Meticulously maintaining
Impossibly feigned nonchalance,
Toying the cigarette ever so slightly
In her fingers -- careful so not
To appear as too calculated

The pariahs parade the dancefloor,
Shades of ignominy culminating in a
Prismatic rainbow, heightened by
The stale odor of ***** and body heat

Still, she stays in her perch like a silent sphynx
Waiting -- watching --
Aimlessly, but with direction, such
Carefree flamboyance below her,
A stoop to which she’d never deign

And so she watches, resigned
To fate, as much a fixture in the joint
As the gilded barstools --
The closest she can come to confronting
The fact that she is no different
Than any of the rest

A lifetime of growing old;
Always looking back:
Motown, Northern Soul,
Joy Division, Happy Mondays.
No time for the new.
There is nothing new.
Put the tune on
Stop my brain thinking for 128 seconds.

French Nouvelle Vague,
Hong Kong suave.
If the past is a foreign country,
I want to buy a house there.
2 steps forward
3 steps back
Always looking back.

Miss the future
Recreating the past.
Progress turns to static.
The future is another planet
And I'm scared of space.
Moving forward in life
But always looking back

Dust spirits dance in empty houses,
Parents fall ill,
     Families move,
Childhood lasts until words which soothed
no longer do,
Imagination introduces us to friends,
     in unexpected places,
          in necessary situations,
Remember: not all who ail shall pass away,
But sometimes sacrifice is made,
New friends seem scary,
But never be afraid
     to give up the umbrella that you carry
     for a leaf is scant protection from the rain,
In dreams giant trees grow from seeds
     watered by joy,
Believe that they persist,
For when comes the day to pack your toys,
     and move away,
When youthful years have passed to adult grey,
The distinction between memory and dream ceases to exist,
Dissolving into mist,
Through which you can still make out their silhouettes:
You, Totoro and the cat bus.

That gibberish he talked was city speak,
Gutter talk near the Tannhäuser Gate:
Memories, you're talking about memories,
Moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain,
All I could do is sit there and watch him
die. Slow thing and he fought it all the way,
Where do I come from? Where am I going?
Go to Hell or go to Heaven, I'm afraid,
That's a little outside my jurisdiction,
Fiery the angels fell / deep thunder rolled,
Ships on fire off shoulder of Orion,
More human than human is our motto,
I watched him die all night. To have feelings,
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.

~
"Suspense is like a woman. The more left to the imagination, the more the excitement."
~
A mixture
of sinister and sweet,
smoking gun at your feet.
Reclining dead
in a meadow,
or wishing you were
as you gaze out your window.

Bottling undecided dark,
catching keyed-up light,
in random, misleading angles.
The uniform hour
holds Grace, Grant,
and the mystery
it entangles.

Don't look directly
at the camera,
icy blonde afterimage.
Everything you need
is written on the page.
Number 13,
Mrs. Peabody?
Don't you know
all contemporary
escapist entertainment
begins by turning your back?
Lingering on what
suspicious minds track.

The migrating voyeurism
sits as the crow,
wired and unfriendly.
The method is an organism,
an implication, a crossbow,
thought, but unseen.
He will push the girl,
until you succumb
to dream sequences.
It's snowing humiliation
at Winter's Grace,
for out of the male gaze,
invading your space,
you become gifted
at doing nothing well,
in sheer
under-things,

(for inner circles & triangles of fur
are all the rage in Europe).

Yes, he hates pregnant women,
because then they have children.
So leave him
to his work,
to analyze your handwriting,
and build that ramp
directly into your trailer.

His larger than life silhouette
will fill the silver screen
with tension,
trip wire,
and a ****** ambivalence,
that ends with
the violent sound
of someone
packing a suitcase.

He enters by virtue of this door,
and you leave through another,
and another,
and another,
until the final scene
alters your state of mind.

Your pretty little feet
dangling precariously
over the edge...

We came but our children have barely time
for us for they are leading busy lives.
When we were younger we had barely time
for us for we were leading busy lives.
How it passes: like the train that brought us,
winding but with purposeful direction.
How it passes: like steam above tea cups,
a gently rising evaporation.
We had tea with the widow of our son.
Our train returns home early. Life goes on.

The idea had been growing in my brain,
Queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal,
They are all animals anyway,
Become a person like other people,
Organization is necessary,
All the animals come out at night,
There never has been any choice for me,
Wash all this **** off the streets. My body fights,
There is no escape. I am God's lonely man,
Headaches that stay and never go away,
Thank God for the rain. Wash the garbage and
cannot put it back together again,
One day there will be a knock on the door,
and it will be me. What hope is there for (me?)

We know that to look now would set us ablaze,
the projectionist has loaded up the next reel,
but still we can’t seem to avert our gaze.

The clumsiest cinema still often sways.
The sound may be garbled, the edits piecemeal,
but we know that to look would still set us ablaze.

We question ourselves as the velvet drapes raise—
the playhouse itself thus begets our ordeal—
but still we can’t seem to avert our gaze.

The schoolmarms all warned us against such forays,
having seen how the real sinks into the surreal.
Yes, we know that to look now will set us ablaze.

Now the actors all shout patriotic clichés,
and we balk at the film’s jingo-populist zeal,
Even still, we can’t seem to avert our gaze.

Transfixed by tricolor and beset with malaise,
but what truths did Lot’s wife’s noncompliance reveal?
For we know that to look now will set us ablaze,
but still we can’t seem to avert our gaze.

where Hollywood's celluloid dream
is reflected off silver screen
into the consciousness
of audience's expectations
sitting
in amphitheatre auditoriums
amid
whispered conversations
plot revelations
spoiler alert
sweet packet crinkle
coke slurp
popcorn rustle
where held hands
make promises breached
bases reached
love declared
for a fumble on a back seat
childhoods spent
getting out from under
grownups feet
the good guys won
the bad guys wore black
where a thousand shots fired
nobody died
in the end
aching legs brought to life
to leave with
a head full of stories
unrelated to real life