In This Movie
Much of the action occurs
in a quarry. On the soundtrack:
gravel blown off the face of the earth.
Then a mother, a convert to a cult,
scolding her gloating son, who
slaps himself. In this movie,
passions are a swirl of snow,
wherein 56% of our knowledge
instantly dissolves. Another
10% goes in the glare, the rest
in a ripple of ether across a
night sky of off kilter stars.
In this movie, intimacy will be
saved from a slip into bitterness,
but first a fox must lick the face
of a man sleeping in a bale of hay.
The stones in the kiva are volcanic.
They can be heated up and not explode.
Words are water turning to steam.
In the darkness, a tribal delegate
can say what he needs to say:
I have invented a new kind of camera,
close to the old pinprick model,
but with shadows like a purple
and pink crater with
surprising pockets of ice . . .
In this movie, flashbacks
Take place on the Silk Road,
in Zeugma, once a garrison of
Rome. The hills hide mosaics.
Kids in puffy, blue tubes walk
in road dust down to the shallows
trailed by an emerald green
insect with a gold head. The shape
of the sky will soon show itself:
Patriarchs clustered around a dogsled.
Have we, some ask, found, at last,
the tree that is a cabinet with a
magic chemistry set inside?
(I am lost in a catacomb under
a cathedral in Brazil, a gloomy cave.
At night a gate opens onto the sea.
Secretly, the slave ships arrive.)
In this movie, Manhattan
is ringed by snow capped peaks.
Fog floats over blackened grass.
A small girl in a violet dress puts
a fishbowl in front of the projector.
The shadows of small fishes
swim across scenes you are too
old to hold to in your hope.
In this movie, they speak
pidgin Finnish. (It's hard to
reckon this film began as a guide
to emergency childbirth.)
In this movie, winter light
has never had such power.
In this movie, an unrepentant
sensualist lies face up in the mud,
large stones pin down each limb.
A beautiful college girl shows him
the purple scars across her wrists.
She says: our nerves are wires
that have never conducted
such flame until now . . .
[ see also ]
Joseph Donahue interview by Leonard Schwartz
[ page 3 of 3 ]