[Reserved][Reserved] — An Invitation to Dine

Dear Poet, [Yes, you!]

I’ve toyed with a conundrum, for too long. [Reserved][Reserved] functions like a digital art installation in Woodstock! (WIP (x Bars)).  I could render [Reserved][Reserved] a mechanism – to catch That Yoni’s beat in perpetuity.  I could close the brackets with bars that fills your loins with blood.  I could leave redundant emptiness here — like tautology or romanticized art, or structural language — in this bifurcated space, like stars.

I could invite Poets to fill [Reserved][Reserved] with dope poesy and select a date for submission. However, if we receive one hundred thousand and one couplings, we’d read them…  but frankly, why not do, all of the above.

The empty brackets function like missing endings now — lacking only your bylines, pseudonyms, and ghosts — in translatable bars that work in Woodstock! (WIP (x Bars)).

Poets make this space immersive.  Explode – The Writer’s Environment is an interactive environment — and this is the first foray for interactivity in this community — that links back to you!

Starting August 15, 2017 — let’s finish this poem with the best bars — curated for Woodstock! (WIP (x Bars)) here…  Bon appétit.

Cordially,

The Chelsea Hotel, Manhattan

PS:  No Spam — Balls in the air!  An experience for us and them.

Copyright © 2017 E Maria Shelton Speller

 

 

 

One Single Act of Love

I sold a rock opus to the best Black rock band on the planet. A band that lost its capacity to dream. Formulaic guarantees skewed their imagination for platinum discs. The male coward covered their lifework, literally. My story reminded them of what ‘rushing’ felt like, how complete, how deep blushing could be obvious. And they bought it, and produced it. And it was good — it was better than good. It was thought provoking and it was an African-American affirmation of our realities and our fantasies — no matter how unrealistic.

Suddenly, they were very significant and the world truly believed, that rock music is black music and black music is everything. Power is aesthetic. Aesthetics is politics and being black is philosophical and our philosophy is phenomenology and being black, is being real.

No Hip Hop could say as much as this rock opus did, ever — no matter how many stories they sampled. So, this black rock band were crowned kings and were exulted, and revered; incandescent icons, the envy of friends, the consumption of man, the image of immortality — like the stained-glass heaven you summon before you close. And they loved me. I was the wick in their candlestick and without me, there was no burning flame. I was the source of their energy. I, was the unstained virgin encamped.

Sooner than anyone imagined, there was nothing more important, than our collaboration. The media was our medium. They stopped referring to me as a writer, and started calling me, a Love Supreme…..

 

Copyright 2016 by E Maria Shelton Speller.  All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

 

 

Aristotle Michelangelo and Louis Picasso’s Parallel Discussions

Aristotle Michelangelo and Louis Picasso’s

Parallel Discussions (In Medias Res) Overtaken by Events

 

Behind Pushkin’s Coffeehouse, Aristotle Michelangelo and Louis Picasso sat on the remnants of a barge, trading barbs in Ibiza… swinging high top leather sock hip hop sneakers, and creeper boots in blue green virtual water, with Rick Owens’ reflection in the pool, burning fat ones – away from the beautiful ones — in a Period Piece.  The Darlings of today’s literati — visionaries during the Harlem Renaissance, play themselves in a satirical throwback in VR.

Louis Picasso: “In RL, it’s 6 P.M. You just got home from work or you work from home in your virtual office. You decide to spend the evening in space! You scan Balmain for your Avatar – dope fashion — with as much audacity as Hype Williams’ black lacquered Keisha in Belly — wearing Versace!

You decide to download your brand new Porsche designed by Porsche and Atari for Microsoft, on the Pacific Coast Highway — Malibu on the left, Pepperdine University on the right, you’re on your way to virtual LA in the fast lane — your thighs are burning. Other avatars and their cars share the PCH too — driving Vipers, Corvettes, the white BMW X6 and you are speeding at 100 MIPS, streaming Coltrane.

Aristotle Michelangelo interjects: “Then you decide to go to BET’s virtual Nuyorican Café in Gotham City for the Open Mike – Saul Williams and Jessica Care Moore are featured (as themselves) tonight. You hand the keys to the valet — pay at the door with your password, sit front row center no matter what time you arrive, sign up to read your poem — because you can start over from the beginning or resume.  Gender! Lame. Race is unimaginative in Space. Ethnicity is a brand — at best.  The Open Mike is over at 10 P.M. but there is still time to go to Bar Pitti. You walk in and Claude McKay is at the bar in a heated debate with Ralph Ellison about literary ownership — by Netflix.

McKay shouts and then nearly whispers to Ellison, ‘It takes more than creative androgyny to “embody” the opposite sex. The storytelling responsibility of all writers, whether female or male is to fill the void. When a woman creates a man, she must imagine the sensation of “owning” a penis. When a man creates a woman, he must imagine the sensation of “owning” a vagina. It is a void, not a vacuum. A vacuum would imply the all-consuming black hole — the feminization of sex. It is not trained comprehension or chromosomes — it takes pure imagination to get the story straight…’

Louis Picasso:  “Then, at Midnight, you blow kisses and wuggles to your friends, and log off. You stand and stretch your back, and your bladder is bursting because you forgot about your biological realities. The television is off; it has been off for weeks. Why watch television when you can be your own audience? Randall Walser said it best, “The filmmaker says, ‘Look, I’ll show you.’ The space maker says, ‘Here, I’ll help you discover.’ We will be our own creators functioning like actors in high culture — tools of the taste public!  We will create our own universes — our own planets.   We can superimpose our images circa 6 BC – AD 30, and follow Jesus to the Promised Land, witness the crucifixion – and how we feel and what we think is utterly private and without commercials! Because, global messages with common appeal will forever change with today’s technology, the challenge is to make communication visual, images symbolic, and still sell product… I want to propose arcane ideas…”

Aristotle Michelangelo interjects: “I want to develop, manage, and direct vision. My goal is to be where imagination and business are indistinguishable, because imagination without business, and business without imagination is as incongruous as capitalism without consumers…   I found a dope quote dog!”

“When, she was still in her teens, well before she met Caesar, Cleopatra already had slept with Antony… though Caesar was fifty-three and she but twenty-three or so she proved ready enough to bed her third Roman. It is said that Cleopatra was a woman of lively turn and enticing talents. She also had a keen sense of the political. That this Roman [Caesar] conqueror had the power to secure the Egyptian throne for her must have added to the attraction she felt for him…Caesar established her in a sumptuous villa across the Tiber, from which she held court, while political leaders, financiers, and men of letters, including the renowned Cicero, danced in attendance.” Michael Parenti

Louis Picasso: I’m reading the same book, and I have a better one!

In a prologue to Caesar and Cleopatra [George Bernard Shaw] that is almost never performed, the god Ra tells the audience how Rome discovered that ‘the road to riches and greatness is through robbery of the poor and slaughter of the weak.’ In conformity with that dictum, the Romans ‘robbed their own poor until they became great masters of that art, and knew by what laws it could be made to appear seemly and honest.’ And after squeezing their own people dry, they stripped the poor throughout the many other lands they conquered.” Michael Parenti

Aristotle Michelangelo:  Shrugged his shoulders unconsciously, “Chez Bricktop in Paris?”

Louis Picasso:  Not now. I am having a violent reaction to prescription drugs!  My body is like, ‘Don’t put that shit down here again!’  They gave me all this medication for Acute Caesarion whatever — and I took it! Of course, you don’t exhaust the shit. You’re not an idiot. But, what the fuck? Where the weed at?”

Aristotle Michelangelo:  I think it would be dope to channel Kerouac’s apology for automatic writing.

“He likened writing to dreaming and fantasizing, as a substitute for life. So, he wrote The Subterraneans, in three days and nights of speed typing energized by Benzedrine — to imitate the rhythm of Bebop like free energy flow, and unrestrained association, to reveal the unconscious…  because he wanted to flow from inside out in spontaneous prose!” Dystopia, Explode 2015 2.0

So, here goes… They called her Marnie — behind her back. I was torn. I played with variations of Marnie. Black Marnie. Brown Marnie, Tortilla Marnie. It’s the language of found art. Bansky, Kehinde, Jazz, Hip Hop… They teased each other.  Hitchcock’s Margaret, Mary, Marnie, teases Mark, so she could get the combination, to his company safe, and steal the money. She was a Kleptomaniac, a compulsive thief. A killer. She disappears. On the run! He tracks her like an animal, and finds her at a Lodge, riding her horse to the stables. He orders her off the horse, tells her she’ll walk — he’ll ride. He interrogates her. She tells him a bullshit story she can’t keep straight. He calls it, manure! Tells her to start over from the beginning, and this time — tell the truth. Back at the Lodge – he tells her to freshen up, change her clothes so he might take her to the police – she thinks. She does not know… It’s Tippi Hedren in RL!  The white woman of a black man’s dreams – when he dreams about white women. Blonde, pearly white teeth and skin — Barbie! Beckie!  He tells her, they will return to ‘the house’ and announce they are engaged, would to be married within the week and then cruise around the world. Of course, she thinks he’s “Out of his mind!” He told her, it was either marriage or the police, old girl. Black Marnie. Who would play her?

They get married. Eventually he takes her virginity. She tries to commit suicide. I don’t think I want to go there… Suicide. Who should play Mark? [#nomoreslavestories.]  Does he catch her?

Louis Picasso:  I remember that story.  He said,  I caught a real animal this time. I had to train her… to trust me.*

Aristotle Michelangelo:  Pussy Riot danced in the cathedral — goes to jail, and the artist nailed his scrotum to the Red Square.  She’s a prisoner of love. That kind of love makes me uncomfortable, racked, and anguished like a pet must be around possessive people. The energy is ignitable like the choice between blowing up and letting go. I don’t want to belong to anyone. But, what do I know about love?

Louis Picasso:   Black people don’t like black people. That’s why we’re in this — hole… barrel, bucket, duck it, fuck it… We know it’s true.  Listen to the tonal center of this beat!

Aristotle Michelangelo:  In sixty revolutions a minute, if it’s not organic, I can’t get with it. Hate is not organic. Hate is a social construct. I want to live the life I swam to the egg for… A social construct is like zoon pushed to the egg, by stronger swimmers behind it. It’s still goal niggaz. I want an organic experience on this gridiron. A certain freedom, mere man can’t give, conceive or contrive. I want freedom Divine.  You want to be free — you have to fuggin’ work for it.  Zufi?

Aristotle Michelangelo:  You need money, software and rigs in the virtual world. Bombs are obsolete. Race and gender is a pastiche — game challenges for points.

Louis Picasso:  Beauty and power is iconography and homely stamps are hiccups – and brick and mortar is a path to experience the destruction of daredevils and matadors — in coliseums of pestilence and poverty – empirically.

Aristotle Michelangelo:   Why go there? When, life is a perfect dream in a virtual world.

Louis Picasso:  IJS. Get on board with — evolution. Evolution is not physical space. It’s the diamond life in our heads on a loop. Its VR not the moon…

Aristotle Michelangelo:  I love wearing the mask! You can’t see my countenance — in La La Land, my eyes may smile.  My lip may curl up or down… I’m an introvert; an INTJ — is that Caprino?

Louis Picasso:  Now that Juneteenth is a federal holiday, it will be impossible to ignore slavery in America… Why are some Black Americans worrying about slavery in America being taught in schools? The horse is out of the barn! Instead of embracing Juneteenth and all that it implies… Black Americans are WHINING and using the language of slaves, “they won’t, let us, allow us, give us and get…” Instead black Americans are still looking the other way when a black man drags a black woman by her hair [DC], and black people are murdered by black people in Chicago – for giggles. June 19, 2021 marks the day, that Black America must acknowledge that ‘we’ are no longer slaves and assume responsibility — that’s what freedom is.

Copyright 2016, 2018, 2020 E Maria Shelton Speller.  All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast  rewritten or redistributed without permission.

*Alfred Hitchcock, Marnie

The Wonderment

Why does black on black crime matter less than black lives matter?

Black on black crime is the consequence of a broken man

Black lives matter is the consequence of a broken system

Fix the broken system

fix the broken man >>>>

 

Copyright 2016 E Maria Shelton Speller. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Bernardo Bertolucci passed away today, November 26, 2018 — RIP

  • The Sheltering Sky
  • The Dreamers
  • The Last Emperor
  • The Conformist

 

ONE ACT PLAY — SPRINGBOARD’S CURTIN* CALL

CAST RETURNS TO THE STAGE — DANCE CLOSE

If you can, imagine Seven Whole Days on repeat… and you were raised in the city of Boston — where Playhouse in the Park is the only alternative to hot house parties, in Orchard Park or Ruggles Street — and dancing room is a premium for a chilly Bostonian, with a New England attitude.

When four seasons and rapid transit affords you the opportunity to go anywhere at any time, wearing everything a Bostonian can — properly — weather be damned…  then you know how much space love demands. In an apartment when body heat is canned and cool, you learn to slow dance in the place you pick with just the space between grace and pressure.  Boston, is the only city in America that knows how to have sex on legs.   If you think it’s a mere grind — you can’t dance in a vacuum. The only thing a man can do, if he’s not a Bostonian, is let the lady lead when she is a Bostonian, and hope — its a long song.

 

Copyright 2004, and 2015 by E Maria Shelton Speller (Explode: Epic Poetry ~ Excerpt from (Behind Pushkin’s Coffee House)), and the One Act Play — Springboard!  All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

*This is not a curtain.

Luda’s Second Soliloquy — Miles Language II

If I could write language

that speaks and points….

At trumpets

when the moon is tone

and the sun is sfumato

 

See… the chiaroscuro Supreme

[dream in hue]

magenta, chrome, cherry-white

[mixed with blue fugue]

Put-the-night to sleep!

 

See Sisyphus scorn

at amber headlights

in Paris dew

 

Skin seeking skin

and birds seeking

[the flutter of feathers]

ink… that runs like blood

on paper… that does not bleed

 

Contrapposto poets

succumbing to peaches

 

Dogs… suspended

like meat in Seoul

 

[In the dawn]

She comes home

the moon is a beat

the sun is trill…

 

Dada responds

to Surrealism

Hip Hop responds

to R&B

 

[The trumpet responds]

to me

bebop bebop bebop bebop blam!

Fa Falala…

 

Copyright 2004, 2015 by E Maria Shelton Speller.  All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Inspired by Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew and Zurich Dadaist Hugo Ball who according to Arnason’s thesis on Ball’s conventional language “had no more place in poetry than the outworn human image in painting, Ball produced a chant of more or less melodic syllables without meaning:  ‘zimzim urallala zimzim zanzibar zimlalla zam.’ “

Luda’s Soliloquy — Miles Language I

If I could write a poem

with the language

of sound

strings, keys… lisps

 

Cylinders spheres cones… lines

Miles tripping

Turning turning in melody

 

Blowing brass trees

whispering through trim lips

white horses, white horses

Standing over Princes

 

Cries cries

Cry like a woman

whirling in

an eddy of tongue…

 

Words wedded together

Like brothers

Kidnapping daughters*

 

A mind fuck

A dark defining gaze…

 

Words you see in 4D

You smell reed

fingers tremble

skin riffs

 

Words with the sigh of a Diva

Mad Mad like

Zeus on a bad rape

 

When you look up from the page

You will not see me

 

Molesting you with crazed

language…

 

Copyright 2004, 2015  E Maria Shelton Speller

Peter Paul Rubens’ The Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus

Inspired by Miles Davis’ embouchure

 

 

Lust for TIDAL — The Sweet Sixteen

Someone has to go with Ego

To the story about the story inside the poem

 

On ground eroding under sweet feet

Where dreams so real are accessible

and parodies will do

 

Epic stories tied to epic tracks

One point perspectives

and narcissistic points of view

 

Aural stories linked to sublime beats:

The gift between Agamemnon and Achilles

The Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals

between Socrates and Kant

 

An opus for Free Angela and all Political Prisoners

Her quiet laughter at the end

 

Why should Kim go alone to France?

Fie for Shame!  Blood hath been shed…*

 

Make room for Superego!

Believing the fiction they think

They know

It’s true

 

Someone has to go with Id

Those streaming millennial Randites!

kissing clicks on tours

happy blowing up Karaoke machines again

 

Dénouement:  This whimsical WIP is for the sixteen owners of Tidal High Fidelity Music Streaming!  Turn it up!

Copyright 2015 by E Maria Shelton Speller. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

*The Tragedy of Macbeth, William Shakespeare

 

 

 

Trench People — Once Upon a Time There Were… Master Scene 2

The intent of this installment is to juxtapose art, content, audio, imagery, prose and poetry in an original screenplay, Trench People (TP).  Explode is a product of the antagonist’s art in TP.  TP is the framework for a virtual walk-through art installation like Christo and Jean Claude’s Wrapped Walk Ways or The Umbrellas — a mind-scape if you will.

Data for how many thoughts we have per minute and the speed of thought has not been measured and analyzed, so WYSIWYG — Wordpress is space for ideations.

TP follows the established rules of the industry, and in this space a JUMP CUT may signal a deviation, a temporary change of direction, an aside, a self indulgence, that hopefully holds your attention until the next FADE TO, CUT TO, DISSOLVE TO, or SMASH CUT TO — the antagonist’s art and the protagonist’s idealism.  When I started reading at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge Massachusetts, I read master scenes as prose and epic poetry.  TP was well received and even requested!

What concerns me is decorum.  I hope my audience is not averse to poetry in medias res…  Once upon a time there were…  Trench People!

 

 

TRENCH PEOPLE

(Original Screenplay — a Period piece)

by

E. MARIA SHELTON SPELLER

Copyright ©1996, 2015. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

WGA Registration 2005

 

 

I.  The Erastes and Erominos (White letters on black background)

 

CLOSE – ON ANGELA AND JUNE

They laugh out loud.  Angela throws her head back in FULL-THROATED LAUGHTER and June BANGS the table in approval with her fist.

JUNE

(out loud)

That was brilliant!

 

ROSALIND

That was careless!  Talk

about artistic irresponsibility!

 

ANGELA

Oh, come on, Ros!

 

ROSALIND

A warning would have been APPROPRIATE,

instead of SURPRISE — mayhem,

and blaming the white man, again.

 

ANGELA

It’s not HER fault Preachers,

Politicians, and the gatekeepers

of black consciousness jumped

to conclusions.

 

ROSALIND

What’s with this about-face?

 

ANGELA

I never said I thought it was

wrong, Ros… YOU did!

 

CLOSE – ON ROSALIND

who RAISES both brows at Angela and WAVES the subject away.

 

CLOSE – ON JUNE AND LISA

June leans closer to the BABY-DYKES, specifically Lisa.

 

JUNE

(shouts)

One Hundred Nooses was crazy

art!  Was it a political pun

against the pathos of black

art, or a brazen political

statement…?

 

CLOSE – ON LISA

who OVERHEARD Rosalind’s opinion and although she is talking to June, she LOOKS at Angela.  She LEANS across the table as far as she can and talks in a curt monotone like Lisa Bonet.

 

LISA

(shouting)

I will not offer an explanation,

which is to say, an apology

for my art.  Not to be understood

or over-stood… Everything IS Political.

Sex is politics.  The day we swam to

the egg or were propelled, by stronger

swimmers behind us, was politics!

Art without politics is passion

without pluck. Sterile like

Impressionism!  An allusion of

The Great Gatsby.  Who… who

dreams in pastels?

(beat)

Maybe one percent of

the population?

(quickly)

The only way to have dreamed

about, A Sunday Afternoon on

the Island of La Grande Jatte

was to have been there.  Those

were elitist dreams.  The

poor and vulnerable don’t dream

about wearing iced-cream pants!

They dream about, Starry Night,

The Scream.

(beat)

One Hundred Nooses is a

commentary on truth and

reconciliation.  It’s

an unnecessary postmortem

for a committee that has

not happened.

 

CLOSE – ON GODDESSES AND BABY-DYKES

The GODDESSES are SILENT.  Mardou breaks into a chilly smile.

 

CLOSE – ON MARDOU

looking at Lisa.

 

MARDOU

(loud)

It’s not who is going to let me,

it’s who is going to stop me.

I thought we plugged the

Fountainhead!

Let’s channel…

(whispers)

The Subterraneans, tonight.

 

BACK TO SCENE

Lisa’s eyes WIDEN and she feigns IRRITATION.  Soon everyone CHUCKLES.  People sitting around them look in their direction, as if acknowledging that theirs is the dominant table in the room.  Then Mardou watches Lisa REV up again.

 

CLOSE – ON LISA

LISA

It’s Bukowski’s Coffeehouse tonight.

Except, you’re beautiful,

(beat)

and you’re beautiful… and you’re

beautiful… and we know Bukowski

only trusted the company of

desperate people, with broken minds,

broken ways, and broken teeth.

 

CLOSE – ON GODDESSES AND BABY-DYKES

They AHA in unison.

 

MARDOU

(sarcastically)

Fuck levity, then!

 

LISA

Mardou, you want

something, superficial!

 

CLOSE – ON MARDOU

looks long at Lisa.

 

MARDOU

Why? Why are you so…

(frowning)

dissatisfied?

 

CLOSE – ON ANGELA

PULLS the edge of her glass to HER tongue.  In SLOW MOTION, it lands softly.

 

CLOSE – ON TONGUE

The tip of her tongue behind the rim of the glass.

 

CLOSE – ON GODDESSES AND BABY-DYKES

Angela is the only MOVEMENT at the table.

 

CLOSE – ON LISA

who LOOKS at Mardou.

 

LISA

What is satisfied?

Is that like wanting to

be the black girl of Jack

Kerouac’s dreams?  And

precisely when — when he

woke up and was repulsed by

her puffy sleeping lips the

morning after?

 

CLOSE – ON ROSALIND

feigning boredom.  She looks at the crazy crowd.  Then turns back to what she considered baby-talk.

 

CLOSE – ON TONI

looking at her friends.

 

TONI

(sighing)

Levity!

 

CLOSE – ON TONI

moving her hands as if describing a spiral staircase.

 

TONI

(continuing)

I don’t want to be the

only one laughing tonight.

 

CLOSE – ON LISA AND MARDOU

They BURST out laughing.

 

CLOSE – ON THE GODDESSES

They look at each other.

 

CLOSE – ON JIMMY – SAME TIME

an imposing man, like Ving Rhames’ Marsellus Wallace in Pulp Fiction, owns Pushkin’s Coffeehouse.  He spots Lisa, wearing a long black skirt over those long narrow flats with toes that turn up almost like elf shoes that she often wears, and a cropped black motorcycle jacket with white raised lines and letters of cycle iconography.  He looks SURPRISED because she seldom wears color.  Jimmy gets an ERECTION when he LOOKS at Lisa.  He reaches down to ADJUST the SWELLING under his fly. He waits a minute and then makes his way through the crazy crowd in Lisa’s direction.  He SIDLES beside Lisa — LEANING on the edge of the table with the palms of his hands.

JIMMY

El (Lisa)… How you

doin’, Baby?

 

LISA

(smiles)

What’s up, Jimmy?

 

JIMMY

I know you’re flowing

tonight, right?!

 

CLOSE – ON LISA

who looks up at Jimmy, and says nothing.

 

JIMMY

Don’t look at me like

that!  You read here,

at Pushkin’s first.

I know you’re gonna

read!

 

LISA

All the coffeehouse and cafe

owners say the same thing.

Everybody gave me a break,

but nobody wants to pay me…

You want me to read for free!

Then you get an attitude when

I won’t.  Pay me!  Show your

appreciation.  I’m a working

artist.  A proletariat!

 

JIMMY

OK, OK.  How much you

chagrin’?

 

LISA

(frustrated)

Jimmy, you know how much

I charge… I’m sick of

having to give the same

speech every time I want

a cup of coffee.

 

JIMMY

In Fifteen?

 

LISA

Let’s do it now!

 

CLOSE – ON LISA (MOVING)

rising from the table focused on space.  Her entourage ceases to exist. SLOWLY PAN the CRAZY CROWD.

 

JIMMY (O.S.)

Ladies and Gentlemen, Pushkin

is proud to present, our very

own, El Cherry… Snap!

 

LISA’S P.O.V. – CROWD

Lisa and her P.O.V. is filmed in black and white.  People step aside at the last minute, greeting her on her way through, while snapping their fingers.

LONG – ON LISA

On stage, you cannot HEAR her FOOTSTEPS.  The toes of her shoes SWISH the air.  At the microphone she STANDS straight almost in a NAPOLEONIC pose.  The room is QUIET.  She launches into “One Single Act of Love.”

 

LISA

(curt, ferocious monotone)

I sold a rock opus to the best

Black rock band on the planet.

A band that lost its capacity

to dream.  Formulaic guarantees

skewed their imagination for plati-

num discs.  The male coward covered

their lifework, literally.

My story reminded them of what

‘rushing’ felt like, how complete,

how deep blushing could be obvious.

And they bought it, and produced it.

And it was good — it was better

than good.  It was thought provoking

and it was an African-American affir-

mation of our realities and our

fantasies no matter how unrealistic.

Suddenly, they were very significant

and the world truly believed that

rock music is black music and black

music is everything.  Power is

aesthetic.  Aesthetics is politics

and being black is philosophical

and our philosophy is phenomenology

and being black, is being real…

 

The uninitiated FIDGET, while obvious followers recite some of the passages like Allen Ginsberg’s audience did when he recited, Howl in the Sixties. Lisa does not raise her voice.

RESUME – ON LISA

shoving her hands deep in shallow pockets.

LISA

(less ferocity)

No Hip Hop could say as much as

this rock opus did, ever–no matter

how many stories they sampled.

So, this black rock band were

crowned kings and were exulted,

and revered, incandescent icons,

the envy of friends, the

consumption of man, the image

of immortality like the stained-

glass heaven you summon before

you close…  And they loved me…

I was the wick in their candle-

stick and without me there was

no burning flame.  I was the

source of their energy.  I was

the unstained virgin encamped…

 

CLOSE – ON LISA

leaning closer to the microphone.

 

LISA

(continuing)

When we huddled over a page it was

a psychological bristling, a patho-

logical fear, a sexual entreaty.

I wanted them, and they wanted

me.  So when opportunity knocked,

I told them so.  Sooner than anyone

imagined, there was nothing more

important, than our collaboration.

The media was our medium. They

stopped referring to me as a writer,

and started calling me a Love Supreme.

Annie Leibovitz wanted to take our

pictures–together. But, there was

something unnatural about the photo

session.  Instinct was lacking.

There was a tame and conspicuous

outsider on camp.  After taking

off too many shades, we asked

Annie to come back tomorrow and

blamed our ubiquitous danger on

some tribal angst about picture

taking and soul stealing…

When she was gone, I suggested

that they fuck me…

 

CLOSE – ON ANGELA’S EYES

Her eyelashes flutter.

 

MATCHCUT TO:

Angela’s lips, opening slowly.

 

RESUME – ON LISA

who at this moment, personifies the rebirth of COOL.

 

LISA

(continuing)

Not unlike the man in the movie

and the dancing whore…  My

honest response to the love

between us left them exposed.

So exposed, their breath rushed

past their lips in staccato

proportions.  Although they all

did, the one that really cared

about me began to pace the room.

His eyes watched how his feet

travailed.  Another, would have taken me

right then and there had we been

alone–he would have used his

shoestrings and tied my thumbs

behind me if that were all he

had.  But he was not the only

one I wanted, so he waited

anxiously.  Another, had the

strange and curious stare of an

intellectual trying to figure me

out.  And the other, simply smiled

at me from some private place, now

public, and I knew he would hurt me…

deliberately. The intellectual asked

me if I really thought it would make

a difference, and I couldn’t help

watching him as if he were some…

clear liquid.  How could it not

make a difference?  The pacer turned

and admitted he cared and said he

could not and would not participate;

furthermore, he did not think it

should happen.  The anxious one

stood and started barking at him.

If I moved in any direction, it

would be provocation for premature

ejaculation and the anxious one,

while still barking would be the

first to straddle me…

 

LISA P.O.V. – CRAZY CROWD

A man in the audience barks.  Another howls.  Women smile to themselves.

 

CLOSE – ON GODDESSES AND BABY DYKES

SMILING.  ENAMORED, Angela FALLS in love.

 

RESUME – ON LISA

She raises her voice.

 

LISA

(continuing)

If I raised my hand or my voice,

they would think I might change

my mind.  Trapped, I sat there

watching this frenzy I’d started.

The air grew hot but I did manage

to express, “All or no one.”  They

turned to look at the one who cared.

He looked at me, and I decided

that he would be the one that

would hurt me… deliberately.

And because he cared, because

he was the one holding back,

he would have to be the first.

He would have to get his reser-

vations out of the way so that

they could proceed.   “It’s on you

man.”  Said the intellectual and

then I decided the intellectual

would be the last one.  Was I

afraid? I was practically trem-

bling on that single futon.  My

laptop at the head of the bed

would have to be moved–gingerly.

The point was, I slept with my

work, I ate with my work and now

I’d fuck my work–but we would

never tell Annie the latter.

“What the fuck is the matter with

you?”  The one who cared blasted

at me.  Oh, I thought, he would

fuck me angrily–he would punish

me this way…

 

CLOSE – ON ANGELA

closing her eyes.

DISSOLVE TO:

CLOSE – ON LISA

whose nostrils FLARE slightly.

 

LISA

(continuing)

All I had to say was something

stupid like, ‘What the fuck is

the matter with you?’  Then,

giving him an excuse to fuck

me to death like June Jordan’s

“…unidentified victim of her

own neglect…” gang-raped on

a Brooklyn rooftop and thrown

to her death, screaming  but

‘inaudible’.”

 

LONG – ON LISA

RAISING her voice for what is clearly her favorite passage.

 

LISA

(continuing)

Conscious decisions are all that

I can respect.  Don’t cling to

insanity, or criminal passion,

or peer pressure, or social

expectations.  Don’t talk to me

about losing control–momentarily.

Or, the poverty and violence of

pain heaped upon more pain

because you’re black.   This is not

a gang-rape.  This is not dionysia

all over again, where women

and children are sacrificed, and

blood is beer.  If I change my

language, the outcome will still

be the same.  And, if I am woman

enough to resist surrender, are

you man enough to know the

difference, between love

and violence–without conditions…

 

INT. BAR – JIMMY – SAME TIME

He dispatches a NEAT Remy Martin to her table.

 

LISA (O.S.)  (continuing)

“You want her don’t you?”  Somebody

said.   Then he asked me a private

question, not at all furtively,

“Why?”  I dropped my eyes and then

I looked askance at the one who

cared and said,  “My fascination

with poetic themes is like–a

serenade already in progress…

isn’t this poetry, in effect?”

 

LONG – ON LISA

PAN the Crazy Crowd — spellbound.

 

LISA

(continuing)

He kneeled at the foot of the bed

and that was their cue, but I was

not ready and he knew it–but what

the hell!  The love between us

was trapped between power and lust.

His hand covered my neck like a

bridge over a dam I could not escape.

The intellectual secured my wrists

exactly the way I described in my

dreams.  I whispered to the one

who cared… that while I waxed

my dream before it faded–

I knew he would halt before he

turned the page.  Like the man

in my dreams, he was too big for

me, but he did not hurt me delib-

erately.  Under violent power

strokes, I broke under him in a

cadence I could not count in a race

out of water.  A rhapsody played in

fusion.  The anxious one ejaculated

too soon, and the one that smiled

from some private place took me

to the basement in some tenement

and hurt me deliberately, pushing

in unyielding directions.  So, I

screamed finally and the one who

cared pulled him off me and he

came all over my thighs.  That is

what he wanted, to be restrained

by somebody, anybody because he

was an animal after-all.  The

intellectual rocked me gently

to peace, licked the tears from

my ears and my face.  When it

was over, the one who cared untied

my arms that felt like ribbons

draped over my shoulders.  He was

the only heat for my cold tremble,

my soul stirring complete.  In one

single act of love we were bound

together and in unison they

screamed to the stained virgin…

you’re mine!   It was…SURREAL.

 

LISA’S P.O.V. – AUDIENCE

The crazy CROWD and her entourage give her a MUCH LOVE.

 

WIDE – ON LISA (MOVING)

PIVOTS like a feline to leave the stage.  APPLAUSE lasts until she is well seated.  She reaches for the drink Jimmy sent to the table.  Mardou and Toni HUDDLE with LISA.