not all shadows are

11/18/2024 chiaroscuro, some are (THE NATIONAL SONG IS GORGEOUS)

INTERVIEW WITH THE POET
Con/Jur/d, 11/8/2024

as per the meeting yesterday
when we poised, as if tree branches
against the autumn fog, backlit
by street lights, with the baleful eye
of the ancient  orange, tan painted
industrial yard spotlight at the armory

WATCHING HUNGERLY

you’ve always suspected this implied
threat, a discomfited promise, has been
there since the Korean War, when
we really got into the swing of things
testing weapons, bullets at live
targets, not out of necessity, but
because we could, and we invented
communism and the whole brutality 
race, which we won hands down
needing to extract the digital
from DARPA, so we could build
a better white tarp, finding 
the physically possible covers
inadequate for covering 
the BLOOD and the GORE
and as you were complaining
about how the SUN doesn’t
rise like it used to, like the old
softy Hemingway recorded
in his high camp style, we
said, are you capable of being
serious any more? And you stopped
looking embarrassed, despite
those shifting chiaroscuro shadows
(presenting a history of ages

some, haven’t occurred yet) and said
we’ve always loved the sound of our own
voice, to our ear, you were a bit uncomfortable

BUT THEN

you slowly
raised your hand, in the overly exaggerated
pre-talkie, vaudevillian style and in your best
baritone, finger extended:

LOOK

and, we looked, seeing the moon
through the mist, a lunatic’s pie slice
and we laughed and laughed and

then stopped

one of us said, those times in life
when we know THEY are winning
is when we forget how to laugh
or why to laugh

THE RISING

chose to distract us and here is the capping
Phrase, according to our notes from your
interview:

THERE IS SUCH A THING AS SERIOUSNESS
and the implication of shallowness, and the necessity
of loving kindness, despite the ever present ABSURDITY

without them, there is no

LAUGHTER.

THE FIRST TIME WE SAW ERASERHEAD IN THE MIDNIGHT CINEMA —WE STARTED LAUGHING — WHAT ELSE WERE WE SUPPOSED TO DO?

Much love,

Con/Jur/d, 11/8/2024