USA)
The sum of the parts is better than the whole, but on a scene-by-scene basis arguably the best writing and filmmaking of the year, an abundance of great acting, dialogue, and composition.
6. Thirst (Chan-wook Park, South Korea)
The strangest thing I watched last year, a vampire story where the sexual and doomed romantic elements burst out of their cliched trappings to form something exciting and hilarious, and ultimately very moving. With a lot of blood.
7. Still Walking (Hirokazu Koreeda, Japan)
A simple story about family, the generation gap, and the passage of time; nothing really new here but done in a classic style with the patience and attention to detail of the greats, specifically Ozu. Just about perfect.
8. Funny People (Judd Apatow, USA)
Probably too long, but I wouldn't have wanted to cut any of it out, either. I laughed (harder and more often than any other time in recent memory), and I cared.
9. Avatar (James Cameron, USA)
Flawed, but unforgettable nonetheless. You'd have to buy a tab of LSD to get more bang for your buck.
10. Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson, USA)
Not a diversion for Anderson but a continuation of his distinct take on dysfunctional families who put up with each other long enough to find out that they need each other. Such creativity and detail packed into every frame, beyond refreshing for the animation genre.
Honorable mention:
Two Lovers (James Gray, USA), The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Niels Arden Oplev, Sweden), Broken Embraces (Pedro Almodovar, Spain), The Princess and The Frog (Ron Clements & John Musker, USA), Adventureland (Greg Mottola, USA), The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus (Terry Gilliam, UK), The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow, USA), Tokyo Sonata (Kiyoshi Kurosowa, Japan), Ponyo on a Cliff by the Sea (Hiyao Miyazaki, Japan)
Acting Citations:
Vera Farmiga (Orphan), Abbie Cornish and Paul Schneider (Bright Star), Jackie Earle Haley (Watchmen), Joaquin Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Vinessa Shaw (Two Lovers), Michael Stuhlbarg and Fred Melamed (A Serious Man), Ok-bin Kim (Thirst), Kirin Kiki (Still Walking), Penelope Cruz (Broken Embraces), Noomi Rapace (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo), Christopher Plummer (The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus), Melanie Laurent, Diane Kruger, Christoph Waltz, and Michael Fassbender (Inglourious Basterds), Zoe Saldana (Avatar), Charlotte Gainsbourg (Antichrist), Souleymane Sy Savane (Goodbye Solo)
1.29.2010
CHECKPOINT
slipped on your bonny gestalt flats
and skimmed along the face of cracked creation,
porter at the border don’t take bags or boxes,
a button-pushin’ potion-bottlin’ prince of poxes,
said “take a slumber ‘til we scrawl your number”
and I stretched on the backs of the wretched
waiting for tri-stamped duty-free dreams
thrown up on wraparound sidereal screens
vested and dusted by wind-wound hands
like chromium crowns in an exhibit case
woke from a cobwebb’ed cheshire refresher
leapt to my threadbare reve-weary limbs
took salmonic flight in a bright water basket
tucked-in tight as two corpse in a casket
the line ever-moving brings nascent nodes nearer
a veriform figure once fading now clearer
chasm be filled
river be stilled
just a broken bone’s throw away,
I heard her sigh from the other side.
***
and skimmed along the face of cracked creation,
porter at the border don’t take bags or boxes,
a button-pushin’ potion-bottlin’ prince of poxes,
said “take a slumber ‘til we scrawl your number”
and I stretched on the backs of the wretched
waiting for tri-stamped duty-free dreams
thrown up on wraparound sidereal screens
vested and dusted by wind-wound hands
like chromium crowns in an exhibit case
woke from a cobwebb’ed cheshire refresher
leapt to my threadbare reve-weary limbs
took salmonic flight in a bright water basket
tucked-in tight as two corpse in a casket
the line ever-moving brings nascent nodes nearer
a veriform figure once fading now clearer
chasm be filled
river be stilled
just a broken bone’s throw away,
I heard her sigh from the other side.
***
11.05.2009
MURMUR POUR MA MERE
died in the wool
interred in the down
down down below
where the sand shifts slow
whisper powder in a sleeping ear
drop a rung from wake-up’s ladder
let the grains tell the brain
of an unfilled spotlight on the stage
a mother of uncertain sighs
highway roam in a mobile home
a patchwork blanket sewn
but never reaped outside bedsheets
hairpins turn
unfurl a bless'ed tress
‘cross a vacant breast
long-missed and amethyst
secre-tarry for a moment
the oft-pricked finger lingers
and the dictaphone phrases
the pitter-patter of little defeats
will the watermill forever roll?
the spokes, finely scored,
bear buckets of white oak board
to keep a jejune heart fully-flooded.
***
interred in the down
down down below
where the sand shifts slow
whisper powder in a sleeping ear
drop a rung from wake-up’s ladder
let the grains tell the brain
of an unfilled spotlight on the stage
a mother of uncertain sighs
highway roam in a mobile home
a patchwork blanket sewn
but never reaped outside bedsheets
hairpins turn
unfurl a bless'ed tress
‘cross a vacant breast
long-missed and amethyst
secre-tarry for a moment
the oft-pricked finger lingers
and the dictaphone phrases
the pitter-patter of little defeats
will the watermill forever roll?
the spokes, finely scored,
bear buckets of white oak board
to keep a jejune heart fully-flooded.
***
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