© 2006 David Thornbrugh

Screenplay

This is a French movie set in Paris.

Better to drink all the champagne

before the Germans arrive.

One of us gets to be Bogart,

the other Bergman,

but without a war

to keep us together,

our love cannot survive.

Making Sense

Everything is connected

but nothing makes sense,

else why do I always

put coins in the paper cup

of the woman playing show tunes

on electric hand organ

and grimace no

to the morning moustache guy?

I dream of tanks with two turrets

shooting both directions at once,

the way chameleons can look

forward and backward

simultaneously, but I avoid

certain areas of Africa

when the digital winds

blow famine death pestilence

and war out of the screen.

Cutting out pictures for teaching aids,

I choose the nano-scale ant

lifting a micro spanner,

but pass over the muscular black man

hefting a belt-fed machine gun

the way a Mexican gardener

in LA would wave around

a leaf blower.

If time is an arrow,

I have picked my quarrel

with shut eyes and aimed

opposite the direction

of my intended target.

All work is property of David Thornbrugh.

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