So, You Really Want to Direct?

That’s it?
So you really want to direct?
You think it looks easy?
Maybe it only looks easy
because I make it look easy
Maybe if you knew how hard it is
to get most actors to act
then you’d mind your own business
of flubbing lines and tripping on your tonsils

This is inane
You have no script
You have no budget
You’ve given no direction
I am a professional!

Cut
Try something else
Improvise
Action

I’m your new Patriot Act
Everything breath you take
I’ll be watching you
Even when you’re sleeping
Especially when you’re sleeping
Except you won’t know it’s happening then
But I’ll be here stalking you

Again
Use your imagination

How about a close shot?
Since you were too cheap to get a real location
let’s do this scene close up
dressage scar and all
no room for error
no need for second takes

More
Dig deeper

Well, here we are lost on an island
and our options for optics are quite limited
use that if you like for an ophthalmology exam
but don’t even think about it for gynecology

I need more anger

Who’s tripping on their tonsils now
Mr. ex-boyfriend director?
Hmm?
Did you even know I played Portia in Ashland
and all three witches in Macbeth
when the other two called in sick
because I could?
And where the hell is my Evian?

Cut
Much better
We’ll work it out in edits


~ J. D. Mackenzie

[Based on the following Poetry on Wednesday Week 10 prompt: the prompt for this week is the photo shown at http://rallentanda.blogspot.com]

You There, In the Plaid

As the new son of an old nation
you got a gentle start
in pastoral South Lanarkshire
schoolboy days in Paris
wine, wisdom and worldliness
how soon the world can turn

Dispossessed of your ancestral lands
but never the blue and green tartan
cursed by the Crown
friend-in-arms of the Bruce
defeated at Methven and Dalrigh
victor at Brander, Roxburgh, Bannockburn

A hard life during hard times
made more so for the wars
that never seem to end

Sometimes on a walk
through the green grounds at St. Bride’s Kirk
I imagine your thick, black mane
damp with sweat and others’ blood
I can almost hear
your deep baritone thunder
across the plane of battle
Ye shall all die, thieves of England!

Gentle and sweet over pints and in love
all fury and ferocity in a good fight
beloved yet savage ancestor
we owe you all

And for reproducing before your final clash
on the frontiers of Andalucia
Thank you

As true as your spirit lives on
I will follow thee or die

~ J. D. Mackenzie

[Based on the following Poetry on Wednesday week 9 prompt: WHO AM I? Write a poem about a well know person, celebrity, historical or mythical figure. Please do not reveal the name. It should be fun to guess who it is.]

Botti & Lucia Heat Up Emmanuel

It’s time we left our work and went to play
We’ve been at it for hours, I know you’re tired
The days don’t get much longer than today

There’s nothing like the solstice to inspire
So pack your gear and get your second wind
Let’s head out to the beach and build a fire

All our friends are here so let’s begin
To barbeque and let the Fosters flow
We’ll do a little sailing if there’s wind

The stunning sunset makes your soft hair glow
Let’s shake things up as we dismiss daylight
When stars come out the music starts to slow

Botti’s horn was made for summer twilight
Everything I love is here tonight

~ J. D. Mackenzie

[Poetry on Wednesday Week 8 Prompt: Choose a piece of music that expresses Twilight in Summer. Make sure it is on You Tube so that we can listen to it while reading your poem. In Terza Rima Sonnet form, please.]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8NN4fpdm40

Love's Lament

To thee I send this written ambassage
By legal courier, registered mail
To show thee worthy of thy sweet respect

I cannot blame thee for my love
Thou usest with my best man
My second cousin, the pool boy, et. al.

I hated you
When it would have taken less courage
And been far less expense to love

Were I hard-favoured, foul or wrinkled old
Then mightest thou pause, for then I were not for thee
But having no defects, why dost abhor me?

I do forgive thy robb’ry, gentle thief
Of my home, my pension and full custody of the kids
Not all of whom appear like me

But I forbid thee one most heinous crime
Theft of our season tickets to the theatre
Kill me with spites, yet leave these alone

I feel shame that I was so innocent
All the things I had learned
Had been wasted


~ J. D. Mackenzie, Will Shakespeare & Charles Bukowski



Sources

Shakespeare
Sonnet 19
Sonnet 40
Venus and Adonis
Sonnet 26

Bukowski
As the Sparrow
My First Affair

Auntie's Dining Room

In my time I’ve seen and heard all
it’s true these walls can talk

My Lady’s story
begins and ends softly
a well ordered life filled with
abstinence, letters and calm

All of her needs were met in her time
temperate friends and hounds
quiet walks on a quiet lane

Rare visits from that truculent nephew
true to his dualist inclinations
and spurious joys

Looking back
it was as if the passions of the world
wound up tight like a vengeful mainspring
and ticked down the hours until
her passing provoked a clarion call

And once sounded
with curtains drawn and music loud
what foul fury and Teutonic tempo!

Who knew the gentle footman
whose name I never worried to know
could so quickly devolve into savage frenzy?

Or that his tender couplet
complexion rosy and netherparts pale
could likewise surrender
her garments and decorum
even as swift?

My Lady’s cherished order
like torn clasps on foundations
even now a fading memory
so undone

~ J. D. Mackenzie


Inspired by Rallentanda’s prompt:

The Dresden clock continued ticking on the mantelpiece
And the footman sat upon the dining-table
Holding the second housemaid on his knees--
Who had always been so careful while her mistress lived

From ' Aunt Helen' by T.S. Eliot

Dating In Wonderland

Alice, Allison
Elise, Elysium
Champs d’Elysees

As her mind melted
so did the names
of everything around her
including her now-separate self

The evening began simply enough
her date, a cute Polo model with blonde stubble
and she with new blue eye shadow
that matched her dress

After the appetizer course
the Ecstasy (his idea) kicked in
their table got rubbery
her throat tasted metallic

Note to self:
no more sashimi or Vitamin X
on an empty stomach

When Polo guy morphed into a rabbit
(and not a nice one)
he still had cute whiskers
but his tanned ears grew white and long
and he affected this nervous custom
of burrowing her
under the table

Already stressed about
her parents and career
this was a bit much

It saddened Alice
that her life had come to this
a litany of less than stellar choices
fueled by a bad batch of Bliss
culminating in a dreadful date with a lugubrious hare
whose fondness for cruel titillation
was rather queer, indeed

And if that weren’t enough
there was no lemon for her tea

~ J. D. Mackenzie

[Inspired by Rallentanda's Poetry On Wednesday prompt #4 from the Charles Blackman painting Feet Beneath the Table]

Trevor's Epiphany

My young poet friend
is love-struck and high
he wants to tell me
about his new girlfriend:

Dude, he starts to say
because at twenty
everyone is Dude or Babe
except for his parents

he tells me
his new girlfriend is smoking hot
kind of short, like an Epigram
but built like a vigorous Epic

She’s direct as a Cinquain
with a wicked sense of Senryu humor
very old school, Alexandrine kind of class
and not one Cacophonous bone in her body

When they’re alone
she’s as bawdy as a barroom Limerick
yet sensitive and surreal
as a Spenserian sonnet

Their days together
are post-modern Idylls
and like a Canzone
her voice fills his heart with song

Nice to know
in a world that doesn’t get poets
they found each other
she totally gets him

~ J. D. Mackenzie


[Inspired by Rallentanda's Poetry On Wednesday prompt #3 from 'Fulbright Scholars' Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes. Curious? Visit http://rallentanda.blogspot.com]

Deliberate Faults

In the strange, dark world
of priests and boys
the presence or absence of light
depends on your point of view

The holy church proclaims
you can do nothing with children
unless you win their confidence and love
by bringing them into touch with yourself

The extent of the problem
has been overstated
abuse cases have declined
suffer the children unto me

The use of stereotypes
reminds us of the more
shameful aspects
of anti-Semitism

Those who have suffered
deserve loving pastoral attention
some more than others

Pay, pray, obey

What say the lacerated lambs?
when told they’re at fault
their fragile worlds implode
as if all the angels took off

Who then to believe
the weavers of tainted wool
or the dreamers of corrupted dreams
their foundations ground to dust?

A bumper sticker
on my neighbor’s new car
caringly asks me to
Pray for our Priests

From all evil
all impurity of soul and body
all gluttony and sensuality
all hypocrisy and pretense
all imperfections and deliberate faults
everything that displeases Thee

Deliver them
deliver us all

~ J. D. Mackenzie

Exodus Redux

My friend the national socialist
says it’s always the same thing
it’s about economics
when we follow the money
draw circles and connect lines
it all starts to make sense

We argue a lot in a friendly sort of way
and I can’t let this one go

I tell her
your point is flawed
and doesn’t apply to my world
in my world poets don’t think like that
our ghetto is big enough for everyone

Not so fast she says
aren’t there only so many publications
only so many pages in each one?
at any given moment it’s a finite number
the ship sinks when it gets too full
(so not digital thinking!)

She only sees the doors open to the good and the fortunate
which she interprets as the English-speaking and the quirky
this sounds a little too white supremist for my taste
having had a thing for Sandra Cisneros for the past decade

So I try to imagine if my friend is right
what if there are some poets who get ration coupons
and apartments with running water
while others are forced to leave town
carrying everything they own
surrounded by jack-booted thugs
who covet their fillings and don’t read poetry

The ex-adrenalin junkie in me
warms to this dangerous image
a new adventure and maybe a new career
in resistance movements

They may not like my dialect, my misplaced faith
or my distain for convention
but one thing they can’t take away
is my willingness to keep walking
until my feet hurt, until the scenery improves
and someone invites me to stay

~ J. D. Mackenzie