do you really like
this movie? do you watch it in
your dreams?

can you tell its story dissected
without parroting that article
from the old horror magazine?

can you sit in the dark
again and again with the
veins of its cold silver light
bleeding across the suicide screen?

do you really like this movie or is it
just something to talk about years
afterward
when your children
come across it on late-night television?

can you find yourself here? are you walking
through the big crowd scene, the one where you
are Third Angry Villager With Torch
                                                            On the Right?

are you in the ordinary background
of the monster's tragic life?

or could you rise up like a phoenix
from the cutting room floor and say
not this time
not again
I will make you see me
I will not be ignored