Oscarine
all too special neptune bleak (twice crying) applique gig invoked
honest action curiously sumptuous thinking
bystood status resort gown relaxed perchance jilted
savage mercury ideal self-helpy little million scurrying,
nobody’s option lore, girlfriend booths—
—one for liza, 22, the deep mob and blame,
unknown vintage hour gone true
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Hollywood-good
dang! that boyish certainty
duh! the dusty cock-eyed
darn! such o’er-directed art values!
omg! wtf!
a sharp credulity has gotten me this far,
in a mostly readable, parasitic state
plain-chant our [mercy hollow] mini-theory
inscribe our uniform career apparel
at the atrocity ball, downsizing the ruin
in gutterside signage
or even less viz.
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Ancient Celebrity Tune-rot
“Brange say it’s about the work.”
— G. Stein
Subject: the city’s most public and sacred area
the self’s heavy architecture
acing the wonder quiz
linger in the orchard now
make your head small in
unreachable furniture
draw the unknowable
lines of little artists
your hairy nar nar
your mouths & skins
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Remarks
I have always believed @realdylanfarrow. First, no one actually wants this to be the way (or part of the way) their father (or father figure) treated them. Second how is Gayle King’s repetition and tone still normalizing the idea that Mia Farrow was vindictive and jealous rather than simply a mother concerned about the well-being of her daughters Soon-Yi and Dylan. Can you bear to watch the clip of Allen that King showed Farrow in their recent interview? After regaining her composure, Dylan simply said “he’s lying.” I thought right on, we are finished explaining the intricacies of your horribleness to you. Figure it out and end it. Ages ago, please; but right now will have to do.
I was a young adult the year Dylan Farrow’s story was first in the news. I was in a relationship in which I finally felt safe and loved enough to speak about what I suffered at the hands of my own father. This caused me to have a nervous breakdown and to be disowned by an entire half of my family. The news then was full of the idea of “false memory syndrome.” If my aunt (my mom’s much younger sister) had not corroborated my story with her own (which he basically admitted to to my mom, although he blamed her for “wiggling” on his lap), I don’t know if I even would have been so able to believe and trust myself. I’d been told my whole life I was angry and crazy. I am neither.
I worked in Hollywood briefly as a young adult, on the set of a (male) friend’s first (male) feature. I lived in Los Angeles for a couple of years. And although I wrote some of each, seriously, mostly I gave up the idea of both screenplays and fiction. I am a poet. As a poet and editor/curator/publisher over numerous years now, I cannot tell you how much demented entitled sexist (and racist) bullshit I have witnessed; it is a spectrum and none of it is ok.
I strive to have compassion for all, including my own imperfect self. However I will say that the perpetrators and beneficiaries of abusive, heartless, obtuse acts and structures are not also the authors of works I will miss. What I do miss, profoundly, are the works— — of women and others— — which were suppressed, censored, self-censored, or never written/filmed/etc. I am grateful to live at this challenging time of radical change.
Written with the super blue moon eclipse, January 31, 2018.
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“Oscarine” is from Cornstarch Figurine (Dusie, 2006); “Hollywood-good” and “Ancient Celebrity Tune-rot” are from Virigina or the mud-flap girl (Dusie, 2012).