Treatment

I know I shouldn't post another poem after just posting one yesterday. But I don't trust what I would say if I did an original post tonight. I just got a heads-up that a very long-term contract is about to come to an end. I'm going to be okay, although this contract saw me through some very lean years when I first started freelancing full time. But what makes me upset is the way I got the notice.

That's another post. Here's the poem. Treatment is a term used in film making. I wrote this poem while attending a short-film festival.

Treatment

Montage, or composition by juxtaposition, is the most characteristic feature of film form.
"The Art of Learning How"

So much depends upon our ability to perceive & to recognize the difference between accident & design.
"Language without Words"

black lines shift through white space
forming simple boxes on animated film
squared edges heave
melting into perfect circles
that breathe to shape
themselves like pears
that grow faces & fall
from trees on terraced
plots where thurber dogs
chase balls that blossom
into thin lined roses spreading
from center screen with a pink tinge
that flares red

dew jeweled petals
against flaming repetitions of dawn

fade full color stills fleshed
3-D thrills of life bleeding
on kitchen floors through looped screams
of gargled deathless pain
out of sync with silent loops of the dying
dissolving to black
pinpoint etchings of light
crisscrossing the screen
until only white space remains

Originally published in A Matter of Mind, Foothills Publishing, 2004.
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