Perhaps we spend too much
time wondering if there are
aliens of the ET sort among us.
Let’a face it, if they are
advanced enough to get here,
they ought to be able to fit in
without standing out, so
sorry Hollywood, it may make
for an exciting movie but
it just isn’t all that likely.
And before you remind me
of UFO sightings, just because
you see a bus stop in the dark
of night, you can’t be certain
anyone got off or on, can you?
Perhaps we spend too much
time wondering if there are
aliens of the ET sort among us.
Let’s face it, if they are
advanced enough to get here,
they ought to be able to fit in
without standing out, so
sorry Hollywood, it may make
for an exciting movie but
it just isn’t all that likely.
And before you remind me
of UFO sightings, just because
you see a bus stop in the dark
of night, you can’t be certain
anyone got off or on, can you?
My ultimate goal, never to be achieved
is to redesign hell and all of its circles
to better reflect the world we live in now.
Of course I’d need two circles for
politicians, one for each major party,
and independents get to choose.
Catholic priests, minister and rabbis
who abused members of their flocks
get a circle of their own with the movie
Dogma playing in an endless loop.
There would be all the usual circles
for the those whose lives fell short
and one for Buddhists. Imagine
a run down Motel 6 in the worst possible
neighborhood, since they will only
stay until their reincarnation as
something truly ghastly and detested.
Those would be my desirables, but
the one certainty, the absolute is
the worst of all, set aside for those
who spent untold hours toiling
to write catchy but ever so vapid, cloying
melodies and lyrics that become stuck
in your mind like an intractable fungus.
First Published in AGON Journal, Issue 0, 2021
It is a sad fact of life that Florida
has disqualified itself as a movie set
for a vast number of films
that will now go before the camera
on the streets of some Canadian city.
No one is making films about
drug runners coming ashore in
teal and pink with a soundtrack
by Jan Hammer, since the illicit
drug of the moment is likely to be
filming in the streets of Chinatown,
and the Port of Los Angeles and
a Wellcraft Scarab is no match
for an 11,000 TEU container ship.
And for horror and noir films
the simple fact is that even in
the dead of winter, the palms
will never look all that foreboding,
and fake snow melts all too quickly,
but we can hope that Beach Party
movies will make a grand return,
until then we just keep get along
here in the heart of Margaritaville.
Last night, all the romantic
comedies worth watching
on Amazon and Netflix having
already been seen, many twice
we had no choice but to opt
for a coming of age tale on Netflix
accompanied by the mellifluous
tones of Sir David Attenborough.
In my dreams last night there was
a debate between the Gentoo
and Emperor Penguins as to which
was the more enrapturing,
and a Greek chorus of krill suggested
neither was worth our time or effort,
but the pod of Right Whales ended
their incessant commentary.
As I awoke to the cry of the limpkin
he reminded me that the ice cap
is ever shrinking thanks to my
kind, so I had best learn a few dirges.
My friends have often wondered aloud
why I claim to be most creative when
I am stuck on an airplane for hours.
I have told them that the solitude,
the lack of It is an interesting quirk
of the internet, that birth
and death are disconnected.
Seeking out those born today
I found a long list, the dinosaur
among which is Judy Collins.
That I still remember seeing her
reminds me at once a sense of my youth
and my ever progressing age.
But seek out those who died
on this day, and you hear the strains
of the Slavonic Dance in E minor
or the Sabre Dance from Gayane
but Popes Pius V and Marcellus II
suggest neither of them matter,
Heathens both, they claim, which
brings a deep laugh from Cleaver
and Livingstone, both of who
deny the other, and each says
that only he truly found the black
panther, and I’m thankful to be alive.to distract me,
which includes any airline approved movie,
that allows my creative self to emerge, to
express itself fully without reservation,
a status that being earthbound denies.
Many laugh, uncertain of how creativity
expresses itself, but certain, they
assure me, that my efforts have not
gone unnoticed, that my time spent,
but most importantly my results so well
reflect the surroundings of their creation.
We remember the oddest moments of life,
the tragedies, the occasional comedy,
but mostly the unusual moments that etch themselves
into memory in ways you would not have expected.
Driving along the mostly deserted road,
a moonless night, or nearly so, the Mesa
cold and forbidding, not at all reminiscent of the birth
to be celebrated by the world
the next day, as it had for millennia.
The movie was dark and heavy,
the meal somewhat the same,
dominating the conversation… THUD —
a sudden shift left into the oncoming lane,
no one, thankfully, oncoming, the door caved in,
passengers’ bones checked, none broken, all badly shaken.
In the beam of the flashlight, is an elk, sitting
off the road, still much alive but shaken, and
in the first light of morning, moved further
into the scrub, and by afternoon, off into the foothills.
Increasingly few can remember
the time when making a home movie
was an event unto itself,
when you didn’t strap the camera
to handlebars, helmet, dashboard or body,
but you hand-carried the damn thing
weighing a pound or two, you stuffed it
with film which you sent off to the lab
to have developed, hoping your story
would appear in the returning envelope.
You threaded the film onto the sprockets,
turned on the motor and lamp
and watched expectantly as images
always a bit under-or over-exposed
moved a bit jokingly across the screen.
There was nothing to upload, you knew
the image would fade over time, unless
the projector grew cranky or jammed
and you watched your memories
quite literally melt on the screen,
and the only numbers that mattered
weren’t megapixels and gigabytes but
millimeters, 8 for most, 16 for the wealthy.
an old writer and his words 