Pages

Sunday, September 20, 2020

Me 'n the Movies

 
—Poetry by Jay Passer, San Francisco, CA
—Photos Courtesy of Public Domain



THE MACHINIST

her left eye
listed mightily and I
lost 75 lbs for the role.

plus, we both carried knives.

it was love.
but it only lasted as long
as the end credits:

as it should be
in the laughing face of
eternal life.
 
 
 

 
 
SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER

from the apogee of Clair de Lune
Charlie slums it with Framboise
so there’s boisterous dancing
as the footloose gangsters
pursue brother Momo
out the back

mind Oscar Wilde
“please hold your fire”
 
 
 

 
 
STRANGER THAN PARADISE

a lot of beat-up couches,
a girl you’ll never see again,
espresso and herbal tea
rather than popcorn and Pepsi.

I don’t even remember the plot…

only the fact that The Red Vic on Haight
closed its doors decades ago:
another art-house casualty.

but pivotal, since it was then
that I realized
film is a different species than movies.
 
 
 

 
 
DEAD POETS SOCIETY

we walked up to the window, it was in San Mateo County
at the new mall. I lived in an old 4-story Victorian
originally a hospital.

I took out my wallet and said, 2 Dead Poets
which she thought was immeasurably hilarious.

Kim was 30 and I was 22. she said This ain’t ever gonna last.
I tried to prove her wrong, even while my eyes roamed amongst
the lassies and vixens.

it lasted 3 years. I moved to Olympia WA, then Seattle
to be with her and start anew. of course I strayed once or thrice,
but I always told her first.

finally she’d had enough after I took a Greyhound
cross-country to ball Wendy in Massachusetts, a horrible state
complete with black flies and a sister conspicuously named
Bean.
 
 
 

 

LOVING VINCENT

I was drunk in the ink
then
those mad colors swirling
dizzied
me so much that
I couldn’t
follow
               the story

I already knew it
tho
it was that
                  town hick shot
van Gogh

I staggered out trailing old people’s shawls and
eyeballs
and
       now that
                        theater
                                         is closed down
for good
 
____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.

—Alfred Hitchcock

____________________

Thank you and welcome to the Kitchen to Bay Area Poet Jay Passer this morning! Jay lives and works in San Francisco, the city of his birth. He is the author of 12 chapbooks, most recently
Unendurable Illumination, from Cyberwit Press, and Prelude to the Culling, from Alien Buddha Press, both out in 2020. At present he is working on a project tentatively entitled, "100 Movies", based on his experiences as a cinephile. He cooks for a living, daubs in his spare time, and writes when nobody's looking.

Thanks for dropping by, Jay, and don’t be a stranger!

___________________

—Medusa
 
 
 
Jay Passer












Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.

Would you like to be a SnakePal?
All you have to do is send poetry and/or
photos and artwork to
kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post
work from all over the world, including
that which was previously-published.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!