Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Innerspace (1987)




Kenneth Tobey and Martin Short in Innerspace

Innerspace (1987)

“It’s okay to play with it, fella—
but you don’t have to talk to it”
—Kenneth Tobey, Innerspace

One of Hollywood’s funniest quotes—
Uttered by Kenneth Tobey the star of
The Thing from Another World (1953)

The tough military guy in Howard Hawk’s
Circle-the-wagon sci-fi movie about an
Alien monster lurking in the North Pole

Tobey makes the wisecrack in a bathroom
Scene with Martin Short taking a pee in
Innerspace—talking to Dennis Quaid who’s

Been shrunk and injected into Short’s body
Traveling along in his bloodstream in an
Adventurous bumpy-ride spy-spook flick

“But what if it did talk back?” I asked myself
What if David Icke—the Conspiracy writer
Was right?—it’s all Reptilian Consciousness?

That Earth is actually—Garden of Eden Planet?
That Eve did make a Snaky Deal after all—
With the devil in reptilian disguise?

Without getting louche—it’s the penis, folks
That’s the real alien Third Encounter for us
Exo-politics = serpentine alien sexuality

We’ve all heard stories—about abductions
The greys doing lovely sexual examinations
Taking egg and sperm samples—and all that

Think about it—like reverse engineering
Go backward in time—to homeless hominids
Baboon boyz—and Neanderthal gang bangs

If there were an advanced civilization—
Lasting for millions of years here on Earth
Wouldn’t you call it reptilian Lost Knowledge?

Wouldn’t you really dig the Jurassic—
One big Dinosaur Planet—going on forever
Call it Jurassic Park—Nightmare Eden Disco?

But what if there was some disaster—
A meteor strike—like The Tunguska Event
Wiping out everything—worse than Siberia?

Bye-bye to all the lovely reptilian creatures-
Beautiful soaring Pterodactyls way up high?
Graceful savage mean monstrous Masosaurs?

After the nuclear winter was over—
Wouldn’t you work at making Planet Earth
A new Garden of Eden—all over again?

This time playing it a little different—
Choosing a more adaptable species to be?
Something less tyrannical Tyrannosaurus Rex?

Something more petite—pleasurable
Like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden?
Tree of Lost Knowledge—in the groin?


Sunday, September 27, 2009

Waiting for Lucia


Waiting for Lucia

“But the biographers
are a side issue.”
—Joan Acocella,
“A Fire in the Brain,”
The New Yorker

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/12/08/031208crbo_books

Her name was Lucia—she was Joyce’s daughter
She was talkative—illiterate in four languages:
German, French, English & Triestine Italian
She was cross-eyed like our mother Nora
Was that why—she’d stare off into space?

She was a writer’s daughter—crazy & difficult
Her Daddy was like Plath’s Daddy—Big Daddy
He’d write all day—she’d always dance for him
Finnegan’s Wake—was actually performance art
Both danced with language—their wordy funerals

Please remember—she’s writing sybolisme
She’s chatting a biography—a Laingian artform
Georgio—her pimp brother who married rich
His wealthy beautiful wife—his car & chauffeur
His swank apartment—Lucia’s lassiez-faire idol

Please forget Plath—along with the others
Vivienne Eliot—her long suppressed agonies
Poor Zelda Fitzgerald—and Nora her mother
Forget Georgie—medium-wife of Yeats and
Véra—Vladimir Nabokov’s lovely wife

Lucia was a true blue literary goddess
Inspiring, melding, sharing her personality
With her great writer father—James Joyce
Until she ended up with “A Room of One’s Own”
Only then was he able—to finish the Wake

“Devoutly to be wish'd.
To die, to sleep; To sleep:
perchance to dream: ay,
there's the rub; For in that
sleep of death what dreams
may come when we have
shuffled off this mortal coil”
—William Shakespeare, Hamlet

She gets the heebie-jeebies—a lot lately
Like when she’s thinking—about death
Death like Sleep—Sleeping & Dreaming
What if it’s like Shakespeare opined—
Hamlet’s strange solitary soliloquy?

How many nightmares—one goes thru
Happy to wake up again—and be alive?
No matter how surrealistic & horrible
Don’t we in dreams think it’s all real
Waiting for Godot—but there’s No Exit?

So that when we die—Sleeping nicely…
Dreaming might be always lurking there
Dreams of losing one’s billfold or pants?
Losing one’s identity—in dream cities?
Not being able to wake up—once again?

Even if you’re lucid enough to know—
It’s only dreaming that torments me
What if there was No Escape No Exit—
Once we die except to live in Dreamland
Drifting thru oneiric dystopias forever?

My father must have thought that way—
The way his stream of consciousness worked
Especially Finnegan’s Wake—his circular
Meditation on how images morphed thru puns
And wordplay—ludic Eidetic foreplay?

Is that the reason why—Joyce took Lucia
To see Carl Jung the great mystical Herr Doktor?
Was Lucia mad—already dreamy Other?
Deep inside her ebb & flow—continuously dreaming
A flowing Irish river—stream of consciousness?

"usylessly unreadable
Blue Book of Eccles”
—James Joyce
Wake of Ulysses

A useless muck—of obscure language
Abandoned plot—character development
Lost in the Sea of Jabberwocky schmooze
Where everybody dreams in their sleep
And nobody comes up—to breathe air?

Joyce’s eyesight failing—no longer able to
Collage the cards—Beckett created for him
But still able to play the Wordplay game
Beginning Finnegan’s Wake—and ending it
With the same ideal literary insomnia …

Riverrun—running past Eve and Adam
Swerving from shore—to bending bay
Punning Vico—a commodius vicus
Replaying the story over & over again
Back to Howth Castle—and Enviorns

How his mind worked—thru punning
Even now “quark”—worming its way
Thru “Thee Quarks for Muster Mark”
And “sithome”—Lacan’s intertextuality
Playing language—into literature

Friday, September 25, 2009

I Walked With A Zombie




I Walked With A Zombie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbMwjC4mLUo&feature=related

You’ll never guess—what I did last night!!!
“What’d you do dude?”—I Walked with a Zombie!!!
I opened the crypt—got down with my baby!!!

I laid her in the graveyard—deep at midnight
Her tits were ice-cold—to my clammy touch
The dead don’t die—they’re not alive!!!

I’ve got a dead girlfriend—by my side
She’s been cursed—I like it that way
She’s a horrifying delight—it feels so tight!!!

She’s got a noose—around my neck
She snaps it real tight—pulls it real hard
I know what’s next—when I see stars!!!

She’s got ice-blue lips—frigid fingers
She’s so demanding—so very decomposing
She wants my head—on the butcher’s block!!!

Beauty gets down—in this horror flick
She makes me spill my guts—on old tombstones
She gets mean—down in the mausoleum!!!
.
She makes me do—anything she wants
And that's okay with me—because I'm easy
I’m always cruisin'—with my cute zombie baby!!!
.
I walked with a zombie, zombie, zombie!!!
I stalked with a zombie, zombie, zombie!!!
I made love with a zombie, zombie, zombie!!!

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Zombieland (2009)



Zombieland (2009)

http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi2718564889/

In a world overrun by Zombies—what’s a girl to do?
You get your shit together—get ready for the Zoo???
Pretend it’s horror comedy—Killer Klowns from Outer Space???

When the Shit hits the fan—watcha gonna do, girl?
When there’s no Toilet Paper left—to wipe your ass?
When your 401K is gone—along with your house?

When the Banks go bankrupt—and close their doors?
When the Electricity goes off—and Youtube stops?
When the Earth Stands Still—watcha gonna do, girl?

When the Useless Eaters—suddenly become Zombies?
When Wal-Mart and Safeway—close their doors?
When FOX-News assholes—no longer grin at you?

Watcha gonna do, girl—when Woody Harrelson
Shows up and tells you—it’s time for a long ride
A cross-country Pilgrimage—to the Other Side?

You gonna be another fucking—Zombie Klown huh?
You gonna be a Killer Klown from Outer Space?
You gonna wait for Plastic Coffins—to come your way?

Watcha gonna do, girl—when things get really bad?
Like Night of the Living Dead—only ten times worse?
Think you’re safe under your bed—think again, honey!!!

How to survive in a world—overrun by Zombies?
But this time it ain’t just a Gang Bang of Living Dead
Zombie mayhem’s got a new gig—Escape from New York?

Life goes on they say—even for the Living Dead
Funny how horror flicks—always end up Comedy
Like Abbott & Costello—Meet Frankenstein, etc.

Not another American post-apocalyptic skin-flick?
Not another Zombie comedy about the Living Dead?
Not another Zombie Plague—predicting the Future?

Not quite, my dear—it’s much worse than that…
These aren’t the sluggish Walking Dead of yesterday
Not the George Romero type—of Living Undead

The Zombies of Zombieland—they’re not dead yet
Super jacked-up like—“Dawn of the Dead” (2004)
They’re scary, gnarly, gross—they wanna eat you!!!

They’re ferocious and infected Creeps on the march
They’re not undead yet—like old horror show creeps
They’re like “28 Days Later”—they wanna get laid

They give new meaning—to having oral sex!!!
Eating out the way they do—get ready to scream!!!
They got Roter-Rooter tongues—Drano eyeballs!!!






Tuesday, September 22, 2009

The Last Man on Earth (1964)



The Last Man on Earth (1964)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4mYireNvcg

“Alive among the lifeless...
alone among the crawling
creatures of evil that make
the night hideous with their
inhuman craving!”

Vincent Price—the last man on earth
Sitting around his—dumpy LA bungalow
Listening to the—same old zombies

“Morgan!!! Come out!!! Come out!!!
Morgan!!! We're going to kill you!
Morgan!!! We’re gonna eat you alive!!!”

It’s so boring—awfully depressing
Being looked at—as somebody’s dinner
Vincent felt so lachrymose he could die

But he was on a—mission for god
With stakes in the back of his dumpy
Station-wagon—he nailed the fuckers

During the day—when they slept
Vincent did the Van Helsing on them
Getting rid of the suckers one by one

The black & white cinematography
Is grim and stark like Vincent’s life
After losing his wife & daughter

“Ho-hum. Another day in dead LA.
Better get up—and have some coffee
Then get to work—nailing the Undead.”

Not as classy—as Charlton Heston
Aloof in his New York City condo
Manhattan full of the usual zombies

That first scene in the Heston version
Him watching a movie & falling asleep
Barely getting home—ahead of the mob

But the Price version—more low key
Filmed in Rome—it looks like grim LA
The last man on Earth—grim film noir

Cheap LA death—and lots of zombies
So much more comforting—than high-rise
Haughty Heston—playing big shot as usual

Poor Vincent—as if wreathes of garlic
Could protect him—from the Black Plague
All those zombies—the Bubonic Mob

Vincent Price—takes long rides into town
Prowling all the art galleries—for Picasso’s
Ends ups with Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”

He hangs it in his living room—just for kicks
Playing old Bela Bartok records at night
To drown out all the bad dead neighbors

Vincent doesn’t have—all the fancy gizmos
Like Heston with his machines, klieg lights
And expensive luxurious furniture

It seems like every Heston flick’s gotta be
Some kind of size-queen Extravaganza
Like Ben-Hur, Omega Man, Khartoum!!!

Even schmaltzy dystopian melodramas—
Like Soylent Green (1973) gets overblown
With the likes of Edgar G. Robinson

And then there’s the ultimate crummy
Nightmare story The Planet of the Apes
With the waterlogged Statue of Liberty!!!

Vincent Price is much more low-key—
Not even hysterical like House of Usher
Or Poe’s lurid like Pit and the Pendulum

Instead he’s stuck—with a hammer & nails
Boarding up his tacky place just enough to
Keep his bad news admirers out of the way

One troubling thing—about being alive
And all too human—the last man on earth
Is naturally the need for love & sexuality

Vincent must confront this problem and
Deal with zombies who pass for human
But are really living dead in disguise

Even Vincent Price—with his somewhat
Nelly and effete effeminate ways can’t be
A Van Helsing martyr all the time…

Surely there’s more to life than just the
Daily grind of driving stakes through the
Hearts of sleeping zombies during the day?

Vincent Price’s interior monologue—
So very down and depressing like his
Black and white film noir boring existence

The LA smarmy walking dead—want him
They want him bad—whatever life he’s got left
That’s what zombies need—they need it bad

They need that love-jet—they wanna feel good
Vincent’s no—svelte Arnold Schwarzenegger
But beggars can’t be choosers—zombies say

This is how it ends—TPTB do their thing with
Population control—thru lovely germ-cocktails,
Ponzi scams, evil plagues—corporate denouement

Full movie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibnpEk4hdjo&feature=fvw




Attack of the Giant Leeches (2008)


Attack of the Giant Leeches (2008)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T6QV_lPHWw

Once upon a time—“director’s cuts” were rare
And only blockbusters—got re-released with
Directors redoing their movies their own way
Before producers monkeyed with the script

But now the availability of high-class cheap
Postproduction and blue-screen CGI remakes
Gives any schlocky Grade-B horror flick a
Chintzy chance to get re-edited and reissued

Most horror flicks remakes are total failures
Like The Thing, The Body Snatchers, 1984—
And the rest of the ‘50s Drive-In horror movies
Are so bad nobody would want to reissue them

How could one “out-schlock” the original stinkers
Sliming around up there on the silver screen—
Ridiculous camp flops like Attack of the 50-Foot
Woman (1959) with Allison Hayes’ big tits?

Ah yes—all those sweaty enjoyably lurid creepy
Gruesome horror flicks and Japanese potboilers
There at the Snake Pit Drive In—double-features
In the comfort & privacy of your own backseat?

Who knows how many Baby Boomers got laid—
Ending up pregnant with runny-nosed rug-rats
All because of luscious Yvette Vickers and her big
Bosomed trampy white trash Southern Sluthood?

The same with Attack of the Crab Monsters and
Attack of the Aztec Mummy—Attack of the Killer
Tomatoes, Attack of the Flying Saucers & Attack of
The Killer Shrews—all those exquisite tacky losers

Attack of the Giant Leeches—first released in 1959
Won a string of awards at festivals around the world
And the executive producer Cid Corman was proud
To get an Academy Award for Worst Special Effects

Leo Gordon supplied the script doing much better
A year later with The Wasp Woman (1960)—
Capturing once again that abject cheap & sleazy
Trashiness of poor white trash erotic appeal

Cult fav Bruno VeSota—likely director of the truly
Great artsy oddity Dementia (1955)—makes the
Attack of the Giant Leeches just about as believable
As his kitschy Attack of the Mayan Mummy (1964)

Yvette Vickers begins her so-so Hollywood career
As the giggling girl on the phone at the party in
Sunset Boulevard—ending up at the bottom of
Norma Desmond’s fetid dumpy swimming pool

But what about her role as trampy Liz Walker?
Is she still down there in their underwater lair—
Being slowly obscenely sucked dry by the devilish
Denizens of the deep—the greedy Giant Leeches?

Monday, September 21, 2009

Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek43qsMoiUw

Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959)

“You bleed!!! They feed!!!”

“Massive Blood Sucking Monsters!!!”

Usually remakes—are pretty tacky
And what can be more—sick and tacky
Then a bunch of slimy blood-sucking
Ugly starved Giant Leeches—yukkkkk!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5QFbuHNdBs

But with disgusting creepy Giant Leeches—
How can even remakes turn out less than
Totally disgusting—maybe even better than
The original American International classic?

The difference being that the 2009 version—
Is much more louche, lurid and phallic!!!
With Giant Leeches so exquisitely grotesque
That theaters get packed with Size Queens!!!

The ho-hum 1959 Giant Leeches are laughable
With guys dressed up in slippery rubber suits
With monstrous bug-eyed rubbery lips busy
At work sucking succulent Yvette Vickers!!!

Yvette luxuriates in their underwater lair—
Seemingly turned on by the starved sucking
Horrible swamp-bred Giant Leeches leaving
Shameless bruises all over her svelte body

Yes, even—especially in the most intimate
Erotic places—her lovely erect nipples and
Blushing amorous body—finding the forbidden
Love she craved—denied by Bruno VeSota

Bruno VeSota is big, fat and ugly—
Like Nestor Paiva playing Captain Lucas
The laughing sweaty slob of the classic
Monster of the Black Lagoon (1954)

His wife Yvette Vickers—is such a Slut
Putting out for Slim, Lem and all the other
White trash hanging around—even gets it
On with giant mucous-mouthed Leeches!!!

Horror movies come & go—like Ape (1976)
Aka Attack of the Giant Horny Gorilla and
Attack of the Giant Hand Monster (2005)
And Attack of the Virgin Mummies (2004)

But Attack of the Giant Leeches, well—
There’s something about lamprey-like lips
Sucking the love-juice and life-blood outta
Living human bodies that’s pretty creepy

You’d think the flick—was filmed way down
South in the swamps and bayous of Florida
But actually the filming location was the
LA County Arboretum and Botanic Garden

Friday, September 18, 2009

Brainiac (1963)


Brainiac (1963)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGxPW3fjaS8&NR=1

Don’t wanna be The Blob???—neither do I!!!
I prefer Mexican horror movies—the ultimate schlock
Run, don’t walk—to your local YouTube in town
Watch a few clips of—Brainiac (El barón del terror)
It’s ten times as bad as—any Ed Wood Jr. movie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oLbpVSap3E

It’s even better than—Plan 9 From Outer Space
It makes Attack of the Giant Shrews—look cheesy
It makes Last Year at Marienbad—look hoity-toity
It even puts The Wasp Woman—to skanky shame
Bride of Frankenstein—pales in comparison

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzAsM0nkByo&NR=1

Plus the translation is simply awful—pure trash
Talk about “Found Camp”—just waiting to happen
The hilarious dialog—how could it be so “stilted?”
Could any comedian dream up—anything so crazy?
And that Baron of Terror—his evil wiggly tongue!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yv7wtujG0as&feature=related

With his long obscene wiggling forked tongue
The Baron of Terror—lives up to his name
He’s an effete gourmet—of human brains
A Mexican aristocrat—he likes cute dames
Especially tasty screamy medulla oblongata!!!

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2558/3707270108_0ecc7f234d_o.jpg


Thursday, September 17, 2009

Night of the Living Dead (1968)


Night of the Living Dead (1968)
—for Kathy Acker

I remember the corpses—outside the door
They were creeping around the house—dead
Dead like my brother—dead like “dead” dead

The corpses said—“You were born rich…
Rich, beautiful & smart—you little creep!!!
You came from a good family—let’s eat you!!!”

“Tonight, Barbara—we’re coming to get you!!!
It’s Night of the Living Dead, sweetheart…
Even creeps like you—taste succulent & tasty!!!”

I was so scared—and totally humiliated
Romero was such an insane tyrant director
I kept waiting—to wake up from the movie???

The only thing that matters—is staying alive
My brother is trying to get into the house
His dumb sad eyes—and bashed-in head!!!

All night long the zombies moaned & groaned
Starved for my pretty little pulsating pussy
I couldn’t stand it—cunnilingus à la crypt!!!

All the graveyards—turning into brothels
The Living Dead were surely going to get me
Ending up giving them—my most precious thing!!!

Shane


Shane
—for Brandon de Wilde

Come back Shane—come back Alan Ladd!!!
Come back Shane—I need you to stay!!!
My mother loves you—really bad…
And so do I, Shane—I wanna get laid!!!

You rode up one day—to our dumpy ranch
Here out in the middle—the Wyoming sticks
You were a gunslinger—so cool & slick
All of us terrified by—the Jack Palance gang

The two-bit town—and evil saloon
Run by an evil crook—and his hired gun
How could homesteaders—beat such a thug?
Elisha Cook Jr.—got shot dead in the mud…

We didn’t know—where you came from
And we didn’t know—where you were going
But you stayed awhile—to help us survive
Killing the hired gun—an awful showdown!!!

Come back come back—Alan Ladd!!!
You were my Last Picture Show hero!!!
I wanna go out—like you did back then
And not drag it out—like Veronica Lake…

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Taxi Boyfriend


Taxi Boyfriend

“You talkin' to me?”
—Robert De Niro,
Taxi Driver (1976)

“You said something to me?”
“No—I didn’t say nothing.”
“Yes, you said something.”

“No—I swear I didn’t.”
“Yeah, but you thought it”
I shrugged—how could I lie?

“I didn’t mean to,” I said.
“Yeah, you always say that.”
“Ah c’mon—gimme a break.”

“Yeah—I can read your lips.”
“But they weren’t moving.”
“Yeah—but your mind was.”

I always ended up—that way.
Shrugging—“Nevermind” but
I couldn’t get him off my mind.

How can I argue with you?
You’re so incorrigibly perfect.
Always so cynically cocky.

“I heard that”—he said.
We tried a little body language
It was—better than way!!!


Tongue Job



Tongue Job

He always had—this look on his face
As if something—“dirty” were going on
Smirking at me—expecting the worst
Which was the best—for me of course

He always had—this knowing smirk
Knowing me better than I knew myself
So that the more he smirked at me—
The more excited I got about him

He always had—something going on
Down there as usual—thuggish
Making him—seem vulnerable & sullen
Like a fallen angel—ahead of time

He always had—this bad attitude
Which of course—was entirely rude
But really pretty close—to how I felt
About him too—rude even ruder

He always had—these thin cruel lips
Pressed together tightly with a pout
Acting like he was always put upon—
Putting out like bored rough trade

He always had—me apologizing for it
First before making love—and then
Afterwards for forgiveness because
I took advantage of his maleness






Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Hollywood Fractoids



.
Quotidian specters—Hollywood
Los Angeles—Solaris multiplex
Memory waves—movie back alleys
Fractoid images—never touch down
Untouchable—postmodernism
Have broadband keyboard—will travel
The core of creativity—cinematic
Getting more and more complex
Bakhtin’s last word—
"intertextual"



Sunday, September 13, 2009

The Blob (1958)



The Blob (1958)

“Beware of the Blob!
It creeps, and leaps,
and glides and slides
across the floor!!!”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhyRpvgm03g

I feel sorry—for The Blob
I really do—I’m broken-hearted
Poor innocent alien Slimeball Blob!!!

Villainized Vandal of the Void—
Poor pulsating non-entity Wad!!!
Product of Steve McQueen’s Wetdream!!!

The Colonial movie theater—gone amok!!!
The Blob oozing out of the projection booth
Greedy for boys & girls in the balcony

Teenage Sexploitation Hollywood—
Making millions on Drive In movies
Like “I Was a Teenage Werewolf”

“Teenagers from Outer Space”—
“Mars Needs Women”—and flicks
Like “Monster From the Black Lagoon”

But the classic creepy Thriller—
With goodlooking sexy Steve McQueen
Has to be the incredible “Blob”!!!

Forget Monsters from Mars—
Giant insects & carnivorous ants
“Them” and those Praying Mantises

Forget campy bloodsucking Leeches—
And those starved famished Giant Shrews
Eating everything but Ingrid’s high heels!!!

Forget Creatures from the Black Lagoon—
Giant grasshoppers attacking Chicago
Body Snatchers on the loose!!!

It’s “The Blob” you gotta look out for—
That oozing seminal slimy Blob!!!
Emanating from Steve McQueen’s pants!!!

So like the Scarlet Pimpernel—
It’s here, it’s there—it’s everywhere
Especially in dark Drive In parking lots!!!

Ask any All American cute bobby-soxer
Coming out of the Eisenhower Fifties
And they’ll tell you the Awful Truth

The BLOB!!!—so very excruciating!!!
All over the windshield—and seats
Oozing squirmy Terror from Space!!!

Passion Pit Drive In nightmares—
Screaming creaming Sat night soirees
All across USA—bad baby-boomers laid!!!

How exquisitely naughty & nostalgic—
Those nights of shameless Snake Pits
Under the stars—dope, booze, wads!!!

But Steve McQueen’s ejaculation—
Inundating the town with Jizzmatic joy
Still alive, still oozing—now on Youtube!!!

Friday, September 11, 2009

I Walked With a Zombie (1943)



I Walked With a Zombie (1943)

“I walked with a zombie...
sounds strange to say.”
—Francis Dee,
I Walked With a Zombie

Dwayne Jerome—was good at it
Cultivating his talent—at tormenting me
As both Boss Cupid—and dead Zombie
He was good at—Trance moonwalking

I got insidiously envious—Penis Envy again
Seeing how generous—Mother Nature had been
Harmony-drenched, spook-laden, handsome as
Darby Jones—Jacques Tourneur’s Carrefour

Jerome’s languishing male largesse—leaving him

Moody, sullen and guilt-stricken—ashamed of his
Exquisite Negritude—dropping out of school—
Self-conscious—all those queer ogling eyeballs

A scene—in the showers after wrestling practice

Especially those envious glances by the gay coach
Jerome’s exquisitely overly-endowed thuggery
Making him feel sullen and them self-conscious

I stared at him differently—with truly authentic
Brotherly love—me the biggest queer in town
Dwayne was ashamed of me—I wonder why?
Brotherly love making me grow—pale and weak

Things got touchy—being Jerome’s older brother
I’d gone queer for him—me such a shy delicate

Dilettante of Dinge at first—but then once I got
Into it—I wanted Mandingo love all the time…

Shamelessly homicidal—like the Boston Strangler
I wanted to choke my cute black brother to death
Mulatto love driving at night—in the Cadillac
Like F.W. Murnau in his Packard—over the cliff!!!

So shamelessly smarmy—even I blushed back then
The more I got into it—well, the more ashamed I got
Straining my lips—on his simply ungodly Godzilla
A midnight kiss—after stomping Tokyo flat

I could feel young King Kong—deep inside him
Straight from Skull Island—the famous gay
Getaway vacation spot—for primitive tourisimo
Island of Mystery—Island of Fay Wray!!!

Nocturnal Emissions—waking me at night
Feeling so terribly embarrassed by it (kinda)
Waking me up—Jerome’s growing machismo
My petulant bruised lips—smeared with it…

If the neighbors only knew—the Awful Truth
Hopefully nobody knew—about our mulatto romance

The times Jerome fainted—flexing his nice tight ass
Tight rosebud asshole—squeezing my tongue blue

Those were the hot times sometimes—back when
Jerome fainted—his snotty soiree thick with
Mandingo underworld—all that runny offspring

Wasted on my famished Sodom and Miss G lips
.
Such excruciating Adios Adonis—into the Sunset
Sluggish thug love—tender heartbreaking moments
So very vulnerable—Jerome’s twisted Venus-torso
Our bedroom ceiling—writhing like a Sistine Chapel


Thursday, September 10, 2009

My Baptist Boyfriend



My Baptist Boyfriend

“A man like me?”
—James 5: 17-18

“'daaaamn, check out
the swang on that thang,
yo. He be a complete
hottie bottie!”
—Urban Dictionary

Baptist Boyz—from California!!!
They’re so cute—and squeaky-clean
Like right out of a—Pink Elephant carwash
So nice and slick—like a Popsicle stick
Praise the Lord—hot California cuties!!!

I love it when you—sleep with me
Reading the Good Book—before a spree
Yeah, gimme divine Leviticus Love, baby!!!
I love the way—you turn your cheeks
Spread ‘em—you little hottie bottie!!!

John the Baptist—couldn’t do better
Than my sexy San Jose saintly stud
Taking a nude dip—in the motel pool
Halleluiah brother—baptize me good
Hold me down under—until I’m saved!!!

My Baptist boyfriend—Dwayne Jones
Told me his mission—was really simple
To love God—to love others………….
And to recruit lots of—disciples like me
Yes, even harlot-lipped lascivious me!!!

Convince me—California Pretty Boy
Show me how—virgin surfers ride the
Huge stormy waves—just like Jesus
Show me some skin—some Venus-torso
To make it worthwhile—saving my soul!!!

I wanna see Elijah—show some leg
Hitchhiking his way up—Mount Carmel
I wanna see a little—fire and brimstone
Excite those petulant prophet loins!!!
Squeeze those cheeks—Isaiah to Malachi!!!

I wanna hear Elijah—speak the truth
Spend some time with me—compassionately
Cherith Brook—his babbling biblical book
Schooling Elijah—getting him ready for
Proposition Hate—decadent California!!!

Be my passionate young Baptist!!!
A true-blue believer—in the Old Testament
Gimme some Fire—outta your Mountain
Show me some Showdown—at the Summit
Okay if some Mormons & Catholics show up?

I’m burned-out—and depressed like Elijah
On the run—I’ve been hiding down here
Under the Juniper Bush—waiting for my cute
Young Elisha to come—save me please
Even saints need somebody—sometime???


Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Whiteboy Bondage—Black Deliverance



Whiteboy Bondage—Black Deliverance

“All the girls say—
I’m pretty black for
a white guy.”
—Wentworth Miller
The Human Stain
.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl-QCqQyEb0&feature=related

We must have—watched it a dozen times
“Imitation of Life”—there in the Bijou balcony
I could feel it—the black snake moaning
The scene with Troy Donahue—too much
Beating up Susan Kohner—in the back alley

Her pain & agony—made Dwayne Jerome sullen
Feeling the way she felt—mulatto broken-hearted
Able to pass in a white society—to be accepted
Only to have her secret—come out in the open
Her loving mother—Lana Turner’s Negro maid…

Tall handsome 16-year-old Dwayne Jerome
My incredibly beautiful nouveau half-brother
Living with me in the big mansion in Ingeville
My whole life hopelessly—revolving around him
My long lost young Chicago brother Jerome!!!

“I think that Bill Inge
had already made up
his mind to invoke this
same shadow and to
suffuse it with light”
—Tennessee Williams

Like Tennessee Williams—and William Inge
I struggled to invoke—the same Shadow
The invoked One—A Streetcar Named Desire
The One—The Dark at the Top of the Stairs
My Shadow Twin—Dwayne Jerome Jones!!!

Naively I thought—I’d suffuse it with Light
But Jerome’s Bondage & Deliverance was
Much more than just fun—falling in love
Was serious business—the Dark Other
I desperately craved—thru Mulatto S & M!!!

Whips and black leather—hanging from the
Ceiling in chains—all the pleasures & pains
I imagined—my so-called Whiteboy Bondage!!!
But it was just nothing—compared to Jerome’s
Exquisite Mulatto Love and Deliverance!!!

Surely it was more than just Penis Envy???
Knowing my younger brother—was more
Endowed than me—his African manhood???
Suddenly I became one—with the Shadow
My lips touched—The Heart of Darkness!!!

It was simply shameless—and unforgivable
Being a Size Queen—for one’s kid brother…
His blood flowing through me—as surely as it
Flowed through his father—and our mother…
The Family Tree—wanting to get inside me!!!

Those naïve old-fashioned whitey Westerns—
The Calvary soldier and Indian slicing their
Hands and pressing them together saying
“Now we’re blood-brothers, Kimosabe!!!”
“Now we’re like blood-brothers, Tonto!!!”

It takes a lot more—than just that, baby
Dwayne Jerome and me—simpatico smoochers
My hot mulatto brother—always with a pout
Africa running through him—running thru me
Goodbye Heartache—Hello Mulatto Love!!!

Jerome had mother’s eyes—her winning ways
His bright orange pubes—simply amazing me
All the different ways—two brothers can be
Alike—all the different ways they can be lost
Strangers to each other—lost and then found

The way I felt about him—unnaturally ashamed
There was no depth—to how ashamed I got
Shame made me do things—I’d never done before
Dwayne Jerome so very mean—getting off on
Watching a dirty whiteboy—beg for it…

Sullen and moody—Jerome my Troy Donahue
Beating the shit out of Susan Kohner in the alley
All that same anger and pent-up mulatto angst
Dwayne Jerome taking it out on me—
The more I hurt—the more I wanted it bad

Roughing me up—because I was Vanilla fag
Funny how the pain didn’t hurt—I loved it!!!
In fact anything that Jerome did to hurt me
Made me feel just the opposite—it felt good
Which was asking for trouble—and I got it!!!

You know that scene—in The Maltese Falcon?
Humphrey Bogart pistol-whipping Peter Lorre
“You’ll take it and like it!!!”—he says to Peter Lorre
I took it like Peter Lorre—when Dwayne Jerome
Pistol-whipped me—with his big black heater

I took it and liked it—like Bogart said
What can I say?—I should’ve been more shy?
Embarrassed by such an exquisite mulatto Prince?
All the Shame and Embarrassment in the world—
Couldn’t stop me loving my kid brother all the way!!!

Jerome was Darkness—at the Top of the Stairs
Jerome was Darkness—Splendor in the Grass
Jerome was Darkness—the kind Inge was after
Writing his novel—“Good Luck, Mrs. Wyckoff”
An old story about—tormented interracial love

Whiteboy Bondage—Black Deliverance
The more I got into it—sliding up beside him
His Mandingo Love—the more I understood
What Robert Mapplethorpe—meant when
He said—“Once you’ve gone black…”

Monday, September 7, 2009

Spanking Sarah Jane





Spanking Sarah Jane

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WD1C9YbOr0&feature=related

I know it sounds perverted—and oh so sick
But sometimes he’d let me—spank “Sarah Jane”
After all his nice fine ass—needed some attention
Dwayne Jerome was into—the Fine Art of S&M
In fact we spanked each other—all the Time

I’d bend him over my knees in the water bed
One slap on his fine tight ass—caused tidal waves
Up and down we’d go—all the way to Buffalo
All the way to Mozambique—his nice black ass
My tongue up there—in his Heart of Darkness

What can I say—what can I do to make up for it?
The travesty of all that spilt youthful Testosterone?
The shameless long drawn-out Sacrileges of Love?
A tablespoon a day—to keep Freudenschade away?
Letting me at least taste—how Dwayne Jerome felt?

How many times—did I choke on Innocence?
Innocence was something—Jerome didn’t have
It was like Come Back Sheba—never coming back
Jerome didn’t walk—he slithered like a Snake
Wrapping his legs around my neck—strangling me

I got him a black silk kimono—with pink fuchsias
Rather than him walking around nude all the time
That Cadillac Love of his—so very distracting
I’d rather have it covered—by black & pink silk

Than feel weak in my knees—all the time

We watched movies—Nosferatu and Dracula
Jerome smirking at Bela—all those Dracula movies
For him it was all about—more than bloodsucking
After all wasn’t I the nefarious—Dracula’s Daughter
Famished Hungarian Countess Marya Zaleska?

Bug-eyed outer space creeps—like The Thing
Mad insectoid monsters—like Them and Tarantula
Giant rabid starved rats—Attack of the Giant Shrews
Ancient Jurassic lizards—Creatures from Black Lagoons
They were all losers—compared with Jerome in bed

“The horror! The horror!”—said Joseph Conrad
In The Heart of Darkness—the River was a Snake
It fascinated Marlow—drove Kurtz toward the edge
Jerome became his own seductive—Snake Charmer
Years of self-fellatio—Afro-Abominations!!!

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Imitation of Life



Imitation of Life

“How do you explain to your
daughter that she was born
to hurt?”—Anne Johnson,
Imitation of Life

“Every mulatto was proof
that the color line had been
crossed. In this regard—
mulattoes were symbols of
rape and concubinage.”
—David Pilgrim, “The Tragic
Mulatto Myth,” Museum of
Racist Memorabilia

Overnight it seemed—Jerome became Susan Kohner. Sullen Sara Jane in Imitation of Life—the crux of the story pretty simple. Jerome wanted to be white all the way all the time—but he couldn’t with his mulatto penis. No mulatto kid with that much down there—could hide it. Nobody in Ingeville—had what Jerome had. Nobody in that little Midwestern town knew—what I knew.

It was an awful cross to bear—and it got heavier every day. Mother had been like actress Juanita Moore—she’d been more into keeping Jerome’s existence in Chicago secret. But how long could mother keep hiding it?—hiding Jerome ignoring him denying him? Was Jerome born to hurt?

After mother died—there wasn’t any need to keep her youngest son in the closet anymore. That’s when she told me about him—and that’s when I went to Chicago. I wanted to meet him—my younger brother. I wanted to let him know about me—and his inheritance. My estranged kid brother—black as the Queen of Spades. But only down there—mauve mulatto everywhere else.

Guilt was part of the game—Dwayne Jerome beginning to live with me. The growing young mystical Thuggery—of what was down there in Jerome’s shorts. How could I subtly suggest to him—how could I be tactful about it? Something as intimate as that? The troubling perplexity of Jerome’s growing shame? Down deep in his growing adolescent ego—his dark Thug power growing. And me wanting some of it…

Jerome had been hurting a long time. I could tell by the way he wouldn’t look at me—the way he struggled letting himself go. It took him a long time getting there—when he’d start calling me “Denise.” Letting me coax him along with my sluttish lips—wanting to know what he felt. Wanting to feel it the way he felt it—totally in the mulatto moment.

Why did I want to feel it? What was it Jerome had—I wanted to feel? Did I want to become Jerome—did I want to become my half-brother? Did I want to get into being him—feeling it the way he felt it. I couldn’t get my mind off him—he was so mulatto male.

The way he became the Other—it lasted a long time. It was our Family Tree—all the runny roots & secret branches. Going down—going down into the Earth. Going down—it took a long time. A part of Jerome—went all the way down the Mississippi. I could feel it—all the way down to New Orleans. I could taste the Caribbean in him—the sugar cane plantations. And even further than that—the African male in him. It was all a part of our Family Tree—and I wanted more of it.

The guilt we felt afterwards—it turned me on. If loving Jerome was shameful—I wanted to feel even more ashamed. I wanted to grovel in it—and become it. I wanted to know the shame of love—and make that shame a part of my everyday life. Everyday and every night. I know it sounds like I was taking advantage of him—and I was. I wanted to take advantage of every inch of him. And every minute I had with him—because I knew it couldn’t last.

That’s how much—how desperately I was into the mulatto-moment with Jerome. And he was getting more and more mulatto-thug by the day—the way he was growing so fast as a teenager. It was like Jack and the Beanstalk—I was greedy for the Golden Harp. And the fucking Goose—that laid the runny Golden Egg. I wanted Shame—I wanted it bad.

The more ashamed Jerome got—the more I wanted him. I wanted to feel that shame deep inside him—all the way and then some. Every inch of it. The more ashamed Jerome got—the harder it was for him to get off. He didn’t want to make love sometimes—and that made it even better. He held it back—not wanting me to feel and taste his shame. Was it the Chicago in him—that didn’t want to come out? Was it New Orleans—the ongoing curse and hurt of slavery? Was it Africa—an ocean away but still as close as looking in a bedroom mirror? The shame was there—I could see it growing. And I wanted it.

Jerome was my kid brother—but it was more than just that. He was struggling with himself—his black consciousness. He felt guilty about it—so did mother. So did everybody else in town—except me. Everybody else—made him hurt. So did I—but it was a different kind of hurt. Maybe I hurt him more—wanting to make him feel good. I wanted to become my kid brother—I wanted to love all the way. Jerome would kiss me—and that was really nice.

But to be anything other than trade—was betrayal of his young black brotherhood. He had to butch it up—he had to be proud of his Negritude. The Negro in him that I wanted—he’d let me have it only so much. At least back then in the ‘60s—in our small college town of Ingeville. In a sea of prejudice—there wasn’t a drop to drink. Except what I managed to squeeze out of him—when he’d let go.

I wasn’t helping matters much—Jerome trying to get his mind off it. With me complicating matters wanting to make love—how could he get his mind off anything with me around? Knowing I was enslaved to him didn’t help matters—mesmerized by the very thing he hated. Three hundred years of slavery—a long time to hurt. Making the angst of his young mulattohood even worse. After all what was more wrong?—Deuteronomy or devil-worship? The straights or the gays? It was like being caught—between the devil and the deep blue sea.

Gradually Jerome gave in—“Okay Denise, take it, man.” And that’s what I did—wanting to make his pain go away. But probably only making it worse. The more ashamed he got about himself and me—the better it got. The more shame he felt—the more I needed him. I needed his shame so bad sometimes—it was just awful. The only thing I could think about—was his face turning away from me. Hiding his face in the pillow—not wanting me to see his expression when he lost it. That’s how bad it was—and it got worse. That’s how bad my mulatto love was getting—I was addicted to the young Prince of Dinge. And he was living in the same house with me—caught up in my arms every night.

How to make up for lost time—I was greedy to find out how. How could I have missed Jerome so much?—all the telltale signs of my kid brother’s hurt feelings. Keeping it to himself all that time—locked-up in his mind. Moping around Chicago—moody kid in the welfare housing. Not knowing who his mother was—finding out too late. And then me—a gay half-brother knocking at the door.

Then Ingeville—not having any friends. Not being able to sleep—knowing his older brother was queer for him. Being selfish with himself—not wanting to share anything with me. There’s nothing worse—than a sullen younger brother. With a chip on his shoulder—and a grudge against the world.

It took time for him to trust me—and lots of Cadillac Love. Driving around at night in the bleak spectral country—in that sleek shark-finned Cadillac of ours. Getting out of town and taking long drives at night—letting him do what he wanted to do. Driving without thinking about himself—moody sullen kid brother. Full of pent-up teenage libido—wanting to live in the moment. The only moment there was—the mulatto moment.

Jerome’s big hands on the steering wheel—his legs spread apart on the seat. As we zoomed across the flat countryside—some nights both of us saying nothing. Both of us just digging the long ride—way out there in the darkness. Some nights both of us not thinking—but what else could we do? We both could feel it—it was always there. There was always something on our minds—it was Mandingo love in the air. Letting my hand glide down his thigh—out on the highway. Beneath a gothic midwestern sky—full of jealous gone stars.

Parking under the Cottonwood River Bridge—listening to the cottonwoods along the bank. A Santa Fe train whistle in the background—just sitting there with each other. Doing nothing—saying nothing. Just digging it—Cadillac Love.









Friday, September 4, 2009

Cadillac Love



Cadillac Love

Scene One

Jerome hated it—being mulatto
But I loved it—every inch of him
Jerome’s hair—was bright orange
Just like Mommy Dearest—Amy Jane
Jerome’s complexion—albino mauve
Except down there—between his legs

Jerome was shy—and self-conscious
He didn’t want to—take a shower
Jerome locked—the bathroom door
Because he knew—I wanted in
Jerome stayed up—and watched TV
Because he didn’t—want to go to bed

Jerome was 16—and I was twenty-one
The court appointed me—his guardian
Jerome got an allowance—just enough
I didn’t care if—he dropped out of school
Jerome was laidback—he didn’t care
Got him a Cadillac—so we could drive

Jerome loved to drive—late at night
With the top down—and radio going
Jerome drove for hours—and hours
Out in the country—on the highway
Jerome could drive forever and ever
Old Route 66—abandoned at night


Scene Two

We lived alone—there in Ingeville
On Come Back Little Sheba Street
He’d never heard of William Inge
So I took him to the Granada and
The Snake Pit Drive In to see most
Of Inge’s movies—like Picnic

The helicopter aerial shot above
The wheat elevators and town of
Hutchinson was very breathtaking
But he got off on Natalie Wood
Going down on Warren Beatty in
Splendor in the Grass (1961)

I got Jerome to read the plays—
Come Back Little Sheba then
The movie with Burt Lancaster
And Shirley Booth—as well as
The Dark at the Top of the Stairs
& naturally Bus Stop with Monroe

Later on after he joined the Navy
To get out of town—away from me
I read Inge’s “black” novel in 1979
Good Luck, Miss Wyckoff about
An interracial love affair between
A school teacher & a black janitor

Scene Three

I really didn’t care—what Jerome did
He dropped out of school—no big deal
I pretty much left him alone—“kinda”
Going to Ingeville Teachers College
Getting my degree in English was the
Main thing on my mind—“sort of”

Jerome slept till noon—I came home
For lunch everyday—he was still in bed
He’d be lying there—waiting for me
Smoking a cigarette—listening to music
I forget when we—started doing it
Pulling the sheets back—for love

Jerome was the tall—quiet type
Long and lanky—with his eyes closed
He played basketball—with the guyz
In the park—on campus sometimes
But most of the time—he laid around
Doing nothing but playing with himself

After a month—in the big mansion
He moved into my bedroom and we
Slept together—such brotherly love
I got to know intimately the other
Half of me—the dark double that was
The Night of the Iguana in me

Scene Four

That’s when I started writing—
About us—about him and me in the
Big house—there alone together
On Come Back Little Sheba Street
For a whole year until he was 17
And then joining the Navy

I was pretty stoic about it all—
Good things like that just don’t
Last forever—even though time
Stopped each day & night—
Stretching out like a long smooth
Highway in the moonlight

It wasn’t easy for Jerome—
Being a Negro in Ingeville KS
It was bad enough having a
Gay half-brother like me in
Love with him—sleeping with
Him—wanting him all the time

Writing about Jerome was—
Hard and yet it was easy since
He had a way of stopping time
For me—all he had to do was
Lounge on the sofa—in his puce
Kimono—looking at the ceiling

Scene Five

Ever tasted a Family Tree?
I have and it’s awful tasting—
The writhing roots of shame
The bent branches of love
Chicago ran thru his veins—
His sac full of saxophone love

African roots and branches—
All the way from West Africa
On slave ships—Caribbean
Cane plantations—and rum
The New Orleans slave block
His Mississippi sluggish cum

I got to know my other half—
The dark doppelganger love
That dares not mention its name
Jerome ashamed of how queer I
Was for him—how infatuated
I was—down to the last wiggle

I knew the dinge queen truth—
Once I’d gone black there was
No turning back—I was turning
All at once into my kid brother—
Unashamed headhunter for
Deepest Darkest African love

Scene Six

Down in the dismal basement—
Down behind locked doors and
Hidden inside safety deposit boxes
That’s where the bank held our
Family Secret—one of mother’s
Photo albums—and some letters

I showed Jerome—a photo
Taken in Chicago back during
A nightclub performance and
How Jerome looked like him and
How goodlooking his father was—
The reason mother loved him

She never stopped loving him—
But love-affairs aren’t forever
And so she left Chicago and
Came back to Ingeville to live
With her parents—leaving Jerome
With his relatives in Chicago

How was I to know that first
Time I met him—how was I to
Know how much I’d get to know
Him—how was I to know how
Deep Magic Negritude ran thru
Him—oozing inside me too

Scene Seven

I remember the first time—
How much Jerome blushed and
Blushed some more—deeper shades
Of Mandingo mauve each time he
Let me touch him—become him
When he lost it—all the way home

That’s why he finally dropped—
Out of school because of gym
The other guyz ogling at his
Incredible jet-black endowment
While the rest of him was so
Pale delicate white chocolate

Lean licorice-smooth man—
The rest of him so albino-white
That he glowed in the dark—
But only I really knew just how
Pink his head got concealed by
That nice Congolese foreskin

I wanted to know the truth—
Just how much could I become
My kid brother each time he lost
It and lost it some more—that’s
When I knew I was doomed to
Be his slave forever and ever

Blacula Diary



Blacula Diary
—for Philip Larkin

Loving Jerome back then—
Wasn’t an easy thing to do
Sometimes old rock & roll songs—
Still make me feel guilty and blue

Little things like his smirky look—
Going spastic in my arms in bed
“Ugh’s” sprawling out of his open mouth—
Long hyphenated snaky “ooh’s & aah’s”

His face distending down off the bed—
Slacker slack-jawed kid on the floor
The unfailing sense of him being young—
And feeling more alive than dead

Spreading him out like a deck of cards—
Teenage mulatto Solitaire kid-brother
Summer-swollen elm trees overhead—
Come Back Little Sheba Street
.
His thug snug in his shorts—
Sliding them down just for me
An ice-cold beer afterwards—
Getting my kid brother off



My Baby Brother is Black



My Baby Brother Is Black

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy-zVlB4mvA

Shock of shocks—my baby brother was black
I didn’t know I had a younger brother back then
But on my mother’s death bed—she confessed
She’d fallen in love—with a saxophone player
Who played in a blues band—there in Chicago

It was after her divorce—from my father
She lived alone for awhile in the Windy City
To get away from our small town Ingeville
Named after the famous gay playwright
(Picnic, Bus Stop, Splendor in the Grass)

Little did I know—about cute young Jerome
He had red hair like mother—my kid brother
He had a nice smooth albino complexion—
He was only sixteen—but tall like his father
He was living in the South End of Chicago

His father was dead—like our mother
He was living in welfare housing with his
Grandmother who raised him by herself
I was his half-brother—she could tell right
Away when I knocked—at the door

“My young kid baby-brother was black”
Kept running through my nervous mind
Sitting in the dumpy living room with him
Not wanting to look at me very much—
Naturally anybody could tell I was gay

Who needs a white-trash older brother?
Especially a nelly weak-wristed gay one
Like me ogling at him like I was doing
But I was curious naturally—about him
Plus I had some inheritance $$$ for him

Like a $100,000 annuity—that mother
Had left him in her estate—in her will
The lawyer reading to me after they
Pulled the plug in the hospital after
The Santa Fe train hit her Cadillac

Jerome’s grandmother passed away
Pretty soon after my visit—and Jerome
Moved from Chicago to Ingeville—
Not far from Kansas City where he
Lived with me and went to school

My Baby’s Black—became the story
Of my life—and we became lovers
Back then in the Sixties—just like in
Claude Bernard-Aubert’s French
Blaxploitation Les Lâches vivent d'espoir

It was during the early days of the
Civil rights movement—when society
Was examining different views on race
When I wrote my bio-pic script about
Jerome & me—living together

My Baby Brother Is Black (2010)—
(Pre-production) starring Tyrese Gibson,
Snoop Dogg, Ving Rhames, Langston
Hughes, Bruce Nugent, Essex Hemphill,
Cuba Gooding and James Baldwin




Thursday, September 3, 2009

The Movies



The Movies

“Can she make me forgive…”
—Arthur Rimbaud, “Anguish,”
A Season in Hell

Can movies—make me forgive
My constantly—defeated ambitions?

Can Lana Turner—look down on me
Matinee queen—dispelling ages of misery?

Can a Late Show—with Peter Lorre
Dissolve the shame—of my failed life?

Can my filmic youth—be somehow restored
By silver screen icons—of the Fifties?

Can Alan Ladd—moody gunman Shane
Return me—from my fall from grace?

Can Hollywood—be another way of being
More amusing—than what I expected?

Can Marlene Dietrich—kiss the dying air
Sighing in the—murderous silence?

When Humphrey Bogart—pistol-whips me
Why do I take it—and tell him I want more?

I Walked With a Zombie (1943)



I Walked With a Zombie (1943)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJuSZ59C6a4&feature=related

“See this strange, strange story of a woman whose lure set brother against brother; whose love caused hate—and whose beauty bowed to the will of an evil spell in whose power we must refuse to believe— EVEN IF IT'S TRUE!”

“The blackest magic of voodoo keeps this beautiful woman alive...yet DEAD!”

“She's alive... yet dead! She's dead... yet alive!”

“Who said the dead don't fuck?”
______

Darby Jones plays this tall sexy zombie Carrefour in Val Lewton’s controversial I Walked With a Zombie—directed by Jacques Tourneur and written by Curt Siodmak.

Lewton’s racy theme of Interracial Supernaturalism and Voodoo Romance certainly made the movie extremely risque back then—enough to fascinate modern jaded moviegoers even now more than half a century later. Why pray tell?

Francis Dee plays this young innocent Canadian nurse who sails to the West Indies to care for Jessica, the zombie wife of a plantation master, Tom Conway. Christine Gordon plays the role of Jessica who lives the living death of a woman voodoo dispossessed—but not only that. She’s in love with Darby Jones—this tall handsome zombie stud who’s carrying on a not so occult love affair with her. It’s Zombie Love—way ahead of its time.

Much more stylish and risque—than My Baby Is Black!!!(1965). Or later black exploitation flicks like Blacula (1972) with its hair-raising sequel Scream Blacula Scream (1973) starring legendary Pam Grier (Jackie Brown) who has the power to deep-six his 12-inch reign of terror. William Marshall takes the role of Darby Jones into bloodthirsty noble African Voodoo realms hithertofore unthought of by movie audiences since Lewton’s lewd imagination first came up with the idea of Carrefour—the Prince of Darkness!!! Interracial romance and lewd drums in the night—what’s going on in this movie I Walked with a Zombie anyway?

Like The Cat People—Old World sexuality and lewd occult worship seem to be playing a very intense role in I Walked With a Zombie. Since Lewton made millions with the RKO thriller The Cat People, he could pretty much do what he wanted to do with this zombie movie. With a script by Siodmak and a director like Tourneur—no wonder we get this film noir titillating thriller about interracial romance and tragedy. It could only happen in the West Indies on a sugar plantation—never in the Deep South on a cotton plantation. Although not that I know of—although the Decadent South is capable of anything, my dears.

The key scene is Sandra Dee and Christine Gordon slithering thru the nefarious night in white ghost-like silk evening gowns out of Dracula—working their way thru the darkness thru spooky cane fields lured by the sound of voodoo drums and unspeakable erotic ceremonies. Only to encounter Darby Jones—standing nude at the crossroads guarding the path to the shameless native party going on deep in the West Indies night.

Darby Jones was typecast early beginning with his first movie Tarzan the Fearless (1933) as Anga the Head Bearer—then later playing various tall silent types in films like Queen of the Jungle (1935), Diamond Jim (1935), as Bomba in Tarzan Escapes (1936), as Black Santa Claus in Swing High, Swing Low (1937), as Duckfoot the Stableboy in Kentucky (1938), as the Witch Doctor in Congo Maisie (1940), as Darby in White Cargo (1942), as Kolanga the Zombie in Zombies on Broadway (1945), as the Native Chief in Queen of the Amazons (1947), as the Masai Warrior in The Macomber Affair (1947), as the Batsuma Chief in Rope of Sand (1949), as Keega in Zimba the Gorilla (1949), as Chief Talim in 2 episodes on Ramar of the Jungle (1953) (“Drums of Doom” and “Evil Trek”), and finally as the Wine Steward in Something of Value (aka Africa Ablaze) (1957).

But that scene at the crossroads at night in I Walked With a Zombie—with the wind oozing and whispering in the dead trees thru the long rows of tall sugar cane reaching up to the humid yellow sweaty full moon shining down at midnight… That scene has got to be the primal-scene that stirred my youthful decadent imagination way back when.

It sent goosebumps up and down my spine—desperately wanting to be Jessica or Sandra Dee standing there in front of the 7-foot dark sleek Carrefour. Talk about being hung at the crossroads—isn’t that where they hang rapists and murderers? But with Carrefour—he was already dead. Dead and hung—ask Sandra Dee!!!

The Plantation was abuzz—Tom Conway, his mother, his brother and all the local people in town were in a state of shock too. They say once you’ve gone black—there’s no turning back. And that’s what Jessica apparently did—she went all the way. And didn’t come back. She’d gone head over heels for Darby Jones—she’s been transformed into a Dinge Queen. What a challenge for American moviegoing audiences—back then in the pre-integration days of 1943!!! Even now—the idea of black & white explicit Voodoo Love is controversial—although more acceptable in Northern big cities like Chicago & NYC.

I shan’t go into what happened back then at the crossroads deep in the cane field that shameless night—other than to say that both Jessica and Sandra Dee got more than they expected during that rendezvous with the uncanny Carrefour. Who said the dead don’t fuck? It was a night of the living dead—that will “go down” in Hollywood Babylon cinematic history. I only wish I were there!!!

Cinema Zutique



Cinema Zutique

“O Lilies! O Garden swing!
O silver Enema bags!!!”
—Arthur Rimbaud
“Lilies,” Album Zutique

Niagara

Sad queen—done in
By butch—rough trade
She falls—and sprawls
Showing some—nice leg

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane

Two sick—young fruits
Drastically—pursuing
A pair of—big black boots
Quick licks—then kicks!!!

Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone

In Papal Rome—Vivien Leigh
Parties with the—Fast Lane
Every night—Italian boyz
Full of hot—jizzmatic snuff

Night of the Iguana

Ava Gardner—has two boyz
Each with a—nice scaly iguana
She pets nightly—in hammocks
Beneath a humid—full moon

Mysterious Skin

Whitewashed—white trash
Bored kid—in the trailer park
Eating lots of—black licorice
His shit—looks like dirty blood

Gone With the Wind

O Dixie Land—Scarlet O’Hara
Distaining all—the young dudes
In favor of—a more experienced
Descent of Vaseline—from heaven

Summer and Smoke

Summer night—by the fountain
Cheap cigars—traveling salesman
Earl Holliman—puffing away
Geraldine Page—ankles in the air

The Haunting

With my bedside books—helping to
Haunt me nightly—Lovecraftian
Black and white—Nightmare noir
Meandering dark mansion—mine

Tabu

Taking the 107—downtown
The Samoan kid—falling asleep
Leaning his head—on my shoulder
All the way to Seattle—Polynesia

Casablanca

I’d probably prefer—Rick’s Place
Full of Frenchmen—escaping Paris
Sitting at a back table—sipping
Absinthe with—Peter Lorre

The Last Picture Show

Ben Johnson—says goodbye
The No Tell Motel—finally closes
The last movie—at the Royal Theater
Gone Odéon—from another era

Elizabeth

Cate Blanchett—haughty queen
Amidst a court—of gawking eyes
Performing—for her compatriots
Sneering at—neat black Spaniards

Midnight Cowboy

The young cowboy—newly arrived
In New York Times Square—soon
Finds out that—there’s more to life
Than washing dishes—in Dallas

I Was a Teenage Werewolf

I howled at the moon—too much
The woods—drapes of the night
The Gypsy life—appealed to me
You see—I had this certain habit

Breakfast at Tiffany’s

Afterwards—I asked him where
He’d like to have—breakfast and
He said—I’d like to have breakfast
At Tiffany’s—such butch naiveté

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Big Daddy—dying of rectal cancer
Big Daddy’s son—reluctant husband
Mourning over—Skipper & his past
Elizabeth Taylor—not giving up

House on Haunted Hill

O seasons—O haunted châteaus
Vincent Price—Last Man on Earth
Where are you—when I need you
Movies blow—my words away!!!