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Kodak
We were clockwork automata, you and I
Both dutiful in our performance
You were a black and chrome cannon
I was a monochrome girl.
Go get 'David Bailey' his lunch is ready
An easy task for a child
No one was outside his van as I approached
The two-tone camper facade
In sight, I was naive prey for a crack-shot
Perfectly still, he held his breath
Pulling hair from my face, I looked inside
Into your mechanical snare
Your lens hid his face, his hand poised to press
The trigger'¦ Target, aimed and shot
Captured by the shutter's click, your sound sliced, like
A Guillotine parts vertebrae
Exposed in that momentary flash and held
Still, I am set in fear and useless.
My soul, my soul. You've taken a piece of soul
I cry. Now, after, I am less
My exterior looks unchanged, so he laughs.
But, my soul's piece is caught within
Trapped inside a little black box, a coffin
Laid to rest, but not in green pastures
Mourning its departure, in dark apertures
A negative evidence of loss
You trespasser, burglar of innocents
Taking what's not-yours and precious
Here's the black and white proof, in my hand
The black and white truth from you and a man.
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I thank you for your comments, but still me thinks the shooter doth protest too much?????
It sounds to me almost that you peruse your caught captives, leafing through them like the prized heads of a hunter, and tell yourself that they are yours now, but only paper now, flat now, dead now, yours to sell and replicate should you so wish. All the while inside you know they are as alive in that frame as they were when you shot them, the eyes will haunt you, follow you, pinned as are they in light sensitive graves, like butterflys pinned in glass frames. Perfecting your art of concealed crack shot assasin to lure and lull them??? Putting the victims at ease is not a vindecation? You write from a place of doubt sir, and fear that my poem has captured a truth perhaps?
Gracious thanks for your comment it did fill me with a sense of fullfilling ones purpose.
Much Love and good will fellow artist
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I kept getting caught up in your poem. I shoot 4 portraits a week for the county paper and I admit to being a sniper. I can now shoot from the waist, or with the camera hanging innocently about my neck -- toying with it. Mostly though I try to sooth folks ... damn it, folks usually look fine. This worry about having their souls stolen is foolish ... the soul is like love, it grows and sheds; the light bounces off. The moment the camera steals is already dead, no matter the shutter speed. Like pictures of old women: they are beautiful in real time, thanks to the lingering effect of memory, but a picture is flat, dead, and I steal nothing but the wrinkles, sagging flesh, thin white hair.
I must admit you tagged me. Subject.
I joyously admit you wrought a fine poem. |
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Comment by: mitra - 2007-05-28 01:03
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| Cleverly written. Very entertaining. Reminds me of great grand aunts who had this sort of phobia. |
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| I really enjoyed this... have to look over my shoulder, even I feel violated. |
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I know a woman who is an editor of a TERRIFIC ezine and she has a wild fetish for poems about photography. You might want slip this one to her, I bet she would like it immensley. (Jennifer Van Buren at Mannequin envy. The link to the zine is on my profile.)
I have read many of your poems tonight, and I want to apologize for not getting to them sooner, as you were so kind to read an comment on my own work.
I think this is your best so far that I have read, I admire the way you have managed to work in so many words and terms that pertain to the art of photography.
You are a talented poet and I am sure we will see your work all over the place and in the very near future, it will just take you to get it out there!!
thanks for the read!!
NJ |
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