dummy

Broken into as if some crime has

occurred, and now we’re calling in

Peter Falk to do the detective work.

What happened here? Is the

killer in the kitchen, or in the foyer

clutching an envelope? The back

steps lead down to a basement

where the body is. Tell-tale signs:

the coat, the tired off-focus

glass eye. Was there anything

wrong here? What made that drawer

sound like that, was it the rain?

Yet its beams, lesions, and hard-

wood command respect, police cars

brake here, protect these normal

citizens that we begin to suspect

it of. They go into the chalk.

MCMXLVIII, and everyone hates

everything. The girls go missing;

it’s a quiet walk up a staircase

to find God. Their pictures in the

of termites. Can we find that mirror

where we were standing?

Reminiscing

Laura Ingalls’ TV sister Mary goes blind

in this episode, Little House #84,

the two-part season finale. A real tear-

jerker, it’s not unlike the Ingrid Bergman/

Charles Boyer film, except that things

turn out differently. There is no saving

the girl’s sight, for one. It’s part of

her TV Destiny. But then she teaches

at the blind school, and that seems like

it ought to be OK. There are never enough

villains in these things. Now drink your

cocktail, sweetie. We’re there.

En Braille

The fronds come off a bicycle or

tricycle and go deep within someplace.

There’s a velvet paddle and gold chains,

a soft comb, something you squeeze

to suggest hunger. And the weeds grow

right by the pond. You approach it

from the angle that you find coming off

the street. (This is not easy to do blind-

folded, but we’ve been practicing.) Smell

the flowers? The day is wet. There are fans

up high, circulating the room. A sweet

poison, which falls. And then this.

–Do you love me?
     –I love you.
–Do you trust me?
     –I trust you.

Lucifer

This is the most interesting of

the devils. The light-bringer, morning-

star. Babylonian King Helal. Day-

star mis-translated by Saint Jerome

as Lucifer. He being the stuff

of fireflies longs to be spread in.

He longs to be spread “on the wing.”

But he has to be clean, and removed

ordinarily. He has four years.

Maybe. There’s even a gun…. Roy

you soliloquist. Hero and machine.

Your potential for entering the

daylight, Huge, Huge. Does anyone

mean as much (as they say)?

Spider

Shielded inside the walls and money.

Dear hands, dear furniture.

Making a spinneret of the clocks.

Making a miniature of the weevils.

The snakes, the owls, the ospreys;

robotic, queer things. Grand-

daddy longlegs, funny-face, raz-

mataz. She spies the one thing she

wants and then she chases it.

And then she changes her mind.

It is going to work, after all. It is

going to be too hard to speak of.

And no way to diet. The rest is too

wonderful, too obscene to begin with.

McGraw are the bank robbers

that I love in this film. She’s

gorgeous, and he drives a car,

fast. I think it might be a

Mustang, or maybe a Corvette.

Or maybe I’m getting my films

confused. They walk out in a

hail of bullets. Now she’s his

accomplice. She has the key

and she gets in. There’s a little

betrayal. Still, it’s heroic when

they end up in Mexico. They

get out of the old man’s truck.

bad broke. Made a terrible

smoke. An engine, maybe,

backfired. They listened to it

stir and stir and stir. Now they

are meeting over the counter.

Now they are playing robbers.

Who touched the muffler?

Who killed the girl in the

sunflower… dress? In the white

lace? Hopper could never

paint this well. Notice the

mechanic’s hand, big

as the sun’s reflection.