A Letter to Cecil B. DeMille

Remember me,
Ipana Pearlywhites:
bit moviestar
from the Forties
who might've played
opposite Bogart
and George Raft,
but didn't?
Thirty-two
pillars of ivory
once graceful
now gone to dentures,
whose especially talented
agility of lips
and imaginative tongue
taught men a new language,
whose willing flesh
became a garbage dump
fpr every twobit producer
west of Bakersfield?
To look at me now
who'd ever guess
this chaste rhythm
of breath under breasts
that used to rise
like helium balloons
but sag tonight
like used condoms
once fired little crimson
cherry-sucker syllables of sugar?
No one.
I am become a history book
of refrigerated kisses
preserved on celluloid
between the pages.


Who's Afraid Of ...

I'll remember ya, honey
think of this note as a gift
I was lucky
yer a lucky bastard
yer the one that got away
in an empty and amorphous space
it became confusing
the lighting was different
windows, things like that
it had an almost documentary feel
of new things and old things
because you have new tools
and you always want to explore
everybody couldn't help but notice
it's the kind of journey
you go on by yourself
*laughter*
in those days everything was very exciting
they did everything before my time
unfortunately there was a lot of night
day, night, I learned, so now
I will pray for you
just know that once we began to shoot
everything was dirty for whatever reasons
and done with something you might find in the streets
I just simply
pictured things a different way.


(Joyce Ellen Davis is Ipana Pearlywhites)



8/25/09





THE FORCE

"The force that through the green fuse drives the flower...
--Dylan Thomas


This is how the story goes:


There is a light that only leaves can see,
green cells whose sugar-yellow receptors, like retinas
down the length of their veins, recognize day breaking.

The light is sovereign
as the Father's rituals, as the Son's relics.
The field is white with flowers:
the force is in the flower, and in the field, and in the rain.
The Holy Spirit is light disguised as water.
Will you recognize the glory as it falls before your face,
and on your right hand, and on your left?
Cleanse your feet with water, pure water.

Come on, brother, come on, sister.

Kick off your shoes! For as long as there is light,
the light becomes a cool river in the heat of day;
fill your arms, fill your skirts with flowers growing down
to the water's edge. We are saved

for such a time as this! For verily, thus saith.