Written in Dusseldorf

After the poetry night, coming soon after Beuys, Tartort, and salsa...



North By Northwest, again, on German TV

Early enough, as a kid, the Rushmore
Scenes, the crop duster, the drunk driving
That today seems risible when the laws
Of gravity don't exist and ceiling
Dancing, like Astaire's, happens in videos
For never pirated no-hit teen bands.
Then it was the sex, and blonde spy igloos
Of icy iridescence in whose hands
All men melt under an indifferent
Gaze. But now it's the middle initial
The existential "O" of Cary Grant
That makes necessary the serial
Pleasures found in repeated viewing
Of the perfect tale of man's renewing

A monument to monumentalists'
Thinking that's gone now we are all a brand
Made over by banana republics'
Deracinations we "read" not understand.
Roger O ran from a faint imprint
Of cold warrior and became himself
Inside tunnel and Eva Marie Saint.
To run from the accumulated wealth
Of borderless nations' big idea
Is less easy, even with CGI.
Didn't Inception just increase the fear
Mad men can't answer the question why
And the happy ever after that's rife
Is just Cary's imitation of life.