Indeed
REMINGTON GRAVES
He wondered without worry, without doubt, for his efforts were fruitful, his love was latently lurid and lugubrious despite the fierce wanton the world around him, in the carnage of that contrast, had reminded him of. Recollections of ostentatious shortcomings plagued his brain as grey-blue birds plummeted and zipped to the left of the horizon—disappearing in strident, swarming, intertwining shapes that spelled out the words he longed to hear…as the backdrop of explosive, gargantuan popcorn-shaped clouds hovered silently like floating giants with fiery bellies, for hot-oranges, reds, magenta, and yellow lightning shaped lining spread from underneath them. Twirling ensued and his right elbow patch flapped open, and candy of all colors fell from his pockets and bounced and rolled quickly under the park benches where women sat unaware as their heads fixed firmly at their cell phone screens and their fingers swiped incessantly. Ardent tears unleashed, clearing a dirty countenance with thin zigzagging trails, and the laughter began as a sob, then quickly became a cackle.
“That guy has fucking problems.”
”Jesus, Amber, must you?”
”What? I’m serious, I mean, look at him.”
”He seems fine to me.”
”Fine?! The guy clearly has issues.”
“Leave the poor fucker alone.”
And as the birds returned, chasing one another with strident song, the weeping man looked up at the sky and smiled as snot oozed slowly over his dirty lips and said, “I am free. I am as happy as can be. No dire need. No pain to feed….indeed…indeed…indeed.”
∞
Notable Films
BLANK CITY
In the treacherous time where Super 8, before the hip hug of hum from independent film, there was something known as Underground Cinema. Before the sickening sludge that is Social Media, cultural movements were fiercely grounded in geography, not the virus that is the “viral” from the virtual. New York City, downtown Manhattan, in the late 70’s and early 80’s, was the menacing vanguard for what appeared to be the future of filmmaking. Here, Blank City spins the story , of which had been long the wait, of radical renegade filmakers broke like jokes at a dubious period in NY history. This movement of punk rock filmmaking had not been documented until French director Celine Danhier emerged to showcase the “No Wave Cinema” and “Cinema Of Trangsgression” movements. Inspirations are evident and nodding to Film Noir, French New Wave, Warhol, and John Waters. Filmmakers: Jim Jarmusch, Eric Mitchell, Beth B, Charlie Ahear, Lizzie Borden and Amos Poe feature the glowing grit and attest to the ascending East Village art and rock scenes and the inception of hip hop. With their films, the lines of reality blur…short, long, color, black and white…all gems of beauty and dissonance…
But enough Yaking. Watch this film!
∞
Lord Of The Underworld
REMINGTON GRAVES
I knew you would leave me the day I laid eyes on you
The way you smiled and the shape of your lips, like an old starlet in hiatus
Your hair like upside flames and eyes smeared Monet’s locked in frames
The sway, the liar, a kiss on the nape of your neck, the assassin you inspired
O baby, you cried as the traffic died and the city lights faded faintly
A feverish dream, it now all seems, as death defied the song in your sigh
Epic gods of young heart throbs tossed the days that time assigned
We left our innocence in frameless beds that sat concretely in cheap carpeted apartment floors
I was relieved to know you eventually would go
Pretended to hurt at times for cinematic woe
Truth be told, at birth, my heart was sold
Thank my mother, that first lover, for that tired tale of old
Further still with Scotch and pills I heard your old friends say
Under bridges, old worn stitches, never did you lose your figure
Courtesan of dance and song, begging and begging for a baptist’s head
Killer of your dreams and ventures, how dare me now nostalgic gesture
You left me like I knew you would
Ophelia, where art thou now, but floating down no longer where you once stood
Underworld lord atop this Underwood, once again, a life misunderstood
∞
Pigeons
REMINGTON GRAVES
She took one lengthy deep drag from her cigarette as the cold biting breeze disheveled her long, dirty-blonde hair, and she held her breath as lifeless beaten newspaper pages rolled past her pastel-pink scuffed up Louboutins. As she removed the hair from her mouth and face, she noticed her bitten, black paint-chipped finger nails reflected the frozen face of the lady known as the Statue of Liberty, and for a sullen second, she allowed one seething tear to slither its way down her mascara. Her hands began to shake from the cold and she rubbed her arms as she finally exhaled and threw the cigarette on the dirty sidewalk and stepped on it with assertion. The pigeons plummeted and cooed, fluttering fiercely their grey and white plumage. Recollections of her grandmother came to mind as she had said, “Pigeons are rats with wings…disgusting creatures that carry a hundred diseases.”
Pigeons are cute, she thought. I love their singing and their playing. I don’t care if other people think they’re diseased—they’re alive and they’re survivors.
∞
On Any Given Sunday
REMINGTON GRAVES
The dull night drive through downtown streets thrusted sidewinding memories of melancholic moments; old lovers giggling by candlelight, conversations in hot showers, tender was their touch, lips shaped like breaking and rearranging hearts, distant stares that spoke volumes with their vacancy, and I lived as a man engaged with fickle fiancées, a murderer in the moment of a mundane marriage, a singing sycophant who waits at the dark end of the street.
On the opposite lane of the road I saw silhouettes of women driving somewhere, coming from nowhere, in the middle of peace and despair.
My Sundays are my Fridays.
I have three days off to look forward to.
Maybe I’ll take a drive there.
∞