The Intelligentsia
 
 
          after the film
we go for a pint and talk about love
how the music and light in its scenes
the intense rhythm of the dialogue
manipulates the voyeur, and how there’s nothing
          original & new in it      
 
          and after love
we go for a pint and talk about death
how there’s just enough space between
the end credits and the prologue to hold
an illusion of a century as if it were
personally experienced, and how such linearity
          is not interesting
 
          and after death
we go for a pint and talk about films
how outside the action, in the dark, everyone yearns
for that deep caressing light which
          reflects off the mother-of-pearl
          of the screen and off the dying bubbles and beer
          and shines from under the fringe and
          under the brow, even though it’s all
          only a loan and we talk the same way
          the primal men talked, a moment ago
          when the blazing shadow of a hand
          climbed up the cliff when the fire
                              was ripping the night
 
but the one who invented the fire
also invented the darkness
and now we won’t leave this circle of
words, unless compelled
                              by some irresistible hunger