Shoot Noir
You want to pull back the curtains of eternity.
A flicker of tittles on a blank screen;
in your beginning is your yen.
Desire directs your every movie.
You hope to name it Kali Yuga
but the studio demands something optimistic.
Ineluctable auteur theory of being.
Actors only mouth like puppets.
Writers at best narcissistic masturbaters.
Producers busy raising money and getting laid.
You try to fire that director but find
he has an iron clad contract on your soul.
Relax, Jake, it’s only Chinatown.
Try to attack the problem from cushions.
Strain hard at meditation’s lonely stool.
Strive to eliminate the worst of the waste.
Yesterday was difficult and today
warbles like a tubercular mezzo soprano
dropping notes that loudly proclaim nothing.
Your film lacks only a cogent ending,
but everything gets finally ruined,
and nothing is the only thing ever finished.
Don’t bother trying to edit this.
The Suits always make the final cut.
