In a belated answer to the five day poetry challenge, I begin this series titled "Poetry within the Film." I'll be sharing some of the original poems that appear in my movies. In this instance, here is the poem that gives a forthcoming movie its name, "A Spiral Way." A portion of the poem is used within the film, spoken by the character you see below, who is played by Cameron McElyea.
I hope you enjoy the poem. For more details about the movies, please check in with
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| A Spiral Way, film still |
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A Spiral Way, film still
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A SPIRAL WAY
Something there is that does not show,
but has its sign in the thunder
and in quieter symbols like morning light;
whatever it is in its farness,
converts a feeling it is near.
And how are we perceived
by this alien on the roof,
or thing from myth we thought never lived?
Are we judged? Made sport of?
Lost things to be found . . . even loved?
"What of us?" My aunt Cecilia used to say,
when she dropped dishes or mashed her hand.
She'd have a glass of whisky when she cooked,
and un-sticking portions that got burned to the pan:
"What of us? . . .What of us? . . ."
It was her best friend, Rose,
that died on the side of a dirt road.
This is an awful story. But please look.
She left two young children in the car
when she got out to pick dewberries—
they grow wild in the thick brambles
along rows of barbed wire fence,
and a favorite treat for snakes.
Rose, not seeing one, got bit in the forehead.
I wonder about the corruption of venom,
if Rose was thinking a thought that
blistered and broke like a degraded bit of film
that decays in the projector,
melting a scene into grainy white light.
It was my cousin, Calvin, and I that found them.
I was fourteen, he was seventeen.
First we saw the children—sweaty, bewildered,
crying in the car. Then Rose. Sloppy summer clothes.
Somehow, she had one shoe on and one shoe off, beside her.
Cecilia made the meal that followed the service.
She burned her knuckles on the roast.
Bit her tongue, bad, cutting onions.
Sip of whisky, "What of us?"
Sip of whisky, "What of us?"
But I don't mean this a dark, regional tale,
like something you'd find on Sundance Channel.
What I want to get to, is awe.
Black sheep Camille is Rose's oldest daughter.
She'd been up in Detroit, stripping bare
for her artist boyfriend. And him showing
abstract images of her, bare, for the
speculation of the world.
She was devastated throughout the service—of course!
Later, exhaustion sort of perked her up.
She invited me out to the back yard,
so that she could smoke and talk about her new mode.
The boyfriend had switched media to video.
"We're applying sentience to complex data. . .
The continuous present, there on tape. Life is the only
thing of value. Problem-solving, intelligence—
the point of these is to get more life. Nothing else . . .
Nobody dies like a Humanist. We die like animals."
When good country people talk about God,
we're reflecting on moments in everyday life, when
something broke into our thinking and turned it upside down.
God-talk is a way of whistling past the things that shake us up,
and a way of clearing space for the present moment.
After the reception, most everyone was day drunk.
Voices and thoughts were thick.
"What of us?" "What of us?"
Hymns were not invented for wild love to pour out.
Hymns were invented so that the singer could get a hold of himself.
It was a quarter-mile driveway at dusk, and Calvin
coming off the road like a shadow, holding something aloft.
I watched every step of his approach.
What he held was a dead snake. Not the snake, but a snake.
One he kicked out of the brambles and killed with a stick.
He showed it to us, and Camille wept.
He showed it to us. A man spat in the dirt.
He showed it to us. The children cried out.
He showed it to us. Dogs snarled and came forward.
He showed it to us. And the thing was a villain no more.
