Rita Hayworth in Lady from Shanghai, 1947: screenshot from film trailer
We dwell in our plush gumstuck viewing thrones.
Buck's still caught on that log when the house lights come
Up. Shocked by the return of a real life
We were doing very well without, thank you,
We recognize that image was a white lie,
With no more substance than a dream,
No more lasting than the gift by which we breathe,
No more lasting, that is, than itself.
And as in waking from the dream too soon
One forgets its truths, we turn back into lumps,
Resigned to our several lump personae
Washed up amid alien popcorn boxes,
Moving out past velvety chains into
Cool silks of the night, Rita Hayworth lost,
Stars widening their vast indifferent gaze.
Buck's still caught on that log when the house lights come
Up. Shocked by the return of a real life
We were doing very well without, thank you,
We recognize that image was a white lie,
With no more substance than a dream,
No more lasting than the gift by which we breathe,
No more lasting, that is, than itself.
And as in waking from the dream too soon
One forgets its truths, we turn back into lumps,
Resigned to our several lump personae
Washed up amid alien popcorn boxes,
Moving out past velvety chains into
Cool silks of the night, Rita Hayworth lost,
Stars widening their vast indifferent gaze.
Star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud: photo by NASA/ESA, 2006
Tom,
ReplyDeleteStunning photos, accompanying such poem as one dreams up by looking back (?) or forward (?). Stars
of the human and intergalactic variety -- systems of coordinates ---
1.10
pink-red lines of clouds in pale blue sky
above ridge, white curve of moon by leaf
in foreground, sound of wave in channel
system of coordinate moving
with matter, particles
or direction, compared with
point P, “accelerated”
flat grey sky on horizon next to point,
shadowed green of ridge across channel
as denser these lumps become
ReplyDeletewhile see-jee-eye expands
in new three-dee escalation
they sink ever deeper even while
"surfing wave upon wave of
useless information"
I feel lumpy
ReplyDeletebeautiful poem
"With no more substance than a dream"
ReplyDeleteIndeed. But what a dream those girls were! Like beautiful silver statues.The vast gulf between viewer and goddess.
I love the chic women and sleek cars from that era of cinema. The stark use of light and shade and the monochrome cinematography is the stuff of fantasy.
Your poem is evocative of these things.
for Rita there's close view
ReplyDeletefor stars the long view
As denser these human lumps become, particles accelerating within intergalactic systems of coordinates, I too feel lumpy, with no more substance than a dream -- a viewer, in close view sinking ever deeper, separated by a vast stark monochrome long-view gulf from the goddess and from the stars... but what a dream!
ReplyDeletecinema of the endless
ReplyDeleteflying through time
is your time
yours
floating in the sea
is the water
yours.
the screen faces two ways.
Ah, no... while, of course, I am a lump compared with Rita Hayworth, coming out of the cinema I always feel, for a while, weightless. Having been the invisible, free-moving eye/I following the screen story in its world, just for a bit I view the outside world in the same way. Usually until I bump into somebody.
ReplyDeleteHm, if I had more dedication I'd write a poem about that.
Perhaps you have just done that, or at least begun it.
ReplyDelete