dannye's New Writeups

Ode to the Coke machine (poetry)

2009-11-14T03:27:06Z

How you taunted me on that fall evening of yore
When the rum was still plentiful but trimmings ran dry
We saw you at the station at a quarter 'til four
We pulled up and stopped just two meters shy

Oh, your lovely front door with the display of choices
For our aperitif pleasure (more rum in the trunk)
The radio blared the loud pop sixties' voices
I in the back seat was Cooter Brown drunk

I fell out the car door and put in required change
(Some might remember the machine's vertical door)
I chose Sprite as a mixer; locked it in at close range
Opened the portal and gave pull like a chore

The coke machine faced me, the car at my back
Something was going quite literally wrong
It started to tilt then it rocked with a crack
The radio changed to a Rolling Stones song

No escape possible; I stood fast my ground
As the massive machine tilted towards me so…

Prime Suspect (review)

2009-10-15T19:45:03Z

One of my best friends, and probably my most compelling acquaintance, is a semi-famous journalist around these parts. He was the talking head anchor on one of the local TV stations for several years until drink got the better of him and cost him that career. He's been sober for twenty years and now has other less high profile TV gigs along with several freelance journalist-type commissions. One of his current writing pursuits is in conjunction with one of those mavens of meanspiritedness whom you see popping up on national venues from time to time. His stories about meeting with her in NYC and DC have confirmed everything I ever suspected about that circle of elites. He pretends as if he is not tainted by their aura, but I can tell he craves permanent entree and an established seat in that circle ever so badly. Since he gave up drink, his only bad habits now are lust and cigarettes. He smokes (and lusts) privately for the most part, as if to…

I have glimpses that are novels (poetry)

2009-10-06T20:39:34Z

I have glimpses that are novels
Maybe it's just me
The intervals between them
Help sharpen what I see

The shorter time becomes
The more the short times mean
The curtains part more easily
For each new lucid dream

The morphine drip looked for all the world like dilated marbles. Mary had been dying for what seemed like forever but was really only half of one year which was only two seasons out of over two and a half hundred. And, lucky her, they were the two seasons she disliked the most. Perhaps she would expire on her Aquarian birthday and learn to enjoy spring from the opposite side of the ground this time. "Pushing up daisies," as they say. Funny how an old saying like that can turn like a rabid pet and snarl viciously from what was just last year a lovely little snout.

I see shadows that are movies
When the day winds down
Ceiling tiles are screenplays
I read in my dressing gown

…

A city becomes a world when someone falls in love with one of its inhabitants (poetry)

2009-08-25T19:31:29Z

Each street is a path filled with their music and her perfume
Every restaurant has an open table on each potted patio
Intersections hold no danger and blind musicians cross against the lights
Playing cellos in midair and glockenspiels against the brickwork on the walls
They harmonize on thumb-flutes or hammer drums against the low clouds

Her name is Ingrid and Beate, sometimes Impei and then Umbai
She's blond and small or black and full and breathes the air like a tornado
You're moving fast as well and have that feeling which tourists often share
Of lost and lonely hotel beds which scare you like an empty well
You fall together and come out on the other side with toast and wonder

This time it's real, this time you're sure, and (insert city here) is now the place
To make a stand and seal the deal and close the gap and who's kidding who

That afternoon, the lowest paid of all the crew clean up the mess;…

Inside Passage (place)

2009-08-24T00:12:54Z

Four thousand people are on a large 18-story boat making its way through the Tracy Arm Fjord with glacier-carved rock walls four thousand feet high and another two thousand feet deep under the waterline. The water cascading from the very tops down the narrow crevices is fast and cold but it's not entirely clean. This is the melt from up top and the glacier that moved through here 15,000 years ago left behind a lot of crushed stone. You can't break a mountain without crushing some rock. Some of the residue is so fine that it's called "rock flour". You could see a handful of it sitting next to the flour you buy at the store and not be able to tell the difference by feel.

When we travel through these vast territories where even this huge boat is just a blip compared to the massive tree-controlled landscape around us, I think of those folks who think the world will end if we don't all plant just one more tree. People can be such vain fools.

The air on deck is 46 degrees and…

The Manchurian Candidate (review)

2009-07-26T18:05:22Z

I saw this movie when it first came out or soon thereafter. It always remained in my memory as a spooky spy thriller with some outstanding camera work. I was thinking of the scenes where there's a 360 effect. However, watching it again this evening after a lifetime of years, there really is no 360 effect like I remembered. I know the scenes I was thinking about, early on in the film, but they are much subtler than I remembered. I thought the scenes went faster, were darker and more claustrophobic. In fact, I realized I didn't remember this movie at all. It was like watching something brand new.

Try to imagine this, youngster. One day many years from now you will say, "Hey, honey. Let's watch Donnie Darko (or) Fight Club," and it will not be anything like you remembered it. You'll discover that the giant rabbit really doesn't eat little Donnie's head while blood shoots out all over the darkened movie theater. And you'll be surprised to find out that Brad Pitt and Edward Norton do…