Public domain
resurrected starlight invents cinema
erotic imagination projections
on larger than life screens
mimetic art form
redefining life
and its observation
illusion of motion
cut scene magic
within the festival of lights
beacon of ideas
revolutionizing societies
auteurs of phantom rides
ghost images to
ignite ethical compassion
unveil humanity
close up transitions
create natural intimacy
resonate with voyeurs
audience insights blooming
with the actor’s realization
wide eyed neo-language
its adepts infusing images
with eros, editing the story,
expanding the possible
in a radius defined by aperture
limited and standardized by
35 millimeter film gauge
establishing shots for a new history
intercuts surpassing theater
fragmented space of interiority
conceptual leaps create
sublime, psychological enigmas
human counterparts enacting
the lifecycle of stars
nebulas, supernovas, and black holes,
hype, fame and tragedy
grace, luxury, and sexual tension
in rapturous movie palaces
atmospheric colors heightening
glamour birthed by shape-shifting
purveyors of fantasies,
Hollywood lawbreakers
studio sets creating reality
scrubbing the world clean
of the marginalized
contrasted by dissidents slicing
an eye, a suggestive sea urchin
burning in lava flows of psychosis
yet its legacy lies instead
in the fundamentally humanizing
activity of poetic arcs:
in desperation a young girl
ties leaves to branches to save her sister
from a death foretold when they fall
an intruder stumbles upon an
abused wife, humbling the husband
and helps her fractured self become whole
a bereaved mother cannot
bear the sight of a family of mice
killed by the neighbor’s cat
as an orchestra must disband
its cellist becomes an undertaker,
Shinto ritual bearer for the dead
a grieving widower travels across
the world to engage
Butoh and finds peace
angels bear witness to the trials
of the living, recording their lives until one
becomes mortal from an abundance of love
an aging couple visiting their grown children
find them too busy, leaving their wellbeing
in the hands of a widowed daughter-in-law
through the poetry of these films,
drifting pictures, thoughts, and experiences
we arrive at the carnival of arts
light captured to illuminate our inner worlds
showing us how to love, mourn, and grow,
to spin art from the raw materials of our lives
Chromapoetica 