I would like like an interrupted silence to wake up from myself.
—Shelley Duvall
Plot: A poet pairs films from Jean Cocteau’s Orphic Trilogy with contemporary films about poetry. He free-writes his way through these films, no interruptions. From the pages of work he produces, he constructs a poem for each film. Along the way, he records what interrupts him. This is the second installment.
•
dark-eyed junco was my name
Poetry
(2010)
And a world began when her surroundings of men needed alcohol
•
Long ago past the field she went prowling for apricots
and tore out
the cockscomb
to quiet it
•
Gathering pits was her work so the world it wouldn’t
live through her
but the men
smelled her leaking
your rotgut
we taste it
and they pressed their bold charges against her
•
So she deviled the youngest one first / stuffed his south in her fist
•
It’s important he
said don’t misword
your surroundings
and yes long ago
my love was a jonquil and he tied his love to her wrist
•
A world began do not steal away
said the men
not before
we rancid your milk
•
But they must really love her to hand her their salve like they do
•
And the mess they slough off
which is food
for the cockscomb
while the gaslight of death swims like koi on the wall
•
In packs long ago the women who spurned her they walked
must have stalked on their hunt
through the blurred fields of contest
long ago on the prowl for the hooch that began her
•
So she washes the eldest one last / he gifts her his daughter’s likeness
•
So young to stink
of this world
and yet what I can’t
she writes
disband in the morning
is what I love
most in the world
Like these silvering trees in the night that lose her the world
•
But long ago had no choice the men incited the rotgut in her
•
So she washes the eldest he foams for the hooch she washes
the young one she pulls til’ he’s serious spread eagle each night
she conquers the cockscomb she waylays the choir who sings
for her deadline your deadline is rotgut and your rotgut we
pass now your deadline is washing the sun dress they sing
and cicadas they sing from her back
•
When she watches the cockscomb it
worsens with time
Her surroundings of men when she washes them brew her a perfidy
and she reads from the cockscomb
their rights
•
The men in their washtubs they hate
her blue skin her sun dress they want her
to wash in her white camphor gown
down the river or drive her in hand me
down work shirt to death and dress
her in silk while she washes the eldest his
nails cut with pliers and ownership
over her body it dwindles the strapwork
•
Long ago past the field it was men who smelled her leak alcohol
•
This apricot they found on the floor of the earth was not easy to live through
•
They said death or her belly I’ll shake
til’ the earth where you stand falls beneath you and pray
I don’t find you when I wander the cockscomb brothers
•
Yes they must really love her to savage themselves like they do
•
See her staunch
for her men
who disband
their brothers
to drink her
•
And she places a silvering leaf on the face of each one in the cockscomb
Duration: 139 minutes
Interruptions during film: strained muscle, mother, doorbell, telephone, voices in the hallway, telephone, ambulance.
gunrunners
Orpheus
(1950)
Duration: 95 minutes
Interruptions during film: laughter behind the wall, exhaustion, stuck keys, footsteps in hallway, toothache, dog barking, laughter, dog barking.