to kill any horse around welcome to the place where laughter died where the dreams of innocent children are hung from a tree for the birds to pick at and eventually slaughter where the crosses are burned with the same gasoline that the police use to trap the wrong colors on the wrong street on the wrong side of this town where the ghosts have enough drugs on them to kill any horse around where old poets seek a quiet death in some abandoned relic of a vibrant past when the creative ones only have violence left run for the fucking hills -------------------------------------------------------------------- nice and festive they have the christmas decorations up at the hospital they look nice and festive it's a quick smile before the doom starts a few doors down ---------------------------------------------------------------- sink deeper old lovers laugh at me as i sink deeper into this fucking depression all chances now officially pissed away toxic isn't even the beginning of it but the urgency of now still exists one fist for the bottle both fists for the gun there's bound to be a cold, lonely night before too long --------------------------------------------------------------------- i should change my ways my doctor told me the other day alcohol was slowly killing me i laughed and said my plan was finally working he didn't seem amused told me i should change my ways that train left years ago i told him i'm closer to being one of my heroes now he said i should pick better ones i laughed and told him if i would have had his life of privilege maybe that would have been possible ---------------------------------------------------------------------- a little closer than these old people were comfortable with i was following a blue car out of town i was running late and the blue car couldn't give two shits about going the speed limit i never tried passing the car i probably did get a little closer than these old people were comfortable with i breezed by them once we got on the highway, never bothering to even look over i was on the off ramp getting ready to turn when that blue car came by in the other lane honking the horn and giving me the finger i laughed hopefully, i'll get the chance to see that blue car in town one day you know, return the favor so to speak
Category Archives: CHAOS
Film review from Jaylan Salah
Why the world needs more unlikeable female heroes
Emily is no criminal.
She’s the male anti-hero viewers have been fed to love and pine throughout the pre #MeToo era. She’s not likable, doesn’t talk about her past or present, and does not try to save or be saved, and when the heat comes around the corner, she flees.
Emily is the Neil McCauley to viewers’ Lt. Hannah, and she knows how to play it cool even at the darkest times. Her violence seems impeccable but shaky contrary to badass women in movies. She’s relatable and could have been any woman who has found herself in a situation where only the fight vs. flight responses stir the wheel.
In John Patton Ford’s “Emily the Criminal,” poverty, classism, misogyny, and injustice take over the action-packed hour-and-a-half feature. In no way do these heavy topics seem squeezed or rhetoric as they stem from a solid narrative, authentic and faithful to the story about how someone’s life could complicate as the system disables them from finding a way to succeed without going astray. Like McCauley’s determination never to go back to prison, Emily’s determination to pay her loans and never face another day with her face down drives the narrative. Her reactive violence has made her into the modern-day hero that viewers can easily root for. She’s no otherworldly strong woman who eats men for breakfast. Emily is afraid, hurt, bent, threatened, and insulted. But the difference from the other women in action movies is that she fights back with no prior training required.
Emily uses the MacGuffins thrown her way or the ones she randomly finds. Emily challenges the modern workforce, toxic femininity in the workplace, and the hypocrisy of women in managerial positions. She demands equal treatment from female managers who supposedly have made it, denouncing younger women who have to scrap a living while reminding them of how their “struggles were harder” and their fight against patriarchal male-dominated workplace “acts of martyrdom”.
Aubrey Plaza’s deadpan, serious, expressionless, tired, and worn-out features relate to other female viewers. Her realistic-looking face and skin of a woman who does not have time for skincare or beautification immediately hooked me. It is not some Hollywood pampered celebrity wearing shabby clothes to look “poor”. She has the face of a woman who has tasted misery, fear, financial tightness, and a hectic lifestyle. The contrast between Emily and her friend Liz shows through both actresses’ looks and clothing styles. The dialogue reveals a lot without being blatant. It draws people in through attention to detail where they get glimpses into Emily’s endless work shifts and sleepless nights. The film’s social commentary is bold but never takes center stage, allowing the main protagonist to shine and let the commentary and criticism flow through her. Scenes shot from the back a la French films styles (think Xavier Dolan and the Dardenne brothers) take the viewer on a journey where doors slam shut, food trays are delivered, corridors are walked, and business is sealed. The multiple times Emily has been shot from the back add to her mystery and turn her into a complex riddle that viewers strive to solve.
One of the highlights of the film is Emily’s relationship with Youcef. The sexual tension between the two characters is highlighted beautifully and with elegance. The film portrays Youcef through a sympathetic, understanding lens. He seems like an Arab character seen through the French filmmaker’s lens, as opposed to how most Arabs appear in popular American movies. Youcef lacks Emily’s boldness and assuredness, but his layered, complex relationship with women shows through the scenes where he blames her or allows her to be bullied by his controlling relative. The tender and intimate relationship between an Arab son and his Mama are shown beautifully in one of the rare peaceful scenes in the film. Viewers mostly watch it through Emily’s unflinching -yet mesmerized gaze- as she follows around the warm relationship between mother and son, which may hint at her lack of a similar familial experience.
The film dismisses Emily’s artistic side. That adds to the film’s supremacy as it clearly shows how dire financial situations and low social status suffocate the art and cause some artists to give up, or throw their talent behind out of frustration or self-loathing. Emily is an artist at heart, but she hates herself for not being the artist she is meant to be, so she denies it anytime someone brings it up. This part hit home for me, as I have been a struggling poet throughout my life, and during many stages, I have had to give up on my art and compensate it for regular jobs which pay little and do not satisfy the artist’s hungry soul. These dark phases have turned my relationship with my craft a bit unstable but also erratic, and it has taken me a while to get back on track in terms of reaching an upward curve that could have been present if not for the year’s gaps and interruptions.
The Emilys of our modern time matter. Recently dark, comical, sexual, and dangerous female characters have emerged in film or TV, but characters like Emily Benetto need to be more seen and heard. Their simplicity and relatability will resonate with many women worldwide watching and feeling burdened by social, economic, or societal injustice. Emily may not be a hero, but that’s why she needs to exist in a fictional world that seems horrifyingly similar to ours. We need the Emilys that empower the average workaholic woman.
The modern, practical, workaholic woman doesn’t need to cater to patriarchy. She needs outlet and catharsis through Ti West’s “Pearl” or Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s “Do Revenge”, “Emily the Criminal” is a milestone in having the George Clooney and Brad Pitt complex misunderstood but lovable characters. They are mean, snarky, sneaky, unreliable, and narcissistic, but that’s part of their charm. Emily is by no means the poster kid for the female workers’ alliance -leave that to Norma Rae (1979)- but she has been suffering and facing unrealistic expectations from future jobs she applies to. That leads to her refusing to take bullshit from anybody, not a lover, a coworker, and especially not from a dark-rimmed glasses female superior who lectures her on generational differences in taking down the patriarchy in the workplace.
Poetry from Gaurav Ojha
FREE, IF your past can’t recognize you for what you are now Free, IF you know that the face you carry is a mask that has been unmasked many times Free, IF you realize that you are a pretender that you always wanted to become Free, IF you can think even when they want to think for themselves but they can’t Free, IF you let your life speak rather than measure your being on the shadows of other lives FREE, you want to try again, even IF you have been tested out many times Free, IF you remain interested in something just to feel its resonances in your bones Free, IF you can travel on a bumpy road that doesn’t have any destination Free, IF you can let go of everythings you have for who you are FREE, IF you realize that your a selfish gene and you are only here for a brief survival Free, IF you recognize the difference between having and being Free, even IF someone closes the door on you, we are all under the same sky Free, IF you can imagine a possibility even when without any probability Free, IF you can walk in and out of the market without buying anything Free, IF you can suspect what you have been told with what has been discovered Free, even IF you have chosen the most traveled way, you know there is no other way out FREE, IF you are not framed within an idea or identity, which says you are us/not like them Free, IF you can meet someone for that moment, without diluting her present with past Free, IF you know that you have to carry a rock to the hilltop and roll the burden down Free, IF you realize that it's just a circus in rounds and the audiences admire their clowns FREE, IF you can find ALL in NOTHING and Nothing in All
Poetry from Christina Chin and Uchechukwu Onyedikam
reflection mirror of something — the hummingbird mistakes for a mate sundown… hungry after an evening walk the village dweller making fire the homeless man lives by the day the sun sets on a stray dog at my backyard maybe it's love the sparrow in and out of the nest mother's love a child and his father where she calls home time escapes hold on the local train with lit of cheer on the dust powdered faces the departed soul with the void no return only if he has no attachments always the question of 'to-who' follow the owl the new moon's emissary to salvation fifteenth night of the seventh lunar moon she's been... the ghost i recognize in this graveyard unread messages… rainy night gently pounding the roof heartbreak hotel the vibrant deep and jazzy voice in her belly the old soul sun & moon
Poetry from Gerard Sarnat
Theater Of Your Absurd
Arguably during life’s central act,
drama included both of us finishing
education and training, raising our family
plus finding fulfilling work; I was the adult
more in need of nurturance, well as support.
But during one of these last smaller phases,
maybe approaching a decade now, it occurs
that I, more often than not, am likely partner to
give in excess of receive. Fair’s fair, reciprocation
fine ‘n dandy unless Gerard’s basics aren’t being met?
Thanks, Stanford Medical School
While passing on their short-lived plan you get joint Ph.D. in social psychology then oy veh become an academic shrink
(Didn’t happen); when I chose The Farm because of virtue of five not-standard-four-year curriculum, which unlike maybe say Havad, seemed extremely convenient for kid who never took any college pre-med--also since pass-fail rather than grades-although first semester was flunked by Nobel Laureates teaching biochemistry’s ust-review course for most classmates
---But all new to Sarnat….Schmoozing one noon with Dean’s Office secretary he reveals Faculty Senate now’s looking
at my exam book as example of students on LSD: specifics being absurdly wrong I complained to Chairperson they should at
very least, give Gerry a chance to defend self against charges. He expressed guilt t denying due process, and after Gerard
ranked tops on year-end final exam, R.M. look it upon himself to make things right. Although I used extra downtime to major
in San Francisco’s 1967 Summer of Love, sex, drugs, rock ‘n roll; I luckily ended up sponsored by sequential Internal Medicine Department honchos for plum internship then junior residency at Beth Israel Hospital!
subtle absurdity
some folks (perhaps all, & I am just not observing other bodies)
have commodity runs, maybe changing glasses frames every year
whereas Gerry only gets new ones if my style is no longer available
would guess occurs in neighborhood of once per decade
though yesterday
for a very 1st time you began to understand or realize, after 2-term-President
or even cicada lifecycle periods of wearing that single quite old pair of slippers
over last most recent era, it appears Sarnat’s become sooo promiscuously volatile
Gerard Sarnat has been nominated for the pending 2022 Science Fiction Poetry Association Dwarf Star Award, won San Francisco Poetry’s 2020 Contest, the Poetry in the Arts First Place Award plus the Dorfman Prize, and has been nominated for handfuls of 2021 and previous Pushcarts plus Best of the Net Awards. Gerry is widely published including in 2022-2023 San Diego Poetry Annual, 2022 Awakenings Review, 2022 Arts & Cultural Council of Bucks County Celebration, 2022 Rio Grande Valley International Poetry Festival Anthology, The Font, BigCityLit, HitchLit Review, Lowestoft, Washington Square Review, The Deronda Review, Jewish Writing Project, Hong Kong Review, Tokyo Poetry Journal, Buddhist Poetry Review, Gargoyle, Main Street Rag, New Delta Review, Arkansas Review, Hamilton-Stone Review, Northampton Review, New Haven Poetry Institute, Texas Review, Vonnegut Journal, Brooklyn Review, San Francisco Magazine, Monterey Poetry Review, The Los Angeles Review, and The New York Times as well as by NYU, Slippery Rock, Northwestern, Pomona, Harvard, Stanford, Dartmouth, Penn, Columbia, North Dakota, McMaster, Maine, University of British Columbia and University of Chicago and University of Virginia presses.
He is a Harvard College and Medical School-trained physician who’s built and staffed clinics for the marginalized as well as a Stanford professor and healthcare CEO.Currently he is devoting energy/ resources to deal with climate justice, and serves on Climate Action Now’s board. Gerry’s been married since 1969 with progeny consisting of four collections (Homeless Chronicles: From Abraham To Burning Man, Disputes, 17s, Melting the Ice King) plus three kids/ six grandsons — and is looking forward to potential future granddaughters.
Poetry from Ivars Balkits
Blue Screen On (Obsolete Technology) A preconception shapes the shifting in endless blue waiting until the strength of the signal weathers or the wash in the wash hardens; or holds in horizontal herds the setting for but not longing; unless the wrist-action rests, waiting for the breathless record... aching, straining, dissolving -- A study in reappearing is waiting at 99 edge of two-digital sank just above normal blue screen for prism flash: Bent shafts of split screen at times so wavery clear that flash dints the log-green soft trade beholden to expectation's blue shrinkage's wrap. Or... Bulges inverted to other bulges... sequent flashes, stilled kinks, and small osmoses of narration. Or... Horizontal tension edged in shimmy, jalousie all through... but not thoroughly stripped of yellow; stained in full bluish wet, yet... Caricature shines through... a map of distortions... no matter the air or the day of the year distorted the same each repetition. Breakthrough at certain instances forming traditions of twice. Musical epidermal flashes that comprise the stories of anyone's guess. -- Then the sea comes in clear but dancing on the beach bends the signal... Longer than legal, but vanished instantly, the same bird flies... Profiles burst on the scene, but I wait no more follow. Some suggestion of pleasure breaking the expanses. The one lamp that melts through though: not picture-perfect perfect. Unwinding is my euphemism for you-know... of all things I call "activity," what's probably most ruined me, probably my last (whatever) to do before, you know... going to my rest, my rest, or The rest, or... I'm not about to unwind this evening. It's not that I've made vows not to; it's that I've unwound twice today already – you know, euphemism, by default, makes it difficult to guess; it consumes the hours I could be winding. I could be winding, you know... -- Euphemism is resistant to correction. Circumlocution does not free it. Unwinding is not moving forward, but languishing, its attention elsewhere... Half-wound person, I could get used to it, latent responses preventing further unraveling. -- Residual: The shadows aren't honest, but that's universal. The shouts are meant to focus attention. Attention! Unwinding provokes too much strain now in the actual addiction, a substitute having taken precedence... as more welcoming: catalogs, memories, masterlessly construed, jogged out of heart rhythm, you see, I like the, uh, but the mother in me doesn't. Oh, those trance moments in true trance-nature – that brought my mother running – I remember her tea-cups telescoping. -- (Confusion... conscious of the context, and the letter "C.") Unwinding is the symbol that stands for me, though at this time it does not stand for me, I can't sustain an interest. I've entered a deeper erasing. Euphemism is hiding from me. Through its protective core and its protective layer, it casts its iron vote for me, my proxy, it goes and stands in for me. -- Boomerang euphemism: It stands for me; I can't stand it. Unwinding... "Brutal." You hear the oink in it: The mood shifts, wear it. About that time a boat arrives. The tug of transition. I'm hoping the energy holds. It folds. -- My errors conspiring against me. Back There Something is coming home to me, but it's taking its time getting here. Looking for clues in my thoughts earlier, I'd have to say: "I'm not looking for fame, just more confidence." And a number of other things I'm ashamed of, like my tongue loosening, as I sing, "my tongue loosening, my tongue loosening, my tongue, loosening my tongue, loosening my tongue" to every note of Santana Abraxas. Every note. And other such thoughts while I was driving down from Tahoe tonight, such as: "Back there? what's." I really did think that earlier. I don't know what to think of that now. -- The moon was hanging over Hangtown as I wound down the curves, thinking again, "My car, my life!" And as I've said so many times: "How a life can be reincarnated in the same life so many times and still not feel the strain (or mystery) gets me!" And nothing more. Except "what good is Art? It can't substitute for loneliness," and "I can never be completely confident," and "Fame is no measure of success." And "Safety is no excuse," and "What the future is is very hard to interpret." -- But. Let me see if I can back up over this: I was thinking of the magnitude of a person, how one's could put another one's lights out, disable him (and here was thinking of specific persons). And also I thought of how I was my car spinning... its wheels, so? spinning its wheels it is. And spinning there in the corner by the statice flowers, an unclaimed memory of what I was thinking back there, which was, uh... Shoot, it's not coming. It was, it was, just before I turned my head to think, "I am my car spinning..." It was... (?) It's lost! No! I was thinking what would they, anyone, want with Nothingness? but that... that thought was in a context I can't retrieve at the moment because I am concentrated on this task of reworking th..., reworking th... Oh, well... -- Break: Well, I spaced out. And to get spaced back in, I thought I ought to concentrate on what I am right now, which is... spaced out. Oh, yeah, identities. I've had three or more. I keep vacillating, as if the change was not secure. I just don't feel like I have much hold on it, then I do. I won't go into it, but then I do. I guess I'm still confused, and it isn't settled – but no, what was the point, it had to do with outline, no, not the border, not the edge, no, it lingered up in the birches and was lost. "Up in the birches and was lost?" What do I mean? I mean that like a butterfly a brilliant insight has flitted from me. In trying to embrace the image as it wobbled out of the puzzlebox... oh, I give up, I know it's incomplete, I don't know why it's fuzzy out of reach, or why it keeps slipping behind a cloud... It is a cloud, isn't it? It's a blackout cloud rising from the peak and heading towards me at one-hundred-thousand miles per hour, brace myself! it's ready to break, ah, just like the milky-warm waters off the Bermuda coast: (. .) -- Here the art ends and the complaining begins. -- I find this sort of backtracking at the end of my thinking, and though the thought is moot, I keep on going, I keep on going, until I have something to say: I don't have much to say at this point. I don't have much to say at this point, either. Soon I begin to see the parallels between my now looking back over my thoughts, and, and... the Tie-in! maybe.
Poetry from Canadian poet Lisa Reynolds
