A poem sequence in personal form.
The Shower Scene From Psycho
We had not yet remembered all that would follow.
the bed in Brentwood
the motorcade in Dallas
Sunday in Selma
the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis
the ballroom at The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles
the campus at Kent State
We were holed up in black and white at the Bates Motel.
The future was still a shadow on the curtain.
━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━
The Death of Bambi's Mother
We can't say we weren't looking.
What went wrong went wrong right before our eyes.
We were there.
We were watching.
We were having fun.
That's why we were there.
That's why we were watching.
That's what went wrong.
━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━
Star Crossed
for Rose Joan Blondell (1906-1979)
Ah, Joanie!
If only I could time-step
we could do
that old soft shoe
just me and you
swapping wisecracks on the breaks
in black & white
directed by Ray Enright
for Warner Bros. in 1935
and we could happily ever after be
cheek to cheek and beaming
in a heart-shaped iris out
that pops open at infinity
on the old shield in the clouds…
━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━
In the Grove of Apollo
I'm going to tell you something, lad, and mind you listen.
There was more character and more heart in George Formby singing "Bless 'Em All"
than in anything the world has heard in the last fifty years.
What's that you say?
Never heard of him?
Never heard him?
More's the pity, lad.
More's the pity.
And the BBC banned him.
Bloody hell.
━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━
Progress
All those Method actors from the '50s
who took their craft
and themselves
so seriously
are turning over in their graves today.
Today's performing seals clap their fins and bark
and all smiles around the seal pool
the crowd applauds.
Who needs truth anyway anymore
When we have buckets of dead fish to spare?
━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━
The Shower Scene From Psycho
We had not yet remembered all that would follow.
the bed in Brentwood
the motorcade in Dallas
Sunday in Selma
the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis
the ballroom at The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles
the campus at Kent State
We were holed up in black and white at the Bates Motel.
The future was still a shadow on the curtain.
━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━
The Death of Bambi's Mother
We can't say we weren't looking.
What went wrong went wrong right before our eyes.
We were there.
We were watching.
We were having fun.
That's why we were there.
That's why we were watching.
That's what went wrong.
━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━
Star Crossed
for Rose Joan Blondell (1906-1979)
Ah, Joanie!
If only I could time-step
we could do
that old soft shoe
just me and you
swapping wisecracks on the breaks
in black & white
directed by Ray Enright
for Warner Bros. in 1935
and we could happily ever after be
cheek to cheek and beaming
in a heart-shaped iris out
that pops open at infinity
on the old shield in the clouds…
━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━
In the Grove of Apollo
I'm going to tell you something, lad, and mind you listen.
There was more character and more heart in George Formby singing "Bless 'Em All"
than in anything the world has heard in the last fifty years.
What's that you say?
Never heard of him?
Never heard him?
More's the pity, lad.
More's the pity.
And the BBC banned him.
Bloody hell.
━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━
Progress
All those Method actors from the '50s
who took their craft
and themselves
so seriously
are turning over in their graves today.
Today's performing seals clap their fins and bark
and all smiles around the seal pool
the crowd applauds.
Who needs truth anyway anymore
When we have buckets of dead fish to spare?
━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━
