Apparition Poem #1223

She was seated at a desk,
giving a dramatic speech
(pronounced with acidic
bitterness), glaring at me,
I was punching a telephone,
trying to reach Dominique,
who had given me a phony
number, while two young,
androgynous sprites made
love in a chair, Leonard
joined my committee—

she was seated at a desk,
her voice rose to a pitch I
couldn’t tolerate, but also
it brought me to the verge
of orgasm, because she was
sucking myself out of me,
doing it psychically, when
I woke up, she was updating
her Face about lost sleep—

Apparition Poem #1553

I see her head, not yours,
on my pillow, dear, but I
don’t really see either one
of you except as you were
when you had no interest
in my pillows: isn’t it sad?

Death Paintings by Dario Argento

What would happen if Bonnard (or Heller-Burnham) decided to paint the Texas Chainsaw Massacre? The result might be something like Dario Argento’s Suspiria, a cult classic dating from the mid 1970s. The average horror movie has, as its foundation, two elements: death and the revelation of secrets. Suspiria expands upon this to include two other key elements: space and color. Ultimately, it is Argento’s use of space and color that lifts Suspiria out of the realm of the banal and into the realm of art. The most stunning cinematographic moments in the movie seem to revolve around corpses and death scenes; Argento crafts gorgeous “death paintings” from gore, blood, and lurid lighting. He also repeatedly evokes Poe’s Masque of the Red Death. In short, like Messiah of Evil, this movie is a visual feast, and almost every shot has a painterly quality. So much so, actually, that (for me at least) it’s a little hard to take in all at once. The only criticism I have of this gem is that it sags in the middle. But it would be pretty hard to beat either the first or the last fifteen minutes for pure ambience, gorgeousness, tension, and death painting ecstasy.

John Carpenter's The Thing

I'm not sure why I seem to be going through a horror movie fetish. Is it the horror of dealing with insurance companies? Is horror built into the Zeitgeist of 2009? And will someone please tell me where good horror poetry is being written (besides Philadelphia)? In any case, John Carpenter's The Thing is a classic of the genre. Kurt Russell gives a riveting performance as MacReady, a true hero in a genre that produces few true heroes (unless you want to valorize Jason Vorhees). The story involves courage, reserve, and deep strength; it transcends some of the movie's garish special effects.