It's a Cine

August evening at the drive in.

Early 80's, sky matching the push up

ice cream staining my cheeks.

Sweet strawberry sherbet sunset.

I am on the swings, the playground 

near the concessions and bathrooms

while the adults drink and smoke

In their cars, laughter, squeals, guitar solos and mustard.

Adjusting the speakers and seats, 

blankets and munchies.

And we all wait for darkness 

when the movies begin.

2 for 1-

I don't remember the titles

But that time and place-

a strong sense of it 

returns in brief flashes.

Like a meaningless memory-

but Now again

waiting for the dark 

and something entertaining to begin. 

Painting by Édouard Vuillard - Lulu, sur la balançoire dans le parc.jpg| Édouard Vuillard  Lulu, sur la balançoire dans le parc]Exécuté vers 1932 (in Public Domain).

In-syndication-Nation

The stream of unconsciousness is now paid by subscription,
binge zoning, apple watching vegetable-arians
we see and squat-what plot?
With over one hundred high definition channels
something new, something true, something not blue-light-
or that you've never seen or heard before,
the source says it All.

And another rerun-
that one you know so well you mouth the final words
better-off dead
in your head.

That poor real child of the child in the old episode
of that Forensics science show-
you know the one whose mother was murdered
brutally because of her baby,
Plays over and over,
like a bedtime story.
And the child knows the last lines
by heart
because the last name is the same.

What about that Robert Zimmerman,
commonly known as folks 'Bob Dylan'-
boy-back in the day-he played that rebels cause,
changed his own name to comply-
in a word
Why,
I heard
leading double lives can be prized as Nobel-
isn't that swell, a dissidents dream so it seems
easy to win and lose
(poetic expressions).

Again and again, we trend to be
episodic and neurotic, we act
on impulses
wanting and willing
to forget we know the end,
we can pretend this is a new one
We watch it again, bewildered still
by old made new,
again,
and again and again
in-continuity
of the remotest control.

Shock and Awe
(the sequel).




Photo taken by Cecil W. Stoughton, May 5, 1961 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
(Description: Watching flight of Astronaut Shepard on television. Left to right: Vice President Lyndon Johnson, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Admiral Arleigh Burke, President Kennedy, Mrs. Kennedy. White House, Office of the President's Secretary)