By Clarence Major

This cinematic animal acted human.

There was something else going on.

It was not solely about the natives

handing over a human sacrificial figure —

appeasing their giant ruler, the animal,

although a bit of that was implied.

It was not solely about a film crew

going to an island in the Indian Ocean

to make a jungle movie

about an actress and a director.

The scholars analyzed it and got it right.

The black and white images flickered.

Long live the scholars!

By Clarence Major

Just before she was to say her vowels, she

kicked off her heels and with both hands

she lifted her wedding dress above her

ankles and ran away from her ceremony,

making an escape back to a freedom

she didn’t know she still cherished.

You’ve seen this moment in countless movies.

You’ve seen it in real life.

There is often a moment of fright

just before signing your name

to an important document

that will change your legal standing —

buying a house, selling a house,

buying a car, selling a car,

joining the army during a time of war.

We never hear of the groom fleeing.

He simply does not show up.

The wedding ceremony is left wondering

where the hell is the guy.

By Sarah Riggs

Mid–dream, turning turns
Yellow, white, red blossoms plucked
Placed on a long rock, child by child

Rivulets of light in the turbulent stream
Strands of green swaying growths
Mossy hair tickling the surface

A young traveler crosses the footbridge
Sees the children, the ritual blooms —
Pauses, observes, smiles

Is Kurosawa dreaming himself ?

He arrives at a destination
Another man (also Kurosawa?)
full of wrinkles, his hands
worked in and by the sun

He is 103. The film — the dreams —
come out in 1990. I saw them first on
a VHS tape in the mid–nineties in
Rockland County

Now it’s 2024, Metrograph Theater Manhattan

We are watching the mills turn —
We are hearing them. It could
be Van Gogh’s time

The mills are like film reels
turning and turning with the stream
this too a technology

We are inside one of his dreams

He — the elder — imparts wisdom

The village is out of time —
No need for electricity
Cow dung is good for fuel

Wanting convenience, the new,
we forget we’re part of nature
We’ll perish, humans

But he darts up at the sounds
Of a march — a lost love — his youth
halting — the music and movements

Decorated hats, kimonos, shared gestures
Cascades of people in ceremony
Synchronicity in the funeral —

Actually it’s good to be alive
To live long and be thanked

The young man places a red flower
on the rock, watches the watermills churning
and crosses back over the listening stream

By Ronald Koertge

Tom’s Girlfriend Breaks Up With Him as They Watch
The Creature from the Black Lagoon

Tom finishes his beer, “So Miriam and I are on the couch all cozy.
The creature is cruising Julie Adams underwater and I tell Miriam
how cute she’d look in a white latex bathing suit
with spaghetti straps.”

“All of a sudden Miriam starts to cry. And right after that she
said she needed some space. A lot of space.”

Tom opens another Coors. “I just don’t get it. I keep asking
myself
why ?“

I ask, “Did you actually say, ‘with spaghetti straps’?“