Month: February 2024

DIY Jungle

PLUMP for “Rainforest at Home”! Spare no
FRILL! Tame a tapir, perch a silly grinned
SLOTH—slowly, mind you—in a leafy
FICUS crown. Wear a pith helmet to bed!

Regulars

RASPY voices from the corner table: Joe and his
BUDDY Sal come every morning, for a
DONUT and black coffee. Joe’s dog Max,
DROOLs, waiting for crumbs, mostly patient on the cool tile under the table.

A New Genre

MOSSY stones by brook, sun glinting through the trees. A
MOVIE would not linger–this is just a setting for people.
SCOPE for nature is as backdrop, or a place to get lost. What
GENRE can depict the Spirit moving in the trees?

Hannibal on the March

RANGE: 2 stadia, the whole legion prone for ambush in
THIGH high grass–still close, can count elephants by the
TRUNK. It’s one thing to dream of fighting. Even
MANLY soldiers get shaky when they see Carthage on the march.

Empty space

I can remember the wonderful days of stretched-out CinemaSCOPE,
when one actor might be on the far left, the other on the far right.
There was time when spreading out your actors was a kind of GENRE,
but when TV started showing these elasticated MOVIEs
you could wind up watching a blank set with voices coming from either side,
arguing, or blowing invisible kisses, across a set that was
otherwise MOSSY.

Screenshot from the trailer of The Robe, 1953

Mountaineering

SCALE into the blue and white on hints of air,
BLAST as slope gives way above, glimpse of death’s curtain falling,
FLUNG off slope, yet held by rope, choking in a waterfall of snow,
FUZZY thoughts and shakes in the quiet that follows.

Witness Joy

SHACK in the foot hills, far from city and its king:
BORNE the sometime tramp of soldiers border bound, a
MINOR life is life, with little to defend, rather to
STORE–to witness–the joy there is, counting the blooms of a new spring.