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

other people like                  you invite me to dance
making me feel                     like I shouldn't
clueless                                   if I want to
I know I never                       know a good time
even tried                               since last time
but I lost my step                  I gave it my all
stepped out of time              gave in to the fall
now I'm too tired                  to look up from the bottom
Autumn came                        just for the view
and left                                    I knew it well
the only proof                        of how a white flag
is the break in my back        a feeble tribute
and scattered leaves             shall never appease

why is it that the zombie can't speak?
why are zombies poor?

why are most vampires rich, educated and always dressed well?



LET'S STRIKE FOR ZOMBIE RIGHTS!
SCRIPTWRITERS AND FILMPRODUCERS HAVE TO MAKE A CHANGE.

Is she like Calypso
in The Camomile Lawn,
knelt down and speechless
by the fire, resembling
Jennifer Ehle so closely,
as the camera lingers
at her being naked as a jaybird,
and quite comely at that?

Or is she perhaps
more like Felicitas
in Flesh and the Devil,
a dead ringer for Greta Garbo,
who brazenly encouraged
illicit love and rivalry, only
to go quietly by falling
through thin ice?

Sometimes the siren's call
is more a winsome variation
in its silence.

“If you do not write or film”,
the director wonders,
”am I alive?”

“What limbo am I in
when the shooting stops?
When my camera no longer
holds the beautiful prism.”

His films stay the same,
only he changes,
exchanging the silver screen
for glistening tin foil
heated under with a match.

When his pain matches
the others, he prays.
When greater, he’s an atheist.

The films are his only company.
He lives with them and for them,
remembering the cinema of his youth
filled with the scents of ****
and jasmine and summer breezes;

remembering the cave
where he learned
to read the light,
understand its alphabet,
and eventually, vocabulary
with each discovered ray.

He smiles as the music track
of little angels being taught
by the local parish priest
to match his voice note
by note flickers in.

I had my first kiss at the cinema, the contour of our silhouettes illuminated by the glow of the rolling credits. He tasted like Altoids and cigarettes, an ambivalent concoction of ice and fire. At one point, I'd bitten him by accident. Whether this was a manifestation of inexperience or (seductively, with heat in her eyes) hunger,  I'm not sure. But, sitting there in the thrill of My Something New, I was certain of one thing: this was a red carpet moment, the stuff of silver screens and glimmering Hollywood starlets and rows of type writer ribbon waiting to be transposed into something theatrical.

After the film, we sat outside a cafe a block over, the fever of summer adhering to the back of our necks like (giggling) misplaced hickeys. Smoke corkscrewing from the end of his parliament, he told me how John F. Kennedy was addicted to opioids. I couldn't help but think back to earlier that afternoon when he first admitted to being a smoker. How he'd asked me, "Is this going to be a problem for you?" hesitation rising up his throat like bile.

I smiled because 'Everyone's got their poison," I replied.  

And poison? Well, there's something so strikingly poetic about it, don't you agree?

(beat.)

JFK must have been Marilyn Monroe's poison, I think.

"So," I offered, "What do you really think happened to Marilyn Monroe?"

"How do you mean?" he said between drags of his cigarette.

"I mean was it really an overdose or--"

"Was it an assassination?" he interjected.

"Mhmmm."

Another drag of his cigarette.

"As they say, the simplest answer is often the correct one."

"Maybe. (beat.) But what makes for the better story?"

After two weeks of courtship, he took his leave. My mother's obvious, unwarranted disapproval was, perhaps, a source of anxiety for him. Me being freshly eighteen, he was also concerned about that (sarcastically) whoppin' three year age gap. (beat.) Not fully buying it, are ya?

Well, neither did I.

Here's my theory: his feelings (or lack thereof) were the reason he called it quits. And instead of being a man--instead of being honest, instead of owning up to the true nature of his intentions--he spun some relatively believable excuse. A coward's way of removing himself from a situation he doesn't want to be in. Surprisingly enough, I wasn't as disappointed as I would have anticipated, had I foreseen the end of our fleeting romance.

I was (beat.) fine.

It does make for a great story, after all. (wryly) But you knew that already.

Because for every Norma Jean, there's always a Marilyn Monroe.

Tell me then--who are you?

(beat.)

Girl curtsies, transitioning into a tableau of Marilyn Monroe's iconic pose wherein she attempts to hold down her dress as the air from a nearby subway grate threatens to expose her undergarments.

Lights fade out.

{Fin}